English | 8 Jun. 2015 | ASIN: B00ZAP5K2S | 233 Pages | EPUB/MOBI/PDF (conv) | 12.58 MB
The Panzer Division that Rommel took over on 15 February 1940, though new in number and form, was by no means totally inexperienced in war. In the Polish campaign, under the name of '2nd Light Division', it had been among the invading forces, but, like three similar mechanized formations raised from the old horsed cavalry units, it had been a failure. A single battalion of 90 light tanks 4 motorized infantry battalions was found incompatible with the mode of mobile warfare practised by the six existing Panzer divisions that Guderian and the Panzerwaffe had developed and demonstrated with such startling effect, for these contained anything up to 320 tanks each. However, absorbing new tanks from the German and Czech factories, each 'light division' had by now been converted into a Panzer division by giving it two additional tank battalions (including the latest medium machines), thereby increasing its tank strength to 218. Rommel's 7th Panzer Division, in fact, was different from the others in that its infantry content of two lorried regiments instead of one incorporated five battalions plus an independent motorcycle battalion. When Rommel took command, the Division lay at Bad Godesberg, its equipment suffering in the open from exposure to a perishingly cold winter, and its role in the forthcoming invasion of the West yet to be revealed. As part of Hermann Hoth's XV Corps, it was to provide the main striking power of Gunther Kluge's Fourth Army, which would operate on the northern flank of Gerd von Rundstedt's Army Group A, and spearhead the northern axis of the ambitious drive the Germans intended to launch through the Ardennes on 10 May, seizing bridgeheads over the River Meuse. While Hoth's XV Corps made for Dinant, the two elements of Ewald von Kleist's Panzer Group, Guderian's XIX Corps (three Panzer divisions strong) and Reinhardt's XLI Corps (with two Panzer divisions) would head for Sedan and Mont-herme respectively; then, if all three Corps achieved initial success, they would strike west with the coast of the English Channel as their objective.
Such daringly deep penetrations were second nature to Rommel: they embraced, in modern form, the battle techniques he had practised as an infantryman during the First World War, and which he had expounded ever since as a teacher. Tanks merely offered a quicker and more reliable way of advancing, while their thin armour (no German tank's protection exceeding 30mm, compared with twice that thickness on many French and British tanks) merely gave an improved chance of survival against artillery and machine-gun fire. With so little time before the campaign, and with training in any case limited by a chronic shortage of fuel and ammunition, Rommel did not have much chance to get to know his men and machines before the invasion began. Nor could it be hoped that his staff would comprehend his style. No tactical training manuals in armoured warfare existed, but a standardized Panzer doctrine, such as it was, had been disseminated mainly by Heinz Guderian when he was Inspector of Panzer Forces before the war and, thereafter, improved by random discussions during the months of the 'phoney' winter war.