Pre war US tank development.

[lwd]

The January-February 1969, March-April 1969, and May-June editions of ARMOR magzine had an article called "The Development of American Armor 1917-1940" which may be available at: http://www.benning.army.mil/Armor/Armor ... ssues.html and is apparently available here: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/aulimp/citatio ... 66677.html
and here: http://minds.wisconsin.edu/handle/1793/34628
If you have a CAC card they were reprented in the March-May 2010 issue. Also in said issue is Brigadier General Adna R. Chaffee's article "The Seventh Cavalry Brigade in the First Army Maneuvers"
(Reprinted from the November-December 1939 issue of The Cavalry Journal ). Available at: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/aulimp/citatio ... 66678.html
One of the items I found of particular interest in that article was the following:

As plans for the maneuvers progressed, it was found that the
funds allowed the First Army for gasoline and oil expenditures
would be insufficient to permit the track and halftrack vehicles
of the brigade to march overland to and from the maneuver area,
but that an ample allotment for rail movements did exist. Therefore,
it would be necessary to ship vehicles by rail.

Now this makes it pretty clear that they were indeed looking at a significant road march prior to the maneuvers. The question of interest then is how long a road march were they looking at? The answer is found a couple of paragraphs later where it states:

The next day, 2 August, the brigade commenced its march
overland to the Plattsburg area with all of the wheeled vehicles,
and with the personnel of its track and halftrack vehicles carried
in trucks. There was a total of 480 vehicles in the column; and
the total distance of 1,010 miles was completed in six marches.

The implication is that even at this time the US expected it's tracked and half tracked armored vehicles to be capable of extended road marches.

The same issue has an article titled "The First US Tank Action of World War II" by Colonel Tomas Dooley reprinted from the July-August 1983 edition. Unfortunatly the web copies start in Nov-Dec of 83.

[19kilo]

"Forging the Thunderbolt" is a good read dealing with that era.

[lwd]

One of the things I found of particular note in the above was that it was apparently considered perfectly feasable except for the lack of funds to pay for gasolline for the tracked vehicles to participate in a road march of 1,000+ miles in just 6 days. Embedded in that is a concept of what reliability means that I suspect differs considerably from the European stand point.

Another point in the cure was the 1919 Motor Transport Convoy. Now admitedly they only had one tank along and it was a light tank carried on a flat bed the seeds are defintily there. Said convoy logged over 3,000 miles in 60 days. Here are some links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Tran ... tal_Convoy
http://books.google.com/books?id=RCeteK ... er&f=false
http://www.armyhistory.org/ahf2.aspx?pg ... xCompID=56
http://www.transportation1.org/intersta ... Report.pdf

[steffen19k]

US Tank design was caught in a three way tug of war between Cavalry, Infantry, and Artillery, each of whom had their own concept of what a properly built tank should be capable of doing.

I personally regret the fact that Leslie McNair came to be chief of armor (as he was an artilleryman) He was the one who laid out the specifications, NOT Patton, as many seem to believe, for the M4 Sherman tank. He also developed the concept of tanks as weapons of exploitation, IE where the battle was forced by infantry and artillery, and the tanks would then come through to sweep up the enemy rear area, hence the poor armor and lack of firepower in the M4.

It should have been the US Cavalry who got to be the controlling effort of Armor, but the people in charge were "too high on their horses" to ever think about switching from horseback to horsepower.

All that said, the US Cavalry is probably the most responsible for the 1000 mile road march requirement, as it seems to stem from experience with the vast american wilderness west of the Mississippi, in which the Cavalry Force's senior commanders had centuries of combined experience in horse mounted warfare, harkening all the way back from lessons learned in the Civil and Indian Wars.

I don't see Infantry, or artillery as seeing fit the "necessity" of organic strategic mobility within the tank force, especially in light of McNair's definition of the tank as an "exploitation" weapon.

[Byron Angel]

US Tank design was caught in a three way tug of war between Cavalry, Infantry, and Artillery, each of whom had their own concept of what a properly built tank should be capable of doing.

I personally regret the fact that Leslie McNair came to be chief of armor (as he was an artilleryman) He was the one who laid out the specifications, NOT Patton, as many seem to believe, for the M4 Sherman tank. He also developed the concept of tanks as weapons of exploitation, IE where the battle was forced by infantry and artillery, and the tanks would then come through to sweep up the enemy rear area, hence the poor armor and lack of firepower in the M4.

It should have been the US Cavalry who got to be the controlling effort of Armor, but the people in charge were "too high on their horses" to ever think about switching from horseback to horsepower.

All that said, the US Cavalry is probably the most responsible for the 1000 mile road march requirement, as it seems to stem from experience with the vast american wilderness west of the Mississippi, in which the Cavalry Force's senior commanders had centuries of combined experience in horse mounted warfare, harkening all the way back from lessons learned in the Civil and Indian Wars.

I don't see Infantry, or artillery as seeing fit the "necessity" of organic strategic mobility within the tank force, especially in light of McNair's definition of the tank as an "exploitation" weapon.

Fair comment and well put, sir.

B