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Jaeger · #19 (**permalink**) August 29th, 2007, 10:23 AM

British doctrine and equipment was lagging behind all the way up till 1944.
The prewar thinking of Armd. Brigades and Army Tank Brigades led to Cruiser tanks and Infantry tanks respectiviely.

The development of the war did nothing to improve conditions. The massive losses of equipment in 1940 led to the continnued production of the 2pdr gun over the 6pdr gun, even though the lessons from France was that the 2pdr was getting obsolete. Faced with the facts that they could produce 4 2pdrs rather than 1 6pdr due to the factory conversions for new models, the argument was that it was better to have many 2pdrs than barely none 6pdrs.

During the summer of 1940 only the 3rd inf division was fully equipped. If I remember correctly.

Back to the armd problems. In the Book 'Military training in the British Army' and 'Raising Churchills Army' There are many clues to the (at times) lacklustre performance of the Army. There was no battle drill. This was frowned upon as it would dull the mind of the officers. Battle drill was fine with the Germans because they had the culture for it. However the British officer was quickwitted cunning and full of initiative. So he would know wat to do when the situation arose. Batte drills would kill initiative.

As we all know it was the opposite. The German Heer invested heavy in Battle drills and as a result the officers and NCO recognised situations and acted with their Drills increasing initiative and tempo in operations. The Heer identified the Battle drill as the best recipie to make the Combined Arms operations work. Standarised Drills would enable unknown units to function together because they had the drills in common.

During a German exercise in the mid 30ies a british observer wrote in his report that the Germans were highly unimaginative and predictable, because almoast all company commanders solved the problem in the same manner. He failed to spot that the Germans all worked according to the doctrine.

The spread of doctrine in the British Army was difficult. The army had a Combined Arms doctrine but failed to impose it on the army. The various depots around Britain interpered it differently. There was no manuals standarising the various tasks. Cooperation with tanks was erratic and never truely successful. The issue of command and control suffered because there was little in the way of drills for the exercise.

There were British officers championing the Battledrills. Alexander and Alanbrooke, both WW1 veterans from the sharp end knew first hand how effective the battle drills were. Battle drills were used during WW1 to compe with the large number of men that needed to be trained.

SO back to topic.
The development of armour in Britain would have been different if the Doctrine had been infused into all branches of the service. Cooperation between infantry and Armour would have given pointers in the direction of what AFV would be needed.

In my personal view the distinction between cruiser and infantry tanks highlights the problems facing the British army. What they needed was a Main Battle tank, and they got it in the end. Arguably one of the best tanks in history: the Centurion. Too late for WW2 though.