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Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers: Innovation in the U.S. Army, 1917-1945 (Cornell Studies in Security Affairs)

by David E. Johnson

3.42 · Rating Details · 24 Ratings · 10 Reviews

The U.S. Army entered World War II unprepared. In addition, lacking Germany's blitzkrieg approach of coordinated armor and air power, the army was organized to fight two wars: one on the ground and one in the air. Previous commentators have blamed Congressional funding and public apathy for the army's unprepared state. David E. Johnson believes instead that the principal c ...more

Paperback, 288 pages

Published March 28th 2003 by Cornell University Press (first published November 19th 1998)

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Nov 24, 2011 Mike Hankins rated it liked it

Shelves: military-history, ww2

The traditional view of the interwar period depicts a United States military hamstrung by shrinking budgets and an isolationist conviction. David E. Johnson, in Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers, presents a very different picture, that of a complex bureaucracy full of interdepartmental rivalries and biases which hindered potential innovation. The book becomes a study in the phenomenon of “seeing what you want to see,” as Johnson presents war planners who consistently interpret experiences into lesson The traditional view of the interwar period depicts a United States military hamstrung by shrinking budgets and an isolationist conviction. David E. Johnson, in Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers, presents a very different picture, that of a complex bureaucracy full of interdepartmental rivalries and biases which hindered potential innovation. The book becomes a study in the phenomenon of “seeing what you want to see,” as Johnson presents war planners who consistently interpret experiences into lessons which support their inherent biases and preconceived ideas. Johnson’s cogent arguments are well presented and thoroughly sourced, although he perhaps goes too far, presenting a picture of a bulky, broken system that begs the question of how the allies were able to win the war at all.

World War One left many nations desperately seeking for new ways to innovate in an effort to prevent the atrocities of The Great War from happening again. However, the U.S. Army saw little reason to make any significant alterations in their doctrine because, as Johnson notes, “After all, the Army had just decided a war that had stalemated modern European armies for more than three years.” This confidence created a bed of traditionalism that would influence Army doctrine throughout the interwar period. Decision makers held a strong belief that men were more important than machines, that cavalry was a necessity, and an ultimate conviction that no large changes were needed.

Thus, when new technologies such as tanks and aircraft began to be developed, they were made subordinate to existing structures. Tanks were to be used as support for the infantry, as an auxiliary arm conforming to infantry tactics. Similarly, airplanes were viewed exclusively as support for ground troops. Johnson quotes the Superior Board’s observation that “Nothing… shows that aerial activities can be carried on, interdependently of ground troops, to such an extent as to materially affect the conduct of the war as a whole.” To maintain the dissemination and unity of these convictions, the Army went as far as to ban criticism of these doctrines in publications. This attempt to “stifle dissent and criticism” prevented any ideas contrary to accepted Army doctrine to be printed, severely discouraging any attempts at innovation before they began. Johnson does make a noted attempt to explain the other side of this decision to repress information, showing that the Army was essentially fighting to preserve itself in the face of increasing budget cuts and isolationist attitudes. However, Johnson’s explanations here and elsewhere are brief and muted compared to the strong criticism he levies on the Army leadership and their decisions throughout the interwar period.

Johnson relates a few attempts by the Army to create combined mechanized forces, though he presents these as doomed to fail. The first experimental mechanized force in 1927 performed poorly due to “obsolete” equipment. Later, Germany’s success in Poland forced advocates for old styles of warfare to rethink their views. Yet, traditionalists and mechanization proponents simply grew more polarized “as each faction drew its lessons from the war in Poland.” Cavalry officers explained away Poland’s losses as having little to do with technology, thus making the argument that more reliance on horses would benefit the Army. Johnson continually highlights this habit of leadership to see what they want to see, drawing lessons from events that support their preconceived ideas.

While tanks were relegated to infantry support, Johnson shows how air power enjoyed more privilege. Improvements in technology dramatically changed not only the airplane’s performance, but its visual appeal. By staging fantastic public flight demonstrations, public interest in airplanes only grew. Technological improvements were further fueled by obvious crossover civilian applications of flight. Advocates for air power were thus able to gradually reshape the role of the airplane from one of infantry support to a powerful attacking force in its own right that warranted a separate branch. These doctrines were pushed to an extreme by the concept of strategic bombing. Johnson stresses this extreme, noting that “Quite simply, the Air Corps was convinced the B-17 was an unstoppable weapon… The conviction that long-range bombers could not be deterred… was the catalyst that made American air doctrine dogma.” While innovation in air power was clearly occurring, such a dogmatic position prevented the integration of air power with the other branches. Johnson depicts each branch fighting for its own existence and independence defining an inherent problem where true integration is systemically prevented.

Johnson presents a picture of the United States Armed Forces on the eve of World War Two that is “in no way prepared for modern war.” Quoting chief of staff George C. Marshall, Johnson highlights the War Department’s failing, showing that it had “lost track of its purpose of existence… [and] had become a huge, bureaucratic, red-tape-ridden operating agency.” Johnson follows this with a brief look at how these doctrines played out in actual combat. This comparison of theory to reality is a welcome one, and Johnson uses it to further highlight the tendencies of leadership to see what they want to see that he previously established. Noting that the American’s “first experiences against a determined and professional German offensive were unnerving and humiliating,” Johnson demonstrates that leadership blamed the troops themselves, not strategic or tactical doctrines. Johnson believes that Army leaders were blind to the true source of performance issues, noting that “Obvious breakdowns in the human dimension obscured doctrinal and technological deficiencies.” Johnson draws further attention to the failure of American mechanization, noting that American tank effectiveness was “one of the first illusions to evaporate in the heat of battle,” pointing to the depressing words of one tank commander who lamented that “we out-gunned them but our guns were worthless.” Similarly, strategic bombing showed seeming success in that targets were indeed being hit. However, the targeting of German ball bearing industry was shown to have little effect on German production, while casualties of bombing raids became increasingly problematic, eventually devolving into a war of attrition. Casualty rates skyrocketed; it was calculated that over the course of a twenty-five mission tour, sixty four percent of bomber crews would be lost.

Johnson’s dark vision of the American armed forces begs the question of how such an unprepared, unbalanced force could possibly emerge victorious. He posits that “the sober realities of combat revealed the serious flaws in the technological assumptions underpinning the U.S. Army’s tank and airplane doctrines.” He lays the burden of high casualties on the decision makers, noting that “tank and bomber crews paid the price for the doctrinal failures.” He criticizes the War Department as “a cumbersome, decentralized bureaucracy” that “proved largely incapable of critical self-analysis, consistently interpreting reports… in ways that supported their predilections.” Ultimately he shows that “The Army, in short, was responsible for its own unpreparedness. Tight budgets and an isolationist-minded Congress and public were powerful constraints, but the Army would not have been ready even with adequate resources.” Such criticism, while partly deserved, seems overly harsh, and there is little attempt to temper it. Many would argue that America’s entrance into the War was a determining factor in the allied victory, yet that hardly seems possible given Johnson’s bleak view of the Army.

Even so, Johnson’s arguments are cogent and well supported by primary sources and archival research that lends a large degree of authenticity to the work. He also relies heavily on Field Manuals and training documents of the period, as well as public documents such as hearings, bills and committee reports. While he does use harsh critical language at times, Johnson has a habit of letting the sources speak for themselves often, through a prodigious use of direct quotes. However, he also makes extensive use of secondary sources, becoming perhaps overly reliant on them, which raises questions regarding the accuracy of his interpretations. His discussions of actual battles suffer slightly in that few German sources are used, but this is a minor complaint that does not detract from the work. The largest problem is simply the monotonous dryness of the prose itself. Expounding on meeting reports and engineering specifications simply does not create the sense of excitement that the title implies.

Ultimately, Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers provides a welcome look into the decision making process of the interwar years that demonstrates systemic bureaucratic flaws that contributed to America’s unpreparedness for World War Two. Johnson reveals that Army leadership was prevented from truly integrating the new technologies of tanks and airplanes by a number of factors. Traditionalism, departmental rivalries, and a tendency to see what they wished to see in demonstrations all prevented true innovation from taking place. His criticisms are perhaps too harsh and at times overstated, yet his thorough sourcing lends the book much credibility. Thus, Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers is a valuable addition to interwar historiography. ...more

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Sep 13, 2013 Mike Kershaw rated it really liked it

This is a book for guys who like movies...or Sherman Tanks and Flying Fortresses.

Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers by David Johnson. The American GI in World War II had a number of burdens to carry on his shoulders during the European Campaign in particular that are well known if not widely acknowledged. Some of these have even slipped their way into popular culture. In the movie Kelly’s Heroes, ‘Oddball” (Donald Sutherland)*, the tank platoon leader, tries to sell Kelly (Clint Eastwood) on the inclu This is a book for guys who like movies...or Sherman Tanks and Flying Fortresses.

Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers by David Johnson. The American GI in World War II had a number of burdens to carry on his shoulders during the European Campaign in particular that are well known if not widely acknowledged. Some of these have even slipped their way into popular culture. In the movie Kelly’s Heroes, ‘Oddball” (Donald Sutherland)*, the tank platoon leader, tries to sell Kelly (Clint Eastwood) on the inclusion of his tank platoon in the mission with the hook that “a platoon of Sherman’s can come in handy”. He then brags that, “…these tanks are the fastest in the European Theatre”. As a skeptical Kelly looks on, he then backtracks a bit acknowledging that all the German tanks they’ve faced have them outgunned. But he continues the sell, adding that they’ve added pipe lengths to their barrels in order to make ‘the Krauts’ think they’re mounting a heavier gun before offering even more outlandish deceptions such as loudspeakers and paint filled main gun rounds. Even the “Big Joe” character (Telly Savalas), the pragmatic and frustrated platoon ‘daddy’, trying to keep his platoon alive and heterosexual, admits to a captured German officer that the only good thing about the rain is that it, “…keeps our air corps from bombing us to he#@!”. Of course, Savalas, a WWII veteran, was probably just channeling his “Sergeant Guffy” character from The Battle of the Bulge (the movie, not the real thing, although more on that later) who had multiple Shermans shot out from under him (okay, so they were really M-24s, bear with me). Could the tanks of the most sophisticated nation in the world have been so poorly designed? Could the bombers of the country that can be said to have pioneered aviation have been so poorly employed? Are these questions we should even bother with today?

In case you might think this is just another “movies for guys who like movies” rant, Colonel (retired) David Johnson in Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers recounts that these fictitious characters are in fact stating the case made by many American Soldiers and journalists in the course of the European campaign. He includes the story of how General Eisenhower became alarmed at reporters spreading stories about the inadequacies of American armor. At the height of the real Battle of the Bulge, in which the American Army will lose some 2,000 tanks Eisenhower tries to head off what he sees as a loss of confidence in American Arms particular (this is also the period he has Private Slovik shot). Since his two most senior ‘armor’ commanders, Patton and Devers, had assured both him and the press of the superiority of American armor (Patton infamously saying his tankers couldn’t wait to take on the Royal Tigers), he queried the 2d and 3d Armor Division Commanders directly, trying to head off this criticism, rationalizing that American Soldiers had to be aware of the difficulty in shipping armor from the United States to the continent and the great capabilities of their systems. Both Division Commanders responses – blunt and unequivocal -- shocked Eisenhower. Major General Maurice Rose, later killed leading the 3d Armored Division in Germany responded with a 5 page memorandum outlining the deficiencies of American Armor; Major General I.D. White, commanding the famed “Hell on Wheels” Division (2d Armored) gave him 70 plus pages (which can be found, for you members of the ‘old corps’ in your “History of Military Technology” Textbook thanks to Major Alphin). Probably realizing at this stage of the campaign, there wasn’t much help coming, they both implore the Supreme Commander to at least tell senior leaders to quit telling everyone how great their tanks are for morale reasons. Colonel (ret) Johnson even quotes from one tank commander who turns the Supreme Commander’s equivocation against him, reminding him that the Tiger had first been encountered in North Africa so the shipping argument was really no excuse. In fact, senior American armor commanders had rejected larger guns and more armor under pressure from the ordnance branch as late as July 1944, misreading the lessons of the war to date. At this late in the campaign there was little Eisenhower could do other than mail the reports straight to Marshall and implore him to accelerate the deployment of the Pershing tank – which, in keeping with our cinematic theme, will show up in time for The Bridge at Remagen – but not much else.

In Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers, Colonel (ret) David Johnson takes us back to the interwar period to examine two of the biggest shortcomings of the American Army in World War II – the inadequacy of the American Armor force and the flawed doctrine of Strategic Bombing. Any student of the United States role in Europe in World War II will undoubtedly recognize these two facets of our contributions to the Allied effort to defeat Germany -- an opponent we long knew we would face. He starts by recounting the inadequacy of the mobilization for World War I, our dependence on foreign produced equipment and the wartime experience of both the tank and the airplane. He then takes through the inner war period, where conventional wisdom holds that it was a paucity of funding that left America in 1940 almost defenseless and with the 17th largest army in the world. Johnson argues that size WAS NOT what really mattered – it was organization and thinking. The airpower proponents, possessing a commercial advocacy, political sponsorship and achieving a degree of autonomy, fashioned a force unilateral in its focus – with a primary goal of establishing a separate service versus integrating aviation into the national security apparatus. The B-17 “Flying Fortress” typified this goal. Developed somewhat misleadingly as a coastal defense weapon, it was really was fashioned a strategic bomber -- the most iconic representation of what an independent air force wanted to achieve. “The bomber will always get through” was their mantra – a mantra which went down in flames over Schweinfurt and Regensburg in October 1943 when the Luftwaffe inflicted debilitating casualties on the 8th Air Force during the infamous “Big Week” Campaign (see 12 O-Clock High). Johnson’s argument that this single minded focus on strategic bombing as a vehicle to achieve service independence had the concomitant effect of neglecting both the long range fighter and the close air support missions – both of which would be required to defeat both the Luftwaffe and the Germany Army – in order to allow for reentry to the continent and to fulfill our obligations to the total defeat of Nazi Germany. Ground forces, at least to our Soviet allies, still mattered.

Less we think only our winged brethren suffered from this single-minded parochialism, Johnson similarly traces the development of armor during the same period. Despite brief experimentation with ‘mechanization’, between the wars the American Army bureaucratically ‘split the baby’ on the tank, allowing the existing branches – predominantly the Cavalry and the Infantry – to control the development of the weapons system, with effects later to be felt by later generations of American soldiers. This story is familiar from a personal perspective for those familiar with both Patton and Eisenhower’s biographies, but Johnson weaves these personal details within the bureaucracy and institutional culture of the Army, demonstrating, for example, how the ‘polo culture’ (Patton again, and others) contributed to the American Army’s sentimental retention of horsed cavalry – long after both the Germans and Texas Ranchers (as noted by the 1st Cavalry Division Commander) had already ‘mechanized’ their organizations. He also puts in context the flawed Tank Destroyer doctrine and how the American Army ignored lessons which ran against its institutional bias – both in pre-war maneuvers and in early experiences in North Africa. All of these factors will conspire to make ‘Oddball’ remark, when he is finally told that he is to pit his one Sherman against three Tigers which are guarding the bank, “…all I can do is let them shoot holes in me.”

In all seriousness, this is a great book to consider as the Army tries to trace it’s path forward in an era of decreasing budgets, war weariness and competing ‘lessons learned’. Some historians have argued that the real job of the Army is to not get it too wrong in periods between conflicts. We know of other examples from this same period, however, where our military was able to be ‘enough right’ – carrier airpower, amphibious doctrine, etc… that we probably shouldn’t accept such a low standard. Johnson postulates that more manpower and money, given the patterns established by the Army in this period, would have been wasted on maintaining obsolete force structure. We face similar debates today. Perhaps, we should accept that Napoleon’s dictum, that God is on the side of the larger battalions, is a wartime principle only. Fast Tanks and Heavy Bombers should at least make us think about it.

*Note: For those of you who are annoyed that I felt it necessary to parenthesize the actors who played the characters in Kelly’s Heroes please remember that Kevin Owen’s subscription to all “Movies for Guys Who Like Movies” was suspended when he became a member of The Council for Foreign Relations.

...more

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Feb 17, 2015 Daniel rated it really liked it

I enjoyed this book, what really comes out is how service and branch parochialism can hinder progression and innovation. Even more surprising is how senior officers during the interwar period did their best to stifle thought, for example limiting the writing of Eisenhower and Patton. Often, what has been attributed to poor leadership was the results of decisions made a decade earlier on what equipment Soldiers and Airmen will fight with when war arrives.

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Mar 30, 2014 Charles Inglin rated it really liked it

The book evolved from Col. Johnson's doctoral thesis. A very readable account of how the lessons of World War I were interpreted, or misinterpreted, inter-service rivalry and the fight for scarce inter-war budget dollars affected the development of tactics and doctrine for airpower and armored warfare, and how the doctrines that resulted were badly flawed. Not for everyone, but an excellent book for students of military history.

One lesson the War Department (as it was then) drew from the vast ex The book evolved from Col. Johnson's doctoral thesis. A very readable account of how the lessons of World War I were interpreted, or misinterpreted, inter-service rivalry and the fight for scarce inter-war budget dollars affected the development of tactics and doctrine for airpower and armored warfare, and how the doctrines that resulted were badly flawed. Not for everyone, but an excellent book for students of military history.

One lesson the War Department (as it was then) drew from the vast expansion of the Army for World War I was the need to maintain a trained cadre to build a future army. Thus, faced with very tight budgets, they opted to spend money to keep up troop strength and skimped on equipment and technology. When the second world war loomed, the Army found itself with largely obsolescent equipment. With then nation leaning towards isolationism, the Navy was seen as the primary means of defense and received the lion's share of funding. Airpower advocates were pushing long range bombers as an adjunct to the fleet, able to intercept enemy ships far out to sea. As a result, funding for development of fighter aircraft and armored vehicles lagged.

Internal War Department politics played a major and somewhat detrimental role. The Army Air Corps was striving to become a separate and equal branch of the service, rather than an arm of the Army. They developed the doctrine of strategic bombing in part to back up their claim. Unlike the Germans, whose doctrine emphasized the role of aircraft as "flying artillery" to support the ground forces, the Army Air Corps believed that heavy bombardment of strategic targets could win wars alone and that close air support of ground troops was a low priority at best and a waste of resources at worst. They went to great effort and sustained heavy losses trying to prove the validity of this doctrine, but as the Strategic Bombing Survey at the end of the war demonstrated, the doctrine itself was fatally flawed. And in one of the supreme ironies of the war, the highest ranking American officer killed in the war, General Leslie McNair, head of Army Ground Forces, died while he was observing the start of an American offensive in Normandy when an American bomber supporting the attack released its bombs too soon and bombed American positions.

The tank was a significant new weapon introduced in the First World War. American involvement in actual combat was comparatively brief and experience with the tank limited. In addition, the early tanks had many flaws. Younger officers like George Patton saw the potential, but many senior officers remained skeptical of their value. In the inter-war years the tank and doctrines for its use suffered from a tug of war between the infantry and the cavalry, and occasionally the artillery. The infantry claimed, and received, jurisdiction over the tank based on its use to support infantry attacks. Official doctrine for tanks long remained as solely an auxiliary to the infantry. In the early '20's Captain Dwight Eisenhower was called on the carpet for writing a heretical paper proposing that with improvements in reliability, speed and firepower the tank would be the primary striking arm, supported by infantry.

For its part, the cavalry was torn between the traditionalists who insisted that horse cavalry was not obsolete and those who wanted to adapt the tank to traditional cavalry roles. Since by law, "tanks" belonged to the infantry, the cavalry experimented with armored vehicles they officially called "combat cars", though they were in fact really just light tanks. Cavalry doctrine emphasized speed over armor and firepower. Between the infantry and cavalry a doctrine developed that tanks were used to exploit breaks in the enemy line, to destroy and disrupt enemy command and control and supplies. There was little thought given to the role of enemy tanks.

Gen. McNair was a noted artilleryman, as well as a notable organizer and administrator. He backed the theory that enemy tanks should be fought by anti-tank guns, which conveniently fell under the purview of the artillery branch. As the army prepared for WWII and McNair assumed control of Army Ground Forces, he supported the development of "tank destroyer units" that were dedicated to defeating the enemy's tanks, allowing American tanks to then operate freely. Again, the flaws in this theory were not recognized until well into the war, when American tanks, reliable and fast, but under armored and under gunned suffered badly when they encountered German Panthers and Tigers.

The take away from all this is that doctrine needs to have a basis in reality and that institutional needs, desires and competing interests need to be examined critically. Especially at a time like this when tax dollars are tight and the alliances between service factions and the defense industry present every program as absolutely critical to national defense

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Jul 05, 2010 Converse rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, history, technology, warfare

Interesting material, only fair writing in a book that probably started as a master's thesis. The tanks and planes the army got in WW II were designed in accordance with pre-war doctrine, which in turn was strongly influenced by internal army politics. A major problem was that the ideas behind tank design were ill conceived, as they did not emphasize what turned out to be the most important matters, a high velocity gun capable of destroying other tanks and sufficient armour. Thus the American Sh ...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Nick rated it really liked it

Shelves: history-nonfiction, military-nonfiction

The common belief is that the parasitic inter-war budgets were responsible for the Army's appalling condition at the beginning of World War II. Johnson makes a compelling case that the Army's own internal biases were to blame: resistance to mechanization, belief the bomber will always get through, and failure to develop an integrated land-air battle. The Army clung to these tenets well into 1943 despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary provided by the German Blitzkrieg, the Battle of Br ...more

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Sep 01, 2012 Ari rated it liked it

Focuses on the politics inside the war department about mechanization and aviation. Turns out that the respective histories of the armor and air branches had a lot to do with the bureaucratic maneuvering.

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Aug 08, 2012 Jonathan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: military-history, interwar-period, doctrine-training-leadership, american-history, air-warfare

Hard to innovate when there's no money. While the tank people went hungry, the Air Corps people really couldn't complain - not that it stopped them.

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May 17, 2010 Lee rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: military-history

I think I read this one earlier, but another time can't hurt. The author is keeping it interesting.

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Aug 06, 2013 Christopher rated it really liked it

Don't love his analysis or the book's structure, but the breadth of archival work is really impressive.

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