Type of infantry that accompany tanks ?

SaoriseBiker

Are they specialists who would be on a par with say, the Marines or Rangers etc or are they just run of the mill infantry ?

Praetorian Saighdiuir

What?

davetherave

Mechanized Infantry?

tac foley

First - armoured engineers - mine clearance, obstacle clearance, gap-crossing/bridging/ferrying, then

Armour - then

Mechanised infantry.

tac

Delancey

Were the German Panzer Grenadiers of WW2 a specialized unit ?

bluecode

The Panzer Grenadiers were simply mechanised infantry in an army where the majority of soldiers were simply foot sloggers.

Mechanised infantry are not elite troops by any means.

tac foley

The nazi-era Wehrmacht were the first to use mechanized infantry in the way we understand it today, but amazingly, they also used horses right up to the very last days of the reich. They invented the term 'assault rifle' - Sturmgewehr - and the actual gun itself - the StG44 specifically for use by infantry who were transported around in enclosed vehicles, often SdKfZ151 and so on.

Much of the post-war re-think of the way that infantry were deployed was based on the German model, with the exception of the MG:soldier ratio that the Germans used with such telling effect, both in attack and defence.

There is one story from a young 2nd lieutenant whose platoon [27 or so men] was annihilated in Normandy two days after D-day by an enemy he never knew was there. Their four Bren gun carriers and a jeep were turned into frilly bits of tin by at least eight MG42 fired from about 600-800m away and only he and three others survived the contact. He had never actually gotten to see a live German close-up in Normandy.

tac

Mr. Tezza

SaoriseBiker wrote: »

Are they specialists who would be on a par with say, the Marines or Rangers etc or are they just run of the mill infantry ?

I'm guessing your just looking for the word mechanised Infantry, which I think would be similar in specailist sense to US Marines? like the use of Bradley armoured vehicles etc... the US Army/Marines are set up differently than the Irish Army, They call a guy a specailist if he has extra traiing that sort of thing, the Irish Army just train their guys to be able to do a multitude of tasks so in a sense the Irish Army are probably a better force than the US its just the US got so much more equipment they can afford to have people with specific jobs.

US Rangers are trained to live off the land and are a designed to be a stand alone Infantry unit from what I know, I would place them much higher than a US Marine, Irish Rangers were first trained by US Rangers, hence the name but took it a few steps further to become an elite unit like they are today rivaling the SAS, Delta Force and other specail ops units...

I'd write more but its 12:45am and I'm off to bed!

Delancey

Would it be correct to say that the US Army has no infantry units that are not mechanised infantry nowadays ?

SaoriseBiker

davetherave wrote: »

Mechanized Infantry?

Thanks, you pointed me in the right direction -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanized_infantry#The_present_day

Manic Moran

Delancey wrote: »

Would it be correct to say that the US Army has no infantry units that are not mechanised infantry nowadays ?

It would not. Infantry Brigade Combat Teams have nothing heavier than a five-ton-truck, and there's also the airmobile units (101st, 82nd, Rangers etc)

There is no specific skill for mechanised infantryman in the US Arrmy. They're all 11Bs, all get the same fundamental training for operating out of HMMWVs, Strikers or Bradleys, the finer details are taught at the unit that they end up going to. When it comes to working with tanks, we tankers will generally assume that any unit not from our battalion doesn't know which end of the tank the exhaust comes from, and we give them a 'working closely with tanks' training class. I did this when my tank platoon was attached to a Stryker battalion in Iraq. These are mainly safety things, like "Don't stand here... don't touch this...This is how you get a wounded man out of a tank" as the basic principles of fire support and maneuver will remain the same, although limited by capabilities (eg: We can only shoot to the third floor within this distance...)

NTM