Fright.

This is coolbert:

In the previous blog I have mentioned that a favorite tactic of Brandenburger pseudo-forces was to generate tank "fright" in Soviet troops.

Tank "fright" is the hysterical and mass panic created when ground troops are confronted by attack from overwhelming numbers of enemy tanks.

Tanks for which the ground forces have no counter.

This was most true in the period prior to the development of the shaped charge and the introduction of the panzerfaust [infantry-wielded light anti-tank weapon] into the hands of German troops in World War Two [WW2].

But as I have said in another previous blog, even with anti-tanks weapons, only the most resolute, trained, and practiced infantry can deal with attack with mass waves of enemy tanks. And as is intuitive, rear echelon support and service troops are even much less able to deal with such an attack by massed enemy tanks.

The phenomenon of tank "fright" can be described as creating an effect best summarized by the adage, "when the horse is out of the barn, there ain't no getting it back!"

What we are talking about here is disorganized retreat to the rear.

It is one thing for a unit to retreat to the rear in an organized fashion.

It is another for a unit to disintegrate and have individual soldiers retreat to the rear in a pell mell, disorganized fashion.

One can well imagine the effect this has upon rear echelon troops observing disorganized infantry fleeing to the rear from enemy tanks. "Well, if they can't do it, what do you expect me to do??!!", must be the common refrain of the rear echelon troops.

Tank "fright" creates an avalanche effect. The adage of the horse and the barn is correct!

And it seems that troops of all nations and armies are susceptible to tank "fright". German, American, Soviet, Arab troops [a very famous photo was published in 1967 that showed a desert battlefield in the Sinai in the aftermath of an Arab retreat from Israeli tanks. The Egyptian soldiers had not only thrown away their rifles, they had taken off their boots to run faster. The battlefield was littered with boots] all have exhibited tank "fright" at one time or another. And this is no shame, according to General Ridgway. Ridgway is reported to have commented about tank "fright" in this exchange:

After having just taken over command of the U.N. forces and the U.S. Eighth Army in Korea during the Korean War, Ridgway was viewing his troops as they fled south from Seoul in the latter part of 1950. Fleeing south to escape the advancing Chinese Communist armies. And one of Ridgway's fellow Generals is saying to him, "I am ashamed of some of our men. When confronted by Soviet T-34 tanks [probably manned by North Koreans], some of our men [U.S.] threw down their rifles and ran away." Ridgway retorted, "This is nothing to be ashamed of. During our exercises in Tennessee in 1940, some of our men, when confronted by FRIENDLY tanks, threw down their rifles and ran away."

It seems the phenomenon of tank "fright" is almost an instinctive, visceral response, not always controllable, and not something to be really ashamed of, but more to be understood.

coolbert.