ARmy Rumour SErvice

I suspect it matters on their course of action if they have to abandon their chariot.

If they were just expected to retreat and collect another tank, then you'd expect them to be lightly armed. Maybe just Webley and SMG and next to know other equipment (brew kit mandatory).

If they were expected to advance in support of surviving armour then something akin to what the infanteer was carrying.

How well trained were WWII tankies in aspects other than armour/armoured warfare.

It's certainly one of the better questions posted on ARRSE of late.

Old bloke I know was a Sherman gunner, he said he had a revolver as did the rest of his crew.
Don't know if it was a rule or just preference.

S&W .38

Special spurless model of Webley wasn't it?

Apparently, the South Albertas (29th Cdn Armd Recce Regt) were mighty pissed off when they had to trade in their Thompsons for Stens...

My cousin in the desert armed himself with a liberated German rifle but all he shot with it was a gazelle and a leopard. The MO told his crew not to cook and eat the gazelle, and confiscated it, so my cousin was not too pleased to find it roasting over the MO's camp fire later on. The leopard he intended to flay and to take the skin home to sell it, but come evening after he had been driving around with it strapped to his vehicle he discovered that the arrse had been over the exhaust and the skin was ruined with big burnt hole in it.

Originally Posted by dingerr

I suspect it matters on their course of action if they have to abandon their chariot.

If they were just expected to retreat and collect another tank, then you'd expect them to be lightly armed. Maybe just Webley and SMG and next to know other equipment (brew kit mandatory).

If they were expected to advance in support of surviving armour then something akin to what the infanteer was carrying.

How well trained were WWII tankies in aspects other than armour/armoured warfare.

It's certainly one of the better questions posted on ARRSE of late.

The unsourced establishments in one of the Heimdal books shows an infantry division of three brigades 18,300 holding 1,011 pistols for a while an armoured division opf 14,960 has 2300. The difference is likely to be a pistol for most of the C 1800 AFV crewmen. Tanks had one or two sten guns because oneof the accunts (4/7th ?? ) descibes rounding up prisoners covered by the loader from the hatch with a sten gun.


Give me any examples of when dismounted tank crews advanced with tanks or infantry? If the Ww2 tank cewman dismounted in battle its likely to have been as a result of their tank being KO. At that point they would most likely have been thinking more about casualty evacuation rather than biffing the hun. Given that crews thought they had five seconds to gert out of a churchill and three from a sherman, taking a persaonal weapon was less important than all gettign out before it brewed.

Some tank crews might have up armed themselves with Tpompson sub marchine guns. One memoir writer, (I canlt rememebr if is Ian Hammeton or Kenb Tout) writes about the crew of their LCT giving them a TSG in place of the puny sten. I read that the attitudes changed with crews which had been in action for a log time as their tank was merely a rentded mobile home apt to leave its crew homeless and posessionless at any point.

Some armour were well trained as infantrymen. E.g. several whole RAC units were formed from infantry battalions early in the war.

I've just phoned my grandad to ask him what he carried. He tells me that a Luger was the favorite.


He was really gutted when they issued him with a P38 instead.