During a previous course module we looked into "Bomber" Harris. One of the oddest things in his book "Bomber Offensive" was his reference to the Tank Corps/Royal Tank Corps being abolished post WW1. He makes the statement, not once[1], but twice[2].
Harris stressed his knowledge of the state of German and French forces, the state Royal Navy etc after his “two years of Staff College, 5 years on the Committee of Imperial Defence and Joint Planning Committee”[3] but seems to have weak spot in his knowledge of the British Army.
Harris comments that the army was preening itself having reduced the machine-gun content of its formations to near 1914 level[4] and comments that while at the Army Staff College at Camberley (1927-1929) he observed the army’s reduction of artillery and machine-gun content to pre-1914 levels[5]. He does not mention the 1922 disbandment of the Machine Gun Corps[6] and the fundamental change of tactics that a return of machine guns to battalions would mean.
At the time that Harris was at the Army Staff College in Camberley, the 11th Hussars and 12th Royal Lancers were transitioning from cavalry to armoured car units. Clarke records that the 11th Hussars would possess 40 machine guns compared to the two they had in August 1914[7].
No comments:
Post a Comment