The Commander Series Forum

The US Army had Separate Tank Battalions in the ETO and there were more than 35 in Normandy for instance. Not only were these assigned individually to infantry division but they were in turn parcelled out as separate companies to infantry battalions.

I know there were two heavy and three light (four if you count the Free French one) US armoured divisions in Normandy but these held fewer tanks than the Separate Tank Battalions.

Surely, the Penny-Packets rule from page 79 (Tank units may not be massed together, but must be allocated to infantry formations at no more than three tank units per formation) should also apply to the American Army, North West Europe list?

In this case, no. The US infantry division could and usually had both a tank battalion and a self propelled tank destroyer battalion giving it almost as many tanks/AFVs as a German panzer division. The 45th infanry division had two tank and one self propelled tank destroyer battalions attached to it. Also with the availability of motorized transport, all US infantry divisions would be the equivalent of German Panzergrenadier divisions. The penny packets rule is intended to reflect doctrine where tank divisions did not operate as a complete formation, but rather had their tanks dispersed amongst the infantry fomations to support them. I would have to find the information for the 1944 invasion of France, but by may 1945, out of 61 United States divisions in the ETO, fifteen were armored, which is much higher ratio of armored to infantry division than the Germans had.

Quite frankly, I am not sure why that rule was included with the 1940 French army list as two French armored divisions were engaged at the battle of Hannut and there was the following battle of Gembloux.

Thank you very much for answering. I must admit that the question was rather disingenuous (and the numbers a little off) as I just wanted to highlight how silly the penny packet rule is. ;-)

Although the balance was different every single major army deployed tank units in support of infantry formations, be they separate tank battalions or battalions from independent tank brigades depending on nationality.

I'm fine with the -1 modifier for mixed armour/infantry formations although I think it is warranted for all the allied forces, possibly well past 1940. It is just the double penalty of having this plus mandatory mixed formations that is problematic.

As it is, the French army is the very worse at deploying armour, worse than the Chinese, despite the fact that it deployed the first armoured division in the world and had 6 at the start of the 1940 campaign.

I don't know if the rule will be included with the new version coming from Pendraken, but I would ignore it or if it was used include the early war British also. The Germans and Russians had both developed combined arms tactics prior to the war. The US adopted tactics that included telephones on the back of tanks for the infantry to communicate with tank crews after some early setbacks in Normandy. The Japanese had four armored divisions, but only used two of them were used as complete formations in China and only used small detachments for most of the actions in the Pacific.

The US used combat teams which, as far as I know, were similar to German Kampfgruppe in the sense that they put together a force suited to the job in hand. IIRC, the British learnt this fairly in Normandy as well.

As with all of these things, you can simply ignore them if you want to.

It wont be in BKCIV - so fear not

Yay! Any chance BKC IV clears up the somewhat muddied waters of recce?

It will - with a comprehensive new Recce section & the appearance of Recce Support options.

More yay!