Mechanized infantry

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Mechanized infantry are infantry units equipped with armored personnel carriers (APCs) or infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) for transport and combat (see also armoured corps).

As defined by the

The support weapons for mechanized infantry are also provided with motorized transport, or they are built directly into combat vehicles to keep pace with the mechanized infantry in combat. For units equipped with most types of APC or any type of IFV, fire support weapons, such as machine guns, autocannons, small-bore direct-fire howitzers, and anti-tank guided missiles are often mounted directly on the infantry's own transport vehicles.

Compared with "light" truck-mobile infantry, mechanized infantry can maintain rapid tactical movement and, if mounted in IFVs, have more integral firepower. They require more combat supplies (ammunition and especially fuel) and ordnance supplies (spare vehicle components), and a comparatively larger proportion of manpower is required to crew and maintain the vehicles. For example, most APCs mount a section of seven or eight infantrymen but have a crew of two. Most IFVs carry only six or seven infantry but require a crew of three. To be effective in the field, mechanized units also require many mechanics, with specialized maintenance and recovery vehicles and equipment.

History

As early as 1915 the

During the Battle of St. Quentin in late March 1918, A7Vs were accompanied by twenty stormtroopers from Rohr Assault Battalion, but it is unspecified if they were acting as dismounts or were accompanying the tanks on foot. During the battle, tank crews were reported to have dismounted and attacked enemy positions with grenades and flamethrowers on numerous occasions.

Another example of the use of such a method of fighting is the capture of Villers-Bretonneux, in which A7Vs would suppress the defenders with machine gun fire and assault teams would dismount and attack them with grenades.^[2]

The British heavy tank design was given an extended hull to cross wide German trenches. This Mark V** had space for fourteen troops. The Mark IX tank based on the Mark V was designed solely for carrying troops with space for 30 but the war ended before the order was complete and they could be used.

Towards the end of World War I, all the armies involved were faced with the problem of maintaining the momentum of an attack. Tanks, artillery, or infiltration tactics could all be used to break through an enemy defense, but almost all offensives launched in 1918 ground to a halt after a few days. The following infantry quickly became exhausted, and artillery, supplies and fresh formations could not be brought forward over the battlefields quickly enough to maintain the pressure on the regrouping enemy forces.

It was widely acknowledged that cavalry was too vulnerable to be used on most European battlefields, but many armies continued to deploy them. Motorized infantry could maintain rapid movement, but their trucks required either a good road network or firm open terrain, such as desert. They were unable to traverse a battlefield obstructed by craters, barbed wire, and trenches. Tracked or all-wheel drive vehicles were to be the solution.

Following the war, development of mechanized forces was largely theoretical for some time, but many nations began rearming in the 1930s. The British Army had established an Experimental Mechanized Force in 1927, but it failed to pursue that line because of budget constraints and the prior need to garrison the frontiers of the British Empire.

Although some proponents of mobile warfare, such as J. F. C. Fuller, advocated building "tank fleets", other, such as Heinz Guderian in Germany, Adna R. Chaffee Jr. in the United States, and Mikhail Tukhachevsky in the Soviet Union, recognized that tank units required close support from infantry and other arms and that such supporting arms needed to maintain the same pace as the tanks.

As the Germans rearmed in the 1930s, they equipped some infantry units in their new

As World War II progressed, most major armies integrated tanks or assault guns with mechanized infantry, as well as other supporting arms, such as artillery and combat engineers, as combined arms units.

Allied armored formations included a mechanized infantry element for combined arms teamwork. For example, US armored divisions had a balance of three battalions each of tanks, armored infantry, and

The German Army, having introduced mechanized infantry in its Panzer divisions, later named them Panzergrenadier units. In the middle of the war, it created entire mechanized infantry divisions and named Panzergrenadier divisions.

Because the German economy could not produce adequate numbers of its half-track APC, barely a quarter or a third of the infantry in Panzer or Panzergrenadier divisions were mechanized, except in a few favored formations. The rest were moved by truck. However, most German reconnaissance units in such formations were also primarily mechanized infantry and could undertake infantry missions when it was needed. The Allies generally used jeeps, armored cars, or light tanks for reconnaissance.

The

The Soviet Army also created several

On July 9, 1945, Decree of the

This became possible due to the increase in the production of

• BTR-40 – in the period from 1950 to 1960s, 8,500 units were produced^[10]
• BTR-50 — 1954 to 1970s – 6,500 pieces^[11]
• BTR-152 — 1947 to 1962s – 12,421 pieces
• BRDM-1 — 1957 to 1966s – 10,000 units

One or two motorised rifle regiments were also present in each tank division, and many tank regiments included one motorised rifle battalion.^[12]

After 1945, the Soviet Armed Forces and

The US Army established the basic configuration of the tracked APC with the M75 and M59 before it adopted the lighter M113, which could be carried by Lockheed C-130 Hercules and other transport aircraft. The vehicle gave infantry the same mobility as tanks but with much less effective armor protection (it still had nuclear, biological, and chemical protection).

In the Vietnam War, the M113 was often fitted with extra armament and used as an ad hoc infantry fighting vehicle. Early operations by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam using the vehicle showed that troops were far more effective while they were mounted in the vehicles than when they dismounted.^{[citation needed]} American doctrine subsequently emphasized mounted tactics.^{[citation needed]} The Americans ultimately deployed a mechanized brigade and ten mechanized battalions to Vietnam.

The motorized rifle troops of the

Soviet organization led to different tactics between the "light" and the "heavy" varieties of mechanized infantry. In the Soviet Army, a first-line "motor rifle" division from the 1970s onward usually had two regiments equipped with wheeled BTR-60 APCs and one with the tracked BMP-1 IFV. The "light" regiments were intended to make dismounted attacks on the division's flanks, while the BMP-equipped "heavy" regiment remained mounted and supported the division's tank regiment on the main axis of advance. Both types of infantry regiment still were officially titled "motor rifle" units.^[15]

A line of development in the Soviet Armed Forces from the 1980s was the provision of specialized IFVs for use by the

in 1979.

Present day

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At present, almost all infantry units from industrialized nations are provided with some type of motor transport. Infantry units equipped with IFVs rather than lighter vehicles are commonly designated as "heavy", indicating more combat power but also more costly long-range transportation requirements. In Operation Desert Shield, during the buildup phase of the First Gulf War, the U.S. Army was concerned about the lack of mobility, protection and firepower offered by existing rapid deployment (i.e., airborne) formations; and also about the slowness of deploying regular armored units. The experience led the U.S. Army to form combat brigades based on the Stryker wheeled IFV.

In the British Army, "heavy" units equipped with the

The transport and other logistic requirements have led many armies to adopt wheeled APCs when their existing stocks of tracked APCs require replacement. An example is the Canadian Army, which has used the LAV III wheeled IFV in fighting in Afghanistan. The Italian, Spanish and Swedish armies are adopting (and exporting) new indigenous-produced tracked IFVs. The Swedish CV90 IFV in particular has been adopted by several armies.

A recent trend seen in the

Having achieved spectacular successes in the offensive with tank-heavy formations during the Six-Day War, the Israel Defense Forces found in the Yom Kippur War of 1973 that a doctrine that relied primarily on tanks and aircraft had proven inadequate. As a makeshift remedy, paratroopers were provided with motorized transport and used as mechanized infantry in coordination with the armor.

See also

• Armoured warfare

Notes

Sources

• Dunstan, Simon. Vietnam Tracks: Armor In Battle 1945–1975. 1982 edition, Osprey Publishing;
  ISBN 0-89141-171-2
  .
• Starry, Donn A., General. Armored Combat in Vietnam. 1980, Arno Press Inc.
  ISBN 0-672-52673-5
  .