Donald Featherstone's Tank Battles in Miniature Vol 1
A Wargaming Guide to the Western Desert Campaign 1940-1942
Sample Pages
Wargamers talk airily of knocking-out tanks in their table-top battles, denoting the fact by placing on the now-useless vehicle a plume of smoke made from blackened cotton wool. Few of them have the slightest idea of what occurs when an armoured vehicle brews-up because, although a reasonable proportion of tank crews survive such an occurrence, they probably will be disinclined to revive the bitter memories for the edification of a wargaming son. Partly because it enables a wargamer to formulate rules with more realism and accuracy, partly because he will fight his table-top battles perhaps with a greater sense of values but mostly because it tells the wargamer just how incongruously different models and dice are to the real thing, this chapter attempts to recreate the facts of life about tanks being knocked-out and brewing-up. It probably went something like this:
'Hello all stations JIG ... all stations KING ... advance now to Blue ... I say again ... advance now to Blue ... over and out.'
In the turret the tank commander spoke into the intercom:
'Driver... advance .. . action.'
The tank stirred itself and lurched forward, beginning a climb to the sky line. Tanks do not go into battle with hatches closed down and the commander peering through the periscope as though they were in a submarine so, like every other tank commander, he was operating with his head out of the turret. A tank with hatches closed is a blind monster at the mercy of a fast and sharp-eyed enemy and whilst it is dangerous for the commander to have his head stuck out of the turret top it is even more dangerous to shut himself in. If anything pierces the armour of a tank steel helmets are not of much use to the crew so they do not wear them inside the vehicle. If it is hit by an armour-piercing shell then those who are still alive and able to move fast, get out before the next shell hits it, it blows up or turns itself into a blazing furnace. Tank warfare cannot be taught on the assumption that a 30 ton tank can creep up unseen on the enemy, so tanks do not exchange shots like boxers exchanging blows. In fact, tank warfare is as unlike a boxing match as anything could be because in a tank battle the first hit is usually the winning one.
Cautiously the tank breasted the sky-line and the commander swiftly viewed the now visible horizon through his binoculars. Suddenly there was a blinding light accompanied by a deafening blast and a kind of breathless suction. A piercing scream came from inside the turret.
Egypt – 9th September 1942, Tank officers of the Royal Scots Greys inspect the damage done to a PZ III Ausf E Medium Tank by their Grant M3 Medium tank
Gathering his wits together, the commander painfully lowered himself
with scorched hands into the inferno of cordite fumes that filled the turret. Through the haze he saw the wrecked wireless set, the loader fallen sideways with charred face uplifted and the blackened shell case lying in what was left of his lap. A blast of hot air hissed strongly through a hole in the turret that had not been there seconds before. The gunner was frantically stamping out flames that flickered from the floor and threatened the boxes of machine-gun ammunition. Without the use of an extinguisher, the commander and the gunner put out the fire, aided by the mash of blood and sand that carpeted the studded metal floor. Without waiting for orders, the driver had swiftly reversed the tank back below the sky-line so that the commander knew he had a driver and an engine that worked. Aided by the gunner, he quickly lifted out the torn body of his loader and laid it on the ground beside the vehicle. Then he clambered back in and gave the orders to move forward again.
Not everyone was so lucky, and another tank of their troop had been hit a hundred yards to their right. Its gun canted up at a crazy angle as if shooting at the sun and over the right front sand-shield the top half of the driver was hanging. A tongue of flame that had been licking from the hatch of the already smouldering tank grew to a monstrous golden glow and the ball of flame expanded slowly, grew and rose bloated. Suddenly the tank was whipped apart, disintegrated into showers of metal flung into the air to come hailing down on to the tanks around it and the hot sand like darts thrown by some vicious god.
One of the first clear technical lessons learned in Africa was that tanks went on fire when hit, not so much because their petrol was ignited, but because the charges of the ammunition inside the tank were fired by hot splinters which pierced the shell cases. Attempts were made to reduce the risk by enclosing the ammunition bin in 6 mm thick armour and in some cases water-jackets were used. This added a great deal of weight, cost a lot of money and made for inaccessibility during the heat of battle. More than anything else it provides an excellent lesson on the importance of having really realistic peace-time trials however expensive they might be. Before the war there were many tests of firing at hulls and at petrol and fuel oil tanks but there is no record of any test taking place with a tank completely stowed with live ammunition. Invariably when the tank burned it was accompanied by a vicious crackle as machine-gun rounds stuttered away crazily within the stricken vehicle through fire catching the machine-gun ammunition boxes stowed on the floor. When machine-gun ammunition began going off inside a turret there was all hell to pay and it generally took care of those inside if they were still alive. The rounds ricocheted off the wall like a ball bearing being rotated in a tin can. In addition there was the hazard of splinters flaking from the inside of the turret—this occurred when hit even if a penetration was not achieved. Then the slivers of metal or paint flew about and there are numerous instances of tank crews being blinded by them. The wise tank commander set his crew to sand-papering all the paint off the inside of the vehicle as soon as they took the tank over.
Just as the crew of a burning aircraft 'bale-out' by parachute so do the surviving crew members of a brewed-up tank—only they have to make their exit very fast and with considerable difficulty, usually under machine-gun, mortar or artillery fire.
It probably began when an 88 mm shell bounced off the ground at one side of the tank to send up a streak of white sparks as it gouged a channel out of the thick steel plate of the hull. True to form, the German gunners did not miss with their second shot. There was an excruciating grinding of metal, and the shriek of tortured steel as the tank shuddered to a sudden halt, reared up on its back bogies with a shower of sparks flying from its front. Instinctively the tank commander knew that this was it—bending down he screamed into the Tannoy 'Prepare to bale-out!' The crew knew the drill and the gunner seized the 2 pdr firing mechanism and the Besa breech block, the wireless operator plucked the valve from his set and the commander grabbed his map cases. He yelled into the Tannoy 'I'm going to count up to three when I say three we bale-out!' He heard his voice counting 'one, two, three' and then they leaped out of the tank into a storm of machine-gun fire and threw themselves panting in the sand behind the vehicle. As they hit the ground a second shell crashed through the length of the tank and into the engine compartment; flames and smoke began to pour from the engine hatches and soon the tank was blazing furiously from stem to stern. Hugging the ground, the three surviving members of the crew edged cautiously away, burying their heads in the sand with arms protecting their necks as one of the petrol tanks suddenly exploded with a blinding white flash. Later they made their escape under cover of the heavy black smoke that had obscured everything—the putrid stench of burning oil and rubber hung on the heated air and in their nostrils for hours afterwards.