In 1918, the British Empire was the world leader in both the development of armored equipment and tactics. The attitude prevalent at the time in most armies was still that the tank was a specialized infantry-support weapon useful in crossing entrenchments but not much else. However, there were a number of visionaries in the Royal Tank Corps who saw a much broader role for mechanized organizations. By May of 1918, Col. J.F.C. Fuller had adapted the "Stoss" tactics of the Germans, which had caused so much consternation on the Western Front a short time earlier, into his "Plan 1919".

"Plan 1919" was a complicated and multi-faceted proposal for a large-scale armored offensive that would produce multiple penetrations of the German defenses and then go on to disrupt the German command structure and rear-area support system. Fuller described the goal of this offensive as "...to defeat the enemy by a pistol shot to the brain". Rather than defeat the enemy's combat elements by systematic attrition and forcing him back onto his own defenses and support (strengthening him in the process), Fuller planned to attack enemy headquarters, support, and supply elements before they could displace to safety.

There were two problems with Fuller's concept:

1. This deep penetration of the German defenses required the use of the new Medium Tank Type "D" which was designed to do twenty miles per hour. Once the heavy's breached the German lines, the "D"'s would rush forward and create havoc in the German rear. Teething problems with the "D" were severe and, in fact, it was unlikely that it would be ready in time for the 1919 offensive.

2. Fuller was noteworthy for his cavalier (pun intended) attitude toward infantry-tank cooperation. He conceived of truck-borne infantry following along in the wake of his tank "Fleet", but never envisaged close cooperation except at the outset in a set-piece engagement.

Despite the efforts of Fuller and others, the British army gradually lost its lead not only in tank warfare but in most areas of tactical progress. In the "Introduction" I listed six common factors which prevented innovation overall. In addition to these there were several obstacles peculiar to the British.

The most commonly cited was "Traditionalism". But, though important, institutional resistance to progress is often exagerrated. Though the strong "Unit Identity" engendered by the British regimental system discouraged any truly radical changes. To this must be added the fact that Britain was the first nation to create an independent air force. The RAF, intent on developing its own identity, resisted the whole idea of close cooperation with the ground forces. Like every other air force, the RAF was in love with interdiction and strategic bombing and, as I said in the introduction, ground support was considered too costly in planes and pilots, and the targets unimportant relative to that risk. British army regulation of 1924 states the case clearly. "...the RAF will provide liaison and reconnaissance in the immediate proximity of ground units...Fighter aircrft may conduct strafing and other ground attacks (in exceptional circumstances)." Close air-support did not develop in the RAF until 1942.

Imperial Defense

There was also the problem of "Imperial Defense". Put simply, Britain had a huge empire to control with limited manpower and financial resources. Units were routinely rotated overseas, especially to provide regular garrisons for the Middle East and India. It would be wasteful to "mechanize" a formation stationed in England, only to see that unit shipped of to "the Khyber" where endless patrolling and small unit "skirmishes" were the rule. Not only did this delay mechanization, but it adversely effected vehicle design in that British engineers had to think about the pressing requirement for weapons for use in "low intensity" warfare against unsophisticated "tribal" forces in areas where firepower and armor were far less important than cost and ease of maintenance.

This is not to say that Britain stood still in the 20's. Remember that a repitition of the trench warfare of WWI was not expected to happen. British thinking returned to the concepts of a mobile "war of maneuver" as before 1914. Of course, these concepts would be updated to allow for the effects of firepower and motor transport. Returning to the 1924 regulations: "...Infantry support is the chief mission of tanks." But provision was also made for tank flank attacks and raids on vulnerable enemy rear installations, ala J.F.C. Fuller.

I'm going to stop here and digress. I can't help visualizing these rear area raids. Long columns of tanks careening around in enemy territory while the RAF, with no common communications link and no ground support liaison, flies over the same territory, hungrily seeking long "enemy" columns to devastate as part of their "interdiction" policy. Not pretty!

These regulations showed a serious concern for anti-tank and anti-air defense of all arms. The actual weapons, however, were slow to appear. By 1929 the old belief in the primacy of infantry had finally been replaced by a new doctrine of close cooperation of all arms. The problem with this lay in the implementation of the doctrine. Close cooperation was to be achieved by detailed, meticulous planning as in 1918! Coordination of all arms in the maelstrom of an encounter battle was never considered.

In spite of financial difficulties, Britain managed to motorize certain artillery and supply units to support the Royal Tank Corps. They were then able to conduct brigade-level exercises in 1927-28 which included a light tank-armed reconnaissance battalion, a medium-tank "assault" battalion, a motorized MG battalion, five mobile artillery batteries (wheeled and tracked), and a motorized engineer company. The conclusions drawn from this experiment were unfortunate. Because of the wide disparity in cross country mobility between the various units, proper cooperation was only possible at very slow speeds. Therefore the Royal Tank Corps went on to focus on nearly pure, tanks-only formations in its 1929 regulation: "Mechanized and Armoured Formations" by Col. Charles Broad.

Proposed Tank Corp

The proposed Royal Tank Corps would have tanks, mechanized infantry, and mechanized cavalry;(?) but no artillery or engineers. The "mixed" tank companies would have three different vehicles! Seven light tanks for recon and fire support, five mediums for the actual assault, and two "close support" tanks (self propelled howitzers) to provide smoke and suppressive fire. The idea of an armoured personnel carrier was debated by Liddell Hart, Broad, and Fuller. The latter two demanded pure tank forces primarily because of the aforementioned difficulty in cooperating at anything like practical speed. G.L. Martel, a real innovator, came up with the idea of extremely small APC's capable of carrying one to three men and a machinegun for infantry support. These vehicles were tried in both that role and as recon vehicles and were inadequate for either. When the "Universal Carrier" or "Bren Carrier" finally arrived on the eve of WWII, it was still dispersed in small numbers in "foot" mobile infantry battalions.

In 1934, experiments progressed to a "Division" scale exercise. It was a disaster, riddled with personality clashes, lack of training, and artificial restrictions on the part of the umpires. General Lindsay, the exercise's biggest supporter was completely discredited and lost all future influence over policy!

The result of this fiasco was the formation of a permanent "Mobile" division consisting of two armored cavalry brigades in light tanks and armored cars, one tank brigade, 2 mechanized infantry brigades, and limited artillery, engineer, and service support. The main problem? Recon, medium tanks, infantry, and artillery were in separate brigade commands! There were two of these formations. 1st armoured Division, which left its equipment and many of its men in France, and another set up in Egypt which became the basis for later operations there. Aside from organization, there were also problems with equipment. There was practically no change in the basic British designs from 1922 to 1938! The biggest change came in 1932 with a quantum leap in radio technology. Up to that time each crew had to tune their vehicle's radio by hand to a common frequency. Bouncing along cross-country tended to throw this off with resultant chaos. Proper "crystal" sets with preset frequencies changed all that. However, the cost of this innovation was prohibitive and wide distribution was very slow.

There was also the confusion about tank "roles" which thwarted good vehicle design while debate raged. This resulted in two basic types of tank: fast ones and heavily armored ones. The fast tanks were advocated by the tank purists of the cavalry school. The slow, heavy ones were backed by the infantry support school which required tanks to be able to operate in an "anti-tank gun rich" environment at slow speeds. The real loser in this debate was firepower.

Early tank armor was vulnerable to heavy machineguns or cannon of as little as 20mm caliber. This became the standard caliber for quite some time. Anticipating improvements, however, Britain standardized the 40mm (2 lbr) as both their towed and tank mounted anti-tank weapon. This could stand up to German armor between 1939 and 1942 but after that it was practically useless. The 57mm (6 lbr) was called for as early as 1938 (There's a what-If for you!) but was not a requirement until after the fall of France. Even then, many turrets designed for the 2 lbr were too small to be upgraded.

Final Analysis

In the final analysis, the British army of 1939 possessed an infantry squad centered around the excellent "Bren" light machinegun. The platoon added the 2" mortar and the "Boyes" anti-tank rifle. The battalion then added Bren guns in armored carriers, 2 lbr ATG's, 3" mortars and AAMG's. The result was that the infantry was much lighter and more mobile than it had been but with reduced firepower and limited anti-tank capability. The latter forced the Royal Artillery to bear the burden of anti-tank defense. Although they developed pieces with a good AT ability and adequate tactics, they necessarily neglected the intricate skills required for successful indirect fire developed during WWI. Things actually went so far that British organization briefly eliminated indirect-fire survey parties from artillery headquarters!

Britain had lost much of its pioneering advantage. Outside of the infantry battalion, cooperation between different weapons systems was little better than it had been in 1914.

More Combined Arms

Part I: England
Part II: Germany
Part III: Soviet Russia
Part IV: USA