Talk:Tunisia Campaign

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Portal:Germany
 Germany Portal
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, an attempt to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to articles related to Germany on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please join the project and help with our open tasks.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale.
(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)
This article lacks sufficient references and/or adequate inline citations. Once references have been added, please remove the unref=yes switch of the {{WikiProject Germany}} template on this page.
This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale.


[edit] "Complete overhaul" Sherman / equipment upgrade

"Actions then settled for a time, and both sides studied the results of recent battles. Rommel remained convinced that the U.S. forces posed little threat, while the British were his equal. He held this opinion for far too long, and it would prove very costly in the future. The U.S. likewise studied the battle, and decided a complete overhaul of their forces was required. Tanks were upgraded to the Sherman as soon as they arrived, new communications rules were installed to allow artillery batteries to combine fire across commands and some commanders were replaced. On 6 March command of the II Corps passed from Fredendall to George Patton, with Omar N. Bradley as assistant Corps Commander. "

I edited out portions of this, which were then restored. Here's why: 1. "A complete overhaul" of US forces obviously was not required nor was it carried out, so I thought that was a poor choice of words. Nothing changed in US Infantry Division organization, for example. Indeed US Inf Div organization remained essentially unchanged for the rest of the war. US armored divisions were re-organized in 1942-43, but not as a result of anything in Tunisia. Indeed the 1st Armored Div was already using Combat Commands in place of Brigade or regimental HQs during the battle. Artillery, the most effective US combat arms branch, was very effective. The weapons and procedures of the 1930s were confirmed and improved. Most Division commanders remained. The main changes were a new Corps commander and new 1st Armored Div commander, and the reminder to commanders to keep large units concentrated. This had the (long intended) effect of centralizing the artillery fire control system as it had been designed, so that fires could be massed. There were some "lessons learned" publications, but that hardly justifies the term "complete overhaul". 2. In terms of equipment changes, the objective had alwasy been to make the Sherman the major/sole US medium tank. The M-3 was a interim design. The plan was always to replace it with the M-4 series and this had nothing to do with Tunisia. if there had been no fighting at all in Tunisia the M-3s still would have been phased out. Likewise the M-3 TDs were shown to be ineffective, but they were also a stopgap design and the M-10 was already in production and in the field in the spring of 1943.

I thought the new edit was actually *more* specific and accurate than the vague content that preceeded it. Please let me know if you agree. DMorpheus 17:02, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. I reverted it not out of complete disagreement, but that I didn't understand why it was done (your edit summary didn't mention it). I think we should have some "lessons learned" stuff, but agree that as it is may be extreme. I'm away from my references, but areas we might want to cover is 1) air coordination, 2) Divisional cohesion and (maybe) 3) something about the use of Ultra intelligence (I believe the head of intelligence in the theatre was relieved as well). Feel free to revert my revert if you like and I will come back later to put a first pass in of a less extreme list of changes. -- Ironic: the one division commander relieved (Orlando Ward) was involved in developing the successful artillery procedures! John (Jwy) 17:45, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
Right you are, but Ward's work in artillery was done in the 1930s. I guess I didn't go into a lot of detail on US force changes because it would simply duplicate what I wrote in Battle of the Kasserine Pass and Lloyd Fredendall it seems more at home there somehow. Since the link exists already I figured this article could stay brief.DMorpheus 18:47, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] M3 tank

Removed reference to "M3 Patton". I don't think it existed: the Patton was M46, etc; the M3 was a precursor of the M4. I linked it to the M3 Lee artivle - is this correct? Folks at 137 14:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

No, they were M3 Stuart light tanks, although there's no way you'd know that from the context given. Gotta love US Army nomenclature. DMorpheus 15:01, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../t/u/n/Talk%7ETunisia_Campaign_3eff.html"