I don't know if this has already been discussed (if so,the moderators may delite my post ),but what are the members of the forum thinking :what was more important in the war against Germany :tanks or artillery ? (Btw :I am an heretical :Assault Guns and Tank Destroyers are guns,no tanks )

Originally Posted by lljadw

I don't know if this has already been discussed (if so,the moderators may delite my post ),but what are the members of the forum thinking :what was more important in the war against Germany :tanks or artillery ? (Btw :I am an heretical :Assault Guns and Tank Destroyers are guns,no tanks )

I would argue that Tank Destroyers are not artillery either.

On the whole I will go with tanks being the most important.
If you look at the battles on the eastern front you see large scale use of artillery, Germans used it extensively at Leningrad, Kursk and Sevastopol with limited success and the Russian preliminary artillery assault at Kursk had little effect on the outcome of the battle.

On the whole artillery seemed most effective against exposed troops such as the Falaise gap but against entrenched forces such as those around Berlin or Seelow Heights it had very limited effectiveness by comparison to the follow up millions of troops and thousands of tanks.

The tank is a really just a mobile artillery piece wrapped up in armour. The Falsie Pocket well most the damage there was done by the Thunderbolts and Typhoons which were lined up all day to get there turn to blast this pocket with rockets and machine gun fire.

Tanks were the most decisive war-winning weapons (other than tactical airpower) but artillery was very important as well. The 'new' Red Army that formed in late 1942/43 made extensive use of artillery to 'soften' up static German defences. I think if you asked any infantry soldier in WW2 what they feared most I think the vast majority would say artillery.

I thought that the tanks were the modernised successor of the cavalry and could only act with good performance against weak targets,and were in most cases helpless against ATG ,while the artillery was more important,no attack beying successfull without beying preceded by artilery bombardment .

They both have their uses, but there is nothing as impressive as seeing an entire armored brigade on the move.

Unless an artillery brigade firing on an armoured brigade on the move

I think after the First World War the allies would of happily stuck to tanks after the realisation that artillery did very little effective damage, especially on entrenched troops.

tanks,without artillery,did also little damage on entrenched troops

WW2 Tanks could be very vulnerable in less than ideal terrain against a brave and determined enemy. Isn't is true that essential components of the Panzer divisions were mobile infantry to provide support? Tanks are sometimes criticised or being only useful for destroying other tanks with armoured fighting vehicles being more useful!