WW2 Mystery: 1930s British Bicycle-Infantry & Bren APCs

One of the great mysteries of WW2 is what happened to all of the positive (+) reform efforts between the wars by General J.F.C. Fuller, Captain Liddell-Hart and General Hobart?

http://www.geocities.com/armorhistory/sld04.htm

American military reformer, Brigadier S.L.A. Marshall (SLAM) in his masterpiece, "The Soldier's Load & the Mobility of the Nation" describes how Liddell-Hart ran "Sherman marches" with British troops loaded with under 30 pounds of gear achieving "high levels" of mobility in the 1930s as this video shows. (One of SLAM's flaws is he didn't DEFINE WITH A MPH NUMBER what "good mobility" is)

http://www.combatreform.com/combatlight.htm

British reformers were all WW1 veterans who surely knew about the German bicycle-troop success in taking the Mt. St. Pere bridge over the Marne river in 1914 in coup de main, and Vorbeck's bike victories in East Africa as well as Hutier knocking the Russians out of the war in the east with bicycle cavalry.

http://www.combatreform.com/atb.htm

On D-Day, British bike-mobile infantry freed by Hobart's "Funnies" engineer tanks swarmed 7-10 miles inland while foot-slogging Americans were still stuck on beaches.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSm5nBZ4X0A

So where was the bicycle coup de main force to take Arnhem bridge in late 1944? The Germans swarmed on bikes and repulsed mobility expert Frost's men from the north side of the bridge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o44BvtQxOV4

We are going to venture that SLAM was wrong about the foot-infantry infatuated British NOT solving their individual load/mobility problems. Their M1937 pattern web gear with suspenders and two large pouches to hold magazines for Sten SMGs or Bren LMGs was far superior to American canvass web gear based on hanging things loosely by wires; though the 8-round M1 Garand semi-automatic rifle clip mini-pouches was clever and minimalist. This video shows British infantry supported by Bren gun carrier open-topped tracked APCs carrying their extra supplies of food, water and ammo, too.

No, the conclusion one has to draw in light of the CHINDITS in CBI

http://www.geocities.com/airbornemuseum/nlmb.htm

as well as European operations is that the British Army DID have their Soldiers highly mobile and well-camouflaged on foot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi3pc0aA-oc

The problem was this in itself is not a panacea;--SLAM is wrong, sometimes THERE IS NO EASY WAY TO CIRCLE AROUND AN ENEMY if a part of the force is pinned down. Sometimes you have to BLAST YOUR WAY THROUGH; and the Germans in the 1930s realized this and created the turretless STUG assault gun LIGHT TANKS to insure infantry could blast their way through. The British lost efficiency by insisting on turrets and had excellent Churchill medium infantry fire support tanks but NO LIGHT TANK STUG equivalents to keep lighter 3D maneuvering by-parachutes-and-gliders forces moving in the face of enemy fire. Why they simply didn't put a 75mm pack howitzer on some Bren gun carriers which would have saved the day on the road to Arnhem so Frost would have been reinforced and held is still a huge mystery.

http://www.geocities.com/armorhistory

The sad conclusion is that EGOS were to blame; the walking infantry doesn't want to admit it needs the help, insisting it can SLAM-infiltrate with foot fire & maneuver through any opposition and those that want to operate "tanks" want to have 360 degree swiveling turrets so they can shoot faster with less effort--even though it damns them to a huge silhouette and less armor protection and armament. It seems only the Germans were able to make the necessary hard choices based on a correct understanding of planet of earth and human war realities to get maximum efficiencies at every level. To have LIGHT TANKS that can operate in CLOSED terrain for example, you can ill afford a turret as we see the American Locust/British Tetrarch light tanks had--which damned them to weak 37mm cannon armaments. The Germans re-armed their excellent Czech 38T light tanks' 37mm cannon turrets with large 75mm guns throughout WW2. Nevertheless, egomaniac General Browning refused to glider-land available 6th Airborne Locust/Tetrarch light tanks to Arnhem in the same infantrymania that failed to put guns on Bren gun APCs--that were all over the place giving infantry a lift and carrying its supplies. The answer to being pinned down by German fires was right there in front of them!

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• light
• bicycle
• infantry
• bren
• gun
• carriers
• hobart
• british
• army
• arnhem

[futsalfred2]

Is this supposed to be a slideshow?

[anzac2404]

Interesting stuff but my only comment is this, did you or someone else try to convert old film to digital as there were a few bits that went a bit hay-wire, otherwise very interesting; & to think that there is tons of film & pics yet to be seen by the public, even every day life (from 30's & 40's) nowa-days is rare to see....& some of the old ways were & still are the best.

*Thanks for posting a rare glimpse of the past, cheers.

[hartleymartin]

You'll tend to find that this is a problem for most section maneouvres. Once you know where the forward scout is, it it fairly easy to hide and wait for the rest of the section before taking them out with a single machine gun. It is a simple matter of developing techniques to get around these operational issues.

[remeclerk]

Nice Concept, however, as an Ex 'Squaddie' i think you may have lost at least 50% of the troops, as they had the habit of 'Bunching' (means they could have been massacred by one MG gewehr)..Steve

[ng1294]

I have General JFC Fuller's book on Alexander the Great. Excellent read. He must have been a good general.