Men-a-foot I. [Spain]

This is coolbert:

Those of you that have seen the movie "Alexander" will remember the scene at the Battle of Gaugemela where the order is given:

"prepare to repel chariots!!"

The Macedonian infantry DO HAVE a battle drill worked out to deal with the "tanks" of the time. Even in ANCIENT time, soldiers [as opposed to warriors], were able to defeat "machines" that posed an awesome threat.

Several previous blog entries of mine have dealt with the problems faced by infantry [men-a-foot] when confronted by enemy tanks. Soldiers who in MODERN times, had to confront "machines".

Until the advent of the shaped-charge weapon of the panzerfaust variety, the infantry had only limited means to defend against tanks. Quite often, on the battlefield, "tank fright" would occur. Infantry fleeing in disorder when opposed by onrushing enemy tanks.

[Matt Ridgeway was heard to comment that American troops, while on maneuvers in Tennessee prior to deployment overseas during World War Two [WW2], when confronted by friendly [U.S.] tanks, threw away their weapons and fled the notional battlefield!!]

Read here how the Spanish Nationalist troop of Franco were able to repel attack by Soviet tanks during the Spanish Civil War.

"But historians generally agree that the first formal deployment of the Molotov cocktail by an organized army occurred during the Spanish Civil War in September, 1936."

"Francisco Franco’s Fascist army was slowly tightening a noose around Madrid . . . large formations of T-26 and T-28 tanks [Soviet tanks] the Loyalists were massing just east and north of Toledo."

"Franco’s most exposed infantry units were bolstered by the arrival of truck-loads of “bottle-bombs,” accompanied by crudely mimeographed user manuals and cursory instruction by a hastily organized training cadre."

"the Loyalist tankers . . . their armored wedges frequently advanced far beyond contact with the infantry assigned to protect them from close-range assault. The tactical situation was close-to-ideal for the use of hand-thrown petrol bombs. Once Franco’s soldiers the T-28s bursting into flames, they quickly regained the initiative and began to go “tank-hunting” with a vengeance . . . This was the first, and the last, time during Spanish conflict that Molotov cocktails were used in prolific numbers."

THANKS TO THE USE OF WHAT BECAME KNOWN AS THE MOLOTOV COCKTAIL, THE FASCIST INFANTRY FORCES OF FRANCO, NOT EQUIPPED WITH ANTI-TANK GUNS, WERE ABLE TO REPEL AND DEFEAT MASSED TANK ATTACKS OF THE LOYALIST FORCES!! MEN-A-FOOT, LIGHTLY ARMED, ROUTING TANK UNITS, THE INFANTRY HAVING LITTLE MORE TO WORK WITH THAN THEIR BARE HANDS!!

coolbert.