Customer Reviews

M3 Medium Tank vs Panzer III: Kasserine Pass, 1943 (Duel)

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4 star:		(2)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

"Kirby could see the panzers coming through his periscope, which was just high enough to see over the wadi's edge. His gun could not be brought to bear -- yet. The firing order blared over the radio, and US guns began to crack, including their own 37mm -- for what it was worth."

Gordon L. Rottman is the author of "M3 Medium Tank vs. Panzer III: Kasserine Pass 1943", the 10th book in Osprey's popular Duel series. The veteran author does a suitable job of analyzing and contrasting the American built M3 medium tank and the German Mark III. "Duel 10" is clearly written, well illustrated and is a fast read.

Mr. Rottman's discussion comprises the design, layout, and development of these tanks, their crew assignments, their respective army units, and their deployment. "Duel 10" concludes with a clash between the two rival tanks -- The Battle of Kasserine Pass.

With a total output of 5,688, the Mark III was Germany's most produced panzer. In 1937, for compatibility reasons, the Mark III was assigned the new high velocity 37mm gun. The Mark III was first upgraded to the short 50mm in June 1940 after battling the rugged French Char B tank. Later the main gun was upgraded again to the long 50mm, in response to the threat of the formidable Russian T-34 tank in 1941.

In 1939, realizing that no current tank matched up with the German panzers rolling through Poland, US designers hurriedly began development of the unorthodox high-profile M3 medium tank.

After reports that German panzers had crushed France were analyzed, the US Army Ordinance Committee demanded that a 75mm gun be incorporated into the M3 tank -- somehow.

This cobbled together M3 would serve in the interim until the faster, more reliable M4 Sherman could be made available in February 1942.

The M3 medium tank ably served with the British Army in North Africa, starting in May 1942. While other units had already converted to the M4 Sherman medium tank, the 2nd Battalion, 1st US Armored Division still was using M3s during the Battle of Kasserine Pass. In the Far East Theater, Commonwealth M3s served against the Japanese in India, Burma, and Borneo.

The author is unwilling to name either tank as the superior weapon. In analysis of the tanks, Mr. Rottman argues, "The M3 tank was rife with flaws, some fatal." The most predominate drawback was its very high profile. The M3 was much easier to see and a much larger target than the Mark III.

Another obvious disadvantage of the M3 tank was that the sponson-mounted 75mm main gun could only fire forward and be aimed from side-to-side with 30 degrees of total adjustment. In order to fire the 75mm main gun at a target, over half the M3 must be exposed to the enemy. The M3 commander's job was further complicated by the responsibility for two guns.

Most of the M3 tank's armor plate was riveted on -- if a shell struck a rivet head, the rivet shaft could be turned into deadly shrapnel inside the tank. Also bullets and shell fragments could enter the tank through the seams of the side hatches.

In judging the M3's armament, Mr. Rottman points out that the machine gun in the cupola was unable to track attacking aircraft and the secondary 37mm was of little value against German tanks. On the positive side, both the 37mm and 75mm guns were gyro stablised and the powerful 75mm main gun could knock out any German tank.

The Mark III's design has few flaws in comparison with the M3. Of note, it lacked gyro stabilised guns and could not fire accurately while moving. Also the turret rotation must be done manually.

By having two-way radios in all German tanks, the author feels the Mark III panzers had an advantage over the M3s. Mr. Rottman argues, "By allowing all tanks to transmit, the Germans were more responsive and able to pass information up the chain-of-command which surely enhanced German combined arms tactics."

Through superior logistics, the US Army was able to quickly replace any M3 losses. In contrast, the German Army had no spare tanks, crewmen, or trucks. Often they would use captured equipment.

I found the section on the daily life of tankers to be best part of the book. This is an insider's view of each crewman's day-to-day duties and experiences that I have not seen in other books.

The author gives us an eye witness account of armored combat in North Africa. Through the experiences of German panzer radio operator Baldur Kohler and M3 gunner Paul Kirby, the reader re-lives the opening round of this confusing tank battle.

In summary and analysis of the battle, the author argues that the defeat of the US Army at Kasserine Pass was due to American inexperience at all levels more so than marked inferiority of the M3 tank.

The US armored forces were inadequately prepared to meet the seasoned German panzers. Mr. Rottman believes that US Army units were too scattered on the battlefield to be effective. He states, "American doctrine, tactics, and techniques at the time were guilty of unrealistic expectations with inadequate preparation."

Mr. Rottman argues that by only practicing in staged exercises, the US Army leadership had not developed skills necessary to make timely battlefield decisions -- this comes only with combat experience. "They were unprepared for the speed of events, the confusion, the loss of contact between units, and nonlinear dispositions".

The US Army did learn well -- Kasserine Pass was the last German victory in the North Africa campaign.

"M3 Medium Tank vs. Panzer III: Kasserine Pass 1943" includes a great number of interesting photographs, color illustrations, diagrams, and three adequate maps of the Battle of Kasserine Pass.

Right up front, the reader may suspect the problematic nature of M3 Medium Tank vs. Panzer III: Kasserine Pass 1943, volume 10 in Osprey's new Duel series, when the author repeatedly refers to the German PzKpfw III as a "light tank." No other reputable source on Second World War armor concurs with this label and it is unclear why the author went astray. However the real problem with this volume is, simply put, that there is a very minimal level of detail presented about specific M3 vs. Pz III actions and the author is content to fill out much of the volume with boilerplate material from previous Osprey volumes. Steven Zaloga already did an excellent volume in the Campaign series on Kasserine Pass -which readers should prefer over this recycled hash. Finally, the author doesn't seem to grasp the "Duel" concept and fails to make any real effort to assess the specific results of the tank vs. tank battles in Tunisia. Despite its nice graphics, this is a very, very weak volume.

The opening sections are fairly tepid. For example, the Chronology section has 33 references, but only 10 are specific to either tank. Details like "18 January 1943. Tiger tanks are committed for first time (inaccurate as well, since Tigers were first used at Leningrad in 1942)" are irrelevant to this duel. The section on Design and Development covers the kind of basics already existent in Osprey New Vanguard titles, with no new insight. Forgetting about Pz IIIs and M3s for a bit, the author then launches into a highly uninformative section on the Strategic Situation, which spends three tedious pages recounting the war in North Africa since 1940, skims over the first use of M3 tanks by the British at Gazala in 1942 without giving any details and then adding 5 more pages on the overall situation in Tunisia in early 1943. There is nothing that I dislike more in military history than authors who waste space rehashing old material ad naseum, dumbing it down to the Reader's Digest level, then failing to add anything that is either relevant or fresh. In this section, the author failed to outline the actual parameters in the upcoming tank vs tank duel, since he did not specify where the US and German units equipped with these tanks were located, how many they had of each and what their specific missions were.

The section on Technical Specifications has the kind of detail one might find in "My Big Book of Tanks" and includes useless information on variants such as Pz III diving tanks and M3 CDL tanks that never served in North Africa or fought each other. Readers may also note the unattributed photo of a Pz III on page 37, which is the same as appears in the Wikipedia article on the same subject. Likewise, the 15-page section on The Combatants is rather fluffy and appears to mimic content from two earlier Osprey Warrior series volumes on US and German tankers. There are some interesting bits and pieces in this section, just not much that is specific to the M3 or Pz III. Plenty on diet, almost nothing on tactics. The author profiles two tankers; a German soldier who was a radio operator on in a Pz III tank in II/Panzer Regiment 7, 10th Panzer Division and an American gunner on an M3 in 2-13 AR, 1st Armored Division. The material derived from these two individuals is interesting, but the author acknowledges that Kirby is a pseudonym and neither account is footnoted in any way, so it is difficult to know where these accounts come from. Furthermore, neither participant was in a position to observe much that occurred beyond his tank, which really limits their perspective.

The section on Combat - only 12 pages of text - appears mostly as an afterthought. Much of it focuses on actions at Sidi Bou Zid (mostly US M4s versus German 88mm and Pz IV) and Sbeitla. The actual Grant vs. Pz III content is limited to a few paragraphs, although these offer a tantalizing feel for what the volume could have been with proper research. Unlike earlier volumes that can cite specific actions and say "so many tanks of this type engaged their opposite numbers and destroyed x," this volume cannot offer even the foggiest details on M3 vs. Pz III combat. Take out the couple of first-person paragraphs mentioned and there really is no specific duel content here. As if to highlight the lack of content, in the final section on Statistics & Analysis, the author offers no relevant statistics or analysis (other than generic casualty figures for Kasserine Pass). No statistics are presented on the number of M3 Grants or Pz IIIs lost in combat in February 1943, which shouldn't have been too hard to come by. He opines that, "it is difficult to say which of the two tanks, the M3 or the PzKpfw III, was the better one." Really? You mean, you're not even going to take a stab at it? Wasn't that the point of this whole volume?! Instead, he offers the generic conclusion that, "what it really came down to was the skills of the crew and small unit commanders and who was the quickest." Doesn't that apply to virtually any crew-served weapon? In point of fact, the M3 Grant was being phased out in the US Army in early 1943 and played only a secondary role in Tunisia compared to the M4 Sherman tank, so there probably wasn't very much M3 vs. Pz III combat to begin with. It is certain that even for the small number of M3 vs. Pz III engagements that did occur, that they had little bearing on the outcome of the campaign.

Ok, there are a few wrong captions (example: a burnt out panzer IV is mistakenly identified as a panzer III) and some odd mistakes (an upside down browning .30 cal machine gun) and a habit of labeling the panzer III as a light tank on one page and a medium tank on another page (it was a medium and not a light tank)...but there is still enough info and great artwork, along with very interesting stories from veterans of the battle of Kasserine Pass to make the book worthwhile.

This book adds little value to understanding either the M3 or the PzKpfw III at Kassreine or anywhere in the African campaigns. While I can forgive alittle background information up front, it continues throughout the whole book! Glittering generalities with little substance as my English teacher would say. Many captions are wrong and simply repeat the text, typos abound, and I honestly wondered when we would get to Kasserine - never really did. Author's fault? Maybe. I have to believe the editorial staff was asleep at the switch, especially after reading the Firefly VS. Tiger book. If you really want to read about the whole story, "An Army at Dawn" will lead you through the totality of North Africa from both sides. "Pass" on this book - there are many other titles such as the "Tank in Detail" series, AFV visuals, and just about anything Steven Zaloga has written. Rommel's Afrika Korps: Tobruk to El Alamein (Battle Orders) by Pier Paolo Battistelli also provides an excellent view inside the german machine in Africa.

Osprey's Duel series has been a great concept but rather hit and miss with me. Despite this hit and miss with the series, I do enjoy getting some of the esoterically on the off chance they cover that's not easily obtainable and the author provides good analysis of the combatants capabilities.

I went into this one with some concern because of the battle Mr. Rottman chose; Kasserine Pass, not because Kasserine Pass was a setback for US forces but rather because this was a twilight battle where these combatants would have been major contributors to battles. Mr. Rottman's presentation followed Osprey's standard for their Duel series, set the stage, give technical aspects and training, then describe a battle and go with your conclusions; a lot to do in 77 pages unless you can tell a good story and bring things together nicely or fail too. The Design and Development section provided a basic description of both vehicles. I didn't have many problems with the M3 portion but was blown away when Mr. Rottman referred to the Mark III as a light tank. This was the first time I've ever heard of a Mark III being a light tank. Later Mr. Rottman makes the statement that "the panzersoldaten considered themselves bearers of the traditions of the Hussar, the old heavy cavalry." Which is a total mistake since hussars were light cavalry; cuirassiers were the German heavy cavalry. These mistakes start to raise questions about Mr. Rottman's analysis capabilities, especially when merged with this having been done more as an opinion piece than one based on fact (sorry, limited references and the bibliography is mainly made up of history, no reference on technical or tactical manuals. This means that Mr. Rottman accepted his sources as fact, not opinion). The component that makes or breaks Osprey's Duel series is the description of combat and the author's presentation/analysis. In this case Mr. Rottman chose to describe company/battalion level engagements where we could see how US and German forces engaged mixed forces (M3s and M4s against Mark IIIs, Mark IVs and a few Tigers) he couldn't isolate any engagements where Mark IIIs and M3s fought each other individually. Even the "personal" battle accounts are brought into question since the German was a radio operator (a tank commander or gunner has a different perspective) and the American used a pseudo-name. When combined with the fact that this was generally the last engagement these vehicles fought against each other raises questions on the value of this book. Mr. Rottman further sinks his case in the last two chapters (Statistics and Analysis and Aftermath) where he talks about the battle of Kasserine Pass rather than the performance of the Mark III and M3 tanks (please Mr. Rottman you pointed out how there were more M4's in the 1st Armored Division and how the Mark III was seeing limited use due to the Mark IV long barreled 75mm's and Tigers). Instead of a Duel book, this should have been a campaign book with other data provided.

Rating wise this one's about 1.5 stars. Mr. Rottman's descriptions of the M3 and the Mark III are better done on Wikipedia! He provides less data and his analysis was suspect. When we merge his weak analysis with the poor descriptions of battles (I'm sorry, Mr. Rottman's choices of battles are battalion level engagements where he failed to isolate how M3's or Mark III's performed against each other) I really want to make it a one star book. The biggest plus is there are a number of unique photographs of M3's I hadn't seen before and I did like the drawings showing the layout for the M3 and Mark III turrets and their ammunition. If Mr. Rottman had picked Gazala as the point of comparison between the Mark III and the M3 I believe the book would have served a much better purpose of letting readers understand how these two tanks contributed to the battlefield when they were major contributors rather than either supporting cast or performing their swan song. I'm rounding this to 1 star because the author failed to provide a comparative analysis of the M3's performance the Mark IIIs. The author's focus in the back half of the book was on US Armored vs. German Panzers at Kasserine, not the M3 and the Mark III.

This is one more volume in the Osprey Duel series. Each book is brief, so one should not expect a great deal of detail. Nonetheless, for the person who wants a "quick and dirty" introduction to a "duel," this represents a decent investment. The format across these volumes is standard: an introduction, a chronology, design and development, the strategic situation, technical specifications, the combatants, the combat itself, statistics and analysis, and the aftermath.

The battle at Kasserine Pass was not the first jousting of German and American forces in North Africa, but it was perhaps the most significant. The battle taught the two sides a great deal about one another. The main American tank was the M3, not a great tank, but serviceable. Just so, the main German tank considered here was the Panzer III. Again, serviceable but not great. This chapter and the one on specifications tells the reader a good amount about the two contending tanks. There are some nice illustrations to note similarities and differences in, for instance, ammunition. Also discussed is the training of the personnel. Discussion of the strategic situation notes how the different armies ended up where they were.

The heart of the book is the description of the battle itself. At first, the Germans drove allied forces back; the battle ended about where it began, though. Americans learned a great deal about combat. The Germans learned much about their adversaries and their equipment. Aftermath? The book notes that (Page 75): "The battles of Kasserine Pass were a sobering episode for the US Army. Even though the Americans had been ashore for almost three months and had seen action, they were ill prepared to face the veteran Germans."

A nice--albeit brief--account of an important early battle in the North African war.