They held no promise of stopping and destroying German tatnks but merely the hope of exacting sufficient toll to reduice the initial strength of the attacking enemy armor, This, then, was the pathetic weakniess of the situatilon until General Marshall directed imuediate and conc(lusive planning of defense against armored forces, to include offensive action and organization. In the US Army the solutions were static, apathetic - gun defense intended to subject enemy armor to some slight attrition as it penetrated the antitank net. Suggested anitidotes for Germas~n armor were defensive in attitudes, admittedly expedient in nature and put forth without confidence. A defeatest attitude permeated the opposing armies and threatened the United States Army. It was clear that the French static dIefense, in which other armies had placed confidence, was impotent againat the German air- armor- infantry team. When the German army defeated Poland in three weeks and, overran the Low Countries and France with astounding swiftness, the other armies of the world were stunnned. Paesive, static and cordon defense had failed to halt or stop the tank supported by planes and infontry. The countries of the world looked on, at first with incredulity, and then with alarm approaching panic. Like mercury this armored force dissolved the best armament Poland, France, England, Yugoslavla and Greece could produce. Like mercury spilling on a laboratory floor, the tanks and other armored forces of Germany rolled across the plains of Poland in 1939 and again in 1940 rifled through the fortified hills and panoplied valleys of Franca. Tank destroyer crews throughout the European war made significant field modifications to improve the primary protection of all three types of tank destroyers. The Army intended the 'can-openers,' as the tankers called the tank destroyers, to be fast moving, lightly armored, and powerfully gunned armored vehicles designed to counter enemy armored threats. Three types of self-propelled tank destroyers filled the US inventory during World War II. The success of German armored forces early in World War II prompted a rapid search in the US Army for a means to defeat this threat. The most original of these tank surrogates was the American 'tank destroyer.'

In the latter case, the surrogate needed considerable frontal armor and a dual purpose (antitank and antipersonnel) main gun. The widespread demand for tanks or tank-like vehicles outside of mechanized formations led to a number of tank surrogates, weapons designed to provide armored antitank defense, close support of the infantry attacky or both.

Military tank destroyers future