Microsoft Close Combat manual Breaking the Impasse, Pfc. Bob Sloane, in Yank

Phase I

Tanks lay down suppressive fire as infantry moves through hedgerow.

Phase III

Demolitions gap hedgerow as infantry assaults the objective.

Sherman tank

60-mm mortar

Hedgerow assualt tactics

Chapter 4 The Normandy Campaign in Close Combat 79

But all these technical advances aren’t enough to keep the hedgerow battle from dragging on too slowly. The Americans need a new combi- nation of technology, tactics, and techniques to speed their progress.

Breaking the Impasse

When the 29th finds itself stymied in the bocage, General Charles Gerhardt orders Brigadier-General Norman Cota, a veteran of the landings in North Africa, to devise new tactics for this hostile terrain. Cota decides to use small teams composed of a tank equipped with pipe devices in front to aid in the placement of explosive charges and a telephone on its rear deck for communication with infantrymen, an engineer team, an infantry squad, a BAR, and a 60-mm mortar. To begin the attack, the tank pushes into a hedgerow, then fires white phosphorus rounds from its main gun into the corners of the opposite hedgerow to suppress the German heavy machine guns. The tank then lays down machine gun fire along the base of the hedgerow. Meanwhile, the mortar team drops high explosive

rounds into the fields behind the German posi- tions, and smoke rounds to block the enemy’s view. When the tank opens fire with its machine gun, the infantry attacks, moving across the field well away from the hedgerows on either side, and throwing grenades over the hedgerow to disrupt defenders on the other side.

When the infantry has advanced far enough to block the tank’s field of fire, the tank backs away, and the engineers place and detonate explosives in the holes the pipes leave in the embankment. The tank then rolls through the resulting hole, provid- ing close support for the infantry, while the infantry suppresses antitank fire. Using this approach, the Second Battalion of the 116th Infantry makes better progress than ever in its push toward Saint-Lô.

The Third Armored Division devises an approach for larger-scale hedgerow operations, coordinating the efforts of a tank company and an infantry company to attack across a front three fields wide. The attack begins by penetrating the hedgerows of the two outer fields. When they are taken, the team moves to breach the hedgerows that border

“Every goddam field in this hedgerow country is a battlefield.”

Pfc. Bob Sloane, in Yank

Phase II

As infantry close on enemy and mask tank's fire, tank backs away and engineers emplace charges.

Phase IV

Tank advances to help infantry clear objectives. Other elements displace for- ward and prepare to continue the attack.

Engineer team

Infantrymen

Mortar observer