Quote:
Originally Posted by Triple C
I hope this isn't a thread hijack but S-2 brought it up.
When was the doctrine of fighting from the within the armored infantry transport elaborated? And how is that supposed to work in theory?
I came across a couple of passing references to how the German army in WWII toyed with the idea of using panzergrenadiers in halftracks to provide intimate small-arms fire support to the panzers without dismounting. The drive to Moscow pitted halftracks against well entrenched Russian troops and the tactic was abandoned as impractical.
If anyone has any information or documentation of how fighting from the inside of armored carriers please let me know.
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Well I'm not giving you the complete answer that you're looking for, but I'll give you one piece of the puzzle. Post-WWII, the Red Army did not integrate that German lesson of the impracticality of troops fighting without dismounting from armored transport. True, the Soviets did expect a different environment, possibly NBC, so the troops needed to stay inside. However, even in non-NBC environments they were expected to stay inside and shoot unless there were some serious prepared defenses to overcome.
When the Syrians tried this in 1973, their armored transports got chewed up, all hands still inside. It was tragic mistake. True, they were attacking the same prepared positions that you were supposed to dismount for, so they did not quite apply what they were told by the Soviets. Either way, the idea proved quite unworkable again. Yet as has pointed out again and again, by the 80s, Soviet mech infantry in Afghanistan still had loadbearing of ancient design from the 50s and 60s, and they quickly found it unworkable because they had to dismount and patrol further than a few hundred meters from their transports. Either way, the lesson has been learned again and again, dismounts are called dismounts for a reason. Whether these lessons were always internalized in a timely manner, as you can see, is a different matter.