Liezen, Styria, central Austria, May 1945. A Lend-Leased American-made M4A2(76)W VVSS Sherman in Russki livery (and with no muzzle brake) comes to the rescue of one of the Motherland’s T-34-85s.
LIFE Arnold E. Samuelson Photographer
Both tracks are from the Soviet 1st Guards Mechanized Corps, which had just “liberated” Vienna, some 140 miles to the East of Liezen, and was soon to be denoted as the “Vienna Order of Lenin Order of Kutuzov Mechanized Corps.”
This top image was apparently during a Victory Parade along with the U.S. 9th Armored “Phantom” Division, which they met at the demarcation line.
Panzer IIIs of the intact “Panzer-Brigade Norwegen” surrendered around 14 May 1945 to the British of Force 134 at Trandum Leir. The rest of the German Army and Waffen SS’s panzer units had already either been wiped out or surrendered to the Allies by the time in Norway had been diverted for front-line service.
“On the left, the nearest of the two officers in the berets is the lieutenant colonel of the British army, O.J. O’Connor, who accepted the surrender of the Germans.” (Note: I can’t find any details on a British Army officer with that name)
Panzer III Ausf. N of Panzer-Brigade Norwegen with single-piece hatch, smoke grenade dischargers, Vorpanzer & full Schürzen. The type was already rarely seen in the West in 1945, long before the British landed in Norway.
Despite its grand name, a cover designation, the unit was only about the size of a reinforced tank battalion, and the total strength corresponded only to that of a circa 1942 motorized grenadier brigade. The unit had been formed in July 1944 from Panzer-Abteilung Norwegen, which in turn had morphed from I./Panzer-Regiment 9 in 1943, a unit left behind by the Rhineland-Westphalia 25th Panzer Division when it had deployed to the Eastern Front to be badly mauled at Kursk. Its commander was Oberstleutnant Prinz Maximilian Wilhelm Gustav Herman of Waldeck and Pyrmont, followed by Oberst Georg Maetschke, the latter of whom had entered the trenches in 1914 as a Gefreiter.
Consisting of 61 Panzer IIIs (25 Ausf. H models with 5 cm KwK 39 L/60s and 36 Ausf. N variants with 7,5 cm KwK 37 L/24) along with 10 StuG IIIs (a mix of Ausführung F/8 and the Ausführung Gs), Panzer-Brigade Norwegen never fired a shot in anger.
Many of the brigade’s PzKw IIIs and StuG IIIs were employed by the Norwegian Army into the 1950s, renamed Stridsvogn KW-III and Stormkanon KW-III respectively. The Panzers didn’t even have to go anywhere, as Trandum became the Norwegian Army’s Tank School.
Royal Norwegian Army Panzer III/Stridsvogn KW-III of the former Panzer-Brigade Norwegen in June 1950. The Norwegians replaced them with American-supplied M24 Chaffees after 1954.
The 75 mm-armed variants were later dug in as static defense points at Fort Bjørnåsen in 1953, lingering into the 1980s.
While bloodless in terms of combat, post-VE Day air accidents resulted in the loss of 40 British and Australian troops in the liberation of Norway as part of Operation Doomsday.
Back in 2020, the Marine Commandant elected to dispose of the Corps’ four tank battalions, three active and one reserve, some dating back to 1941. That meant divesting the service of all of its heavy tracks (M1 Abrams and recovery vehicles). While most of the active duty tankers switched their MOS to other specialties, often to motor T or LAV units, those in the reserve were painted into more of a corner, with MCR units few and far between.
The Marine Corps Reserve’s Company C, 4th Tank Battalion, deactivates at Idaho National Guard Base Gowen Field, Aug. 14, 2020. More than three dozen of the former Marines enlisted in the Idaho Army National Guard on Sept. 13, 2020. THOMAS ALVAREZ/U.S. ARMY
The 116th, one of just five armored brigade combat teams in the Guard and one of just 16 in the Army as a whole, has often taken its armor abroad, fighting in Iraq twice (OIF III, New Dawn), then sent battalions to Southwest Asia from 2021 to 2023 and trained recently in both Poland and Morocco.
Abrams Tanks from A Company, 2-116th Combined Arms Battalion, 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team, Idaho Army National Guard, conduct exercises on the Orchard Combat Training Center in the final exercise before deploying in support of Operation Spartan Shield. Photo by Thomas Alvarez/IANG
An M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank crew assigned to the Army National Guard’s 3-116th Combined Arms Battalion, 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team, conducts live-fire operations June 10, 2023, in the Tan Tan Training Area as part of African Lion 2023. Eighteen nations and approximately 8,000 personnel are participating in African Lion 2023, U.S. Africa Command’s largest annual combined, joint exercise is occurring in Ghana, Morocco, and Tunisia from May 13 to June 18, 2023. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Jeffrey Brenchley)
Well, fast forward a bit, and the 116th, which has been an armored regiment since 1949, is losing its armor. Trading them in for (not kidding here) GM pickup trucks.
The U.S. Army announced today that the Idaho Army National Guard’s 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team is among the first of the U.S. Army’s armored BCTs selected to transform to a Mobile Brigade Combat Team as part of the Army Transformation Initiative.
ATI is a strategic modernization effort by the U.S. Army designed to strengthen the military’s capabilities in response to emerging global threats by adapting fighting formations and integrating new technologies to prepare units and Soldiers to fight on the modern battlefield.
The transition will see the unit exchange its Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles for Infantry Squad Vehicles as the Army becomes more mobile and lethal to focus on future threats.
The Idaho Army National Guard’s 116th is among three other armored BCTs across the National Guard selected to convert. The 30th ABCT (North Carolina) and the 278th ABCT (Tennessee) will also undergo this transformation into a lighter, more agile fighting force.
For reference, the M1301 Infantry Squad Vehicle (ISV) is a slightly upgraded Chevrolet Colorado ZR2 light pickup truck, with zero armor.
The Green Weenie sometimes strikes twice.
The 5,000-pound GM Defense Infantry Squad Vehicle was uniquely engineered to fulfill military requirements and designed to provide rapid ground mobility. The expeditionary ISV is light enough to be sling loaded from a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter and compact enough to fit inside a CH-47 Chinook helicopter for air transportability.
The Federal State of Austria was swallowed up without a shot by the German Reich in March 1938, with the Wehrmacht’s 8th Army marching over the border in the so-called Blumenkrieg (“Flower War”). Of course, the way was paved via a multi-year subversion campaign and the efforts of the original Quisling, Austrian Chancellor Arthur Seyss-Inquart.
However, just a year prior, it would have been much less of a walkover, as the Austrian Army (Bundesheer) had a decent plan (Kriegsfall DR) in place to resist the Germans at every turn. This unraveled when its boss, Feldmarschalleutnant Alfred Johann Theophil Jansa von Tannenau, was ushered out in February 1938, and the Bundesheer was ordered to remain in their barracks.
The Austrians had a decent little force under Jansa, who painstakingly rearmed it from the ashes of the old Hapsburg military machine. In 1938, it included some 60,000 regulars, 67,000 Reservisten (reservists), and 100,000 men of the Frontmiliz (front militia).
The below shows it on maneuvers in 1937, including CV-33 and CV-35 tankettes running around and an assemblage of some of the Bundesheer’s 900 pieces of artillery, including the excellent 4,7 cm M.35 Infanteriekanone von Böhler, seen firing at the 36-second mark.
Fast forward to Holland, May 1940
Heer Böhler’s 47mm L/35.8 was one of the best anti-tank guns in the world when it was adopted in 1935, far outclassing the smaller caliber guns used around the globe at the time.
With its road wheels and carriage, it weighed just under 700 pounds, so it was fairly mobile and could be moved by just about any motor vehicle or even a mule or halflinger if needed.
A Böhler 4.7 cm anti-tank gun coupled to a wheeled/tracked tractor built by the Austrian Steyr factories. 1936 NIMH 2155_007335
Capable of penetrating 43mm of armor at 500 yards (the German Panzer I Ausf. A had 13mm of front plate, and the Panzers II and III had 30mm), it was deadly, especially to the tanks of its day.
The Germans liked it so much in 1938 that they adopted it themselves, as the 4.7 cm Pak 35 (ö), and later gave hundreds of them as military aid to Finland and Romania.
Camouflaged Romanian 47 mm Böhler anti-tank gun on the Eastern Front, circa 1941-43
Tested by several countries in the late 1930s, it was adopted by Italy (as the Cannone anticarro e d’accompagnamento 47/32), Latvia (M35B), Switzerland (PstK 35), and the Netherlands (as the pantser afweergeschut Böhler 4,7 cm), while evaluation guns had been sent to China and Estonia before 1938.
It is seen below in Dutch use, where the PAG Bohler’s lightweight and low silhouette, when emplaced, made it ideal for defending points against incoming panzers (or Japanese tanks, as they were also deployed to the Dutch East Indies).
Een Böhler 4,7 cm pantserafweerkanon, aangehaakt achter een personenauto. Over het sluitstuk is een beschermhoes geplaatst. NIMH 2155_007334
Een drietal militairen bedient een Böhler pantserafweerkanon 4,7 cm, een vierde militair neemt waar met een verrekijker. Het kanon is in opstelling, de wielen zijn van de affuit verwijderd. NIMH 2155_007329
Mobilisatie 1939-1940. De bediening van een Böhler 4,7 cm antitankkanon in een gecamoufleerde verdedigende opstelling tijdens een oefening, waarbij een aanval van pantserwagens tegen een munitieopslagpunt wordt uitgevoerd. NIMH 2155_007333
Oefeningen met pantser afweergeschut (PAG) Böhler 4,7 cm. 1939-1940 in the Dutch East Indies. NIMH 2155_022701
Engelse Vickers-Carden-Lloyd Utility Tractor, gepantserde rupstrekker (Trekker 71, D 9947), met een Oostenrijks 47 mm Böhler anti-tankkanon. NIMH 2155_022655
As such, the Bohler proved a nasty surprise to German armored columns of the 9. Panzerdivision in May 1940, some 85 years ago this week, which reportedly lost about 25 tanks (about a third of its tracks) to these guns in the Rotterdam and Dordrecht area during the sweep through the Low Countries in May 1940.
They proved particularly effective on the Barendrecht bridge near Dordrecht, where three PzKpfw IIIs were destroyed, all reportedly ventilated by the same PAG Bohler of the 3e Grensbataljon.
Further, the Soviets used captured Bohlers against the Germans on the Eastern Front while the Brits pressed Italian Bohlers they captured in North Africa against Rommel.
8 May 1945. Caballero Mountains, Luzon. While peace of a sort had come to Europe, WWII continued to roar in the Pacific.
Here we see a M15 Combination Gun Motor Carriage “Special” that, in lieu of the standard M1 37mm gun/. 50 cal combination normally seen, was modified with a 40mm Bofors. It is also shown with an M16 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage, which is essentially an M3 half-track chassis carrying an M45 Maxon “Meat Chopper” quad .50 cal.
A closer look at the M15. During Korea, this modification was solidified in the M34 with 102 M15s converted in Japan in 1951. The M34 mounted a single 40 mm Bofors gun in place of the M15’s combination gun mount. This was due primarily to a shortage of 37 mm ammunition, which was no longer manufactured. M34s served with at least two AAA (automatic weapons) battalions (the 26th and 140th) in the Korean War.
And a close-up of the M16/50 Quad.
M16 firing on Japanese position on the Villa Verde Trail in the Caballero Mountains, Luzon, PI, May 8, 1945
The U.S. Army has had problems with not wanting, but still needing, a decent light tank for generations.
World War II showed the lesson of having a decent light track in the form of the 15-ton M3/M5 Stuart, which, armed with a 37mm gun, swathed in 50mm of armor, and capable of hitting 35 mph, still proved effective if used correctly (i.e. not in fights with Tigers) in Europe and excelled in the Pacific.
A Marine M3 Stuart on Guadalcanal, 1942 “MOP UP UNIT– Two alert U.S. Marines stand beside their small tank, which helped blast the Japanese in the battle of the Tenaru River during the early stages of fighting on Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Those well-manned, sturdy machines readily mopped up strong points of enemy resistance.”
This was true enough for the Army to order the M24 Chaffee, which was a 20-ton light tank with a 75mm gun and 38mm of armor that could hit 35 mph on the road, in 1944 and then replaced it post-Korea with the M41 Walker Bulldog (23 ton, 76mm gun, 31mm of armor, 45 mph) which was replaced by the M551 Sheridan, an air-droppable 16 ton track with a weird 152mm gun/Shillelagh missile launcher tube, enough armor to stop small arms rounds, and a 40+ mph road speed.
A soldier from Co. A, 3rd Bn., 73rd Airborne Armor Regt., 82nd Airborne Div., lays out equipment for an M-551 Sheridan light tank prior to the 82nd Airborne Division live-fire exercise during Operation Desert Shield.
Sheridan, which entered service in 1969, was an oddball, but at least it gave the 82nd Airborne a battalion of tanks (err, “Armored Reconnaissance Airborne Assault Vehicles”) that could be Fed-Ex-ed overseas in a hurry.
Well, Sheridan grew obsolete and needed replacement, which led to the canceled M8 “Buford” armored gun system (AGS), the Stryker M1128 mobile gun system (MGS) of which 142 were build and quickly withdrawn from service, and now the Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) program which fielded the M10 Booker “combat vehicle.”
PD1 – Delivery of First Production Vehicle M10 Booker Combat Vehicle
Booker is a big boy, at some 37 tons, and mounts a 105mm M35 low-recoil tank gun (designed for and formerly carried by the M1128). Actually, it reminds me of the size and capability of the old M60 tank.
And with that, Booker, too heavy and too expensive, is out. The last of three (so far) vehicles that were going to replace the Sheridan, which itself was a cranky platform that nobody really liked.
But still, at least folks got paid…
Can we just pay Rheinmetall for the data set to make a modernized Wiesel here in America?
May 1945, the Alpes-Maritimes region of France near the German-occupied Italian border. A U.S.-built Lend-Leased M5A1 light tank, White 135, of the 1er Regiment de Fusiliers Marins (1er RFM), pushes from Peira-Cava towards the 6,800-foot Authion massif, where one of the last Axis hold-outs in the region had fought hard until withdrawing into Austria. During that fight, the regiment’s 1st squadron lost five of its six officers and half of its men. Wehrmacht Generalleutnant Theobald Lieb, leading the rump of the German-Italian XXXXII. Armeekorps, had expressed surprise at seeing tanks at such altitudes– before ceding the battlefield.
Note the bachi caps, M1 Carbine, tanker’s helmet on the front running light, and mounted M1919 LMG. Ref. : MARINE 433-9488 ECPAD/Defense
The Marine tankers had been organized as a scratch battalion from some 400 French navy volunteers in England in the summer of 1940, who cast their lot with De Gaulle. Organized as an AAA unit and sent to Eritrea, they were soon fighting in Syria with the British (against their countrymen) and in North Africa, where they served with particular distinction at Bir Hakeim.
In September 1943, following a surge in recruits from the French fleet in Algeria, the battalion was expanded to a full regiment and organized as a mechanized force with Stuarts, M8 Scott 75mm self-propelled howitzers, M3 scout cars, M5 halftracks, and Willys MB jeeps.
A sister unit of tank-bound Free French sailors in exile, the Régiment Blindé de Fusilier Marins, helped liberate Paris, including the old Admiralty headquarters. Itwas equipped as a tank destroyer unit with M10 Wolverines. In the case of both regiments, the conversion from manning battleships and cruisers to operating armored vehicles was surprisingly simple, as the men involved included high proportions of engineering, gunnery, and radio ratings.
After fighting up the Italian “boot,” 1er RFM was pulled out of the 5th Army’s organization and joined the Dragoon Landings in Southern France in August 1944. They were on hand for the liberation of Toulon and Hyères, then went up the Rhone valley, entered Lyon, and moved into the Vosges before ending their war in the Alps.
Des chars Stuart du 1er RFM (Régiment de fusiliers-marins) de la 1re DMI (Division de marche d’infanterie) ex 1re DFL, sont stationnés sur la place Bellecour à Lyon.
1er RFM lost no less than 195 personnel, including two commanders, in combat, with another 600 men wounded. In return, they earned over 200 croix de guerre, 70 médailles militaires, 32 Légion d’honneur, and 31 croix de la Libération, with roughly a third of those decorations being issued posthumously. In total, it was enough for the regiment to earn the rare Ordre de la Libération designation.
The regiment was disbanded in August 1945, but its lineage is preserved in the training battalion at the École des fusiliers marins de Lorient.
One of the regiment’s knocked-out Stuarts remains near the crest of Mt. Authion, on eternal vigil.
For the first time in over 30 years, a sizable number of Swiss troops are headed “abroad” for Kampfübungen (war games).
Some 1,000 Swiss soldiers, primarily personnel on their mandatory service period, are from Mechanisierten Bataillon 14 and Mechanisierten Brigade 11 under Brigadier Christoph Roduner. Key to the country’s restrictions on the use of conscripts, all have volunteered to serve outside the country.
They will be running around the 40,000-acre Allentsteig Truppenübungsplatz training area in Lower Austria, northwest of Vienna.
Importantly, the large Austrian maneuver area at Allentsteig is six times larger than the Swiss Army’s two combat training centers (GAZ East and GAZ West) combined, so their Leopard 2A4s (Pz 87 WE) and CV9030 CH (Spz 2000) IFVs get to stretch their legs for the first time.
The heavy equipment was moved by train from Thun to Allentsteig while the personnel convoyed for 12 hours over roads in light vehicles.
The exercise, Trias 25 (Triad 25), will also see 120 Austrian Bundesheer and 160 German Bundeswehr troops participate.
The 6th Guards (Order of Red Banner) Tank Army of Colonel General of Tank Troops Andrei Grigorievich Kravchenko– who had earned a Hero of the Soviet Union title after Kursk as head of the 5th Guards Tank Corps– was formed in Ukraine in early 1944 and, earning its “Guards” title after suppressing the the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket and smashing West during the follow-on Iassy-Kishinev Offensive, entered Hungary on the Debrecen Offensive on the 2nd Ukrainian Front by the end of that year. Still pushing as part of Stalin’s steamroller, it helped smash the last German offensive in the East (Frühlingserwachen under Sepp Dietrich’s 6th SS Panzer Army) along the shores of Lake Balaton in March 1945 and, after brutal street-to-street fighting, by 11 April had outflanked and entered Vienna, which was fully captured by the 15th.
There, in all its majesty, the great 6th Tank Army showed off all of its fine Detroit muscle, courtesy of Lend Lease, M4A2(76)W Shermans in the lead.
Going on to capture Prague by 12 May, the 6th Tank Army was pulled from Central Europe and shipped 11,000 km across Siberia to the Transbaikal. There, the 1,100 armored vehicles of the 6th Tank Army were ready to take on the Japanese Kwantung Army in Manchuria by 9 August 1945 and would fight the last armored battle of WWII, famously racing 150km across the Gobi Desert in the first day of the offensive against the Japanese, seizing the passes of the Greater Khingan mountains and effectively bottling up toughest remaining Japanese units in its wake on the Manchurian plain.
Soviet Japanese Defeat of the Kwantung Army, 1945
Kravchenko was made a Twice Hero of the Soviet Union and, surviving Stalin, would retire from the military in 1955 and pass in 1963.
80 years ago. Awaiting removal of a roadblock on the road to Eisfeld, Germany, a 90mm GMC M36 tank destroyer crew whiles away the time shooting craps. 28th Infantry Division (“Keystone”), U.S. Third Army, 12 April 1945.
Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-204555, National Archives Identifier 6927819
The men are likely “Cossacks” of the 630th TD Battalion, Battle of the Bulge vets who passed from temporary XVIII Airborne Corps control back to the 28th near Wolfstein around this time.
Among the camp gear accumulated on the back of the M36 is a case of “10-in-1” rations, Menu 3, which would include bulk-packed K rations in two 5-serving packs, the first in packages and the second in cans. Of key importance, a 10-in-1 also held ten packages of cigarettes– each holding 10 Chesterfields, Luckies, or Pall Malls– along with ten GI matchbooks and 250 sheets of GI toilet paper. Tough but fair.
