The US Army would also employ these improvisations as more troops and tanks from this branch were deployed to the Pacific. These direct, ferocious and desperate assaults led to a number of unique improvisations in appliqué armor by the USMC. A final man placed a mine or explosive charge directly on the tank to attempt to destroy the tank.” Another man placed a mine on the tank’s track to immobilize it. The next man threw fragmentation grenades to force the tank’s crew to close their hatches. One man threw smoke grenades to blind a targeted tank. “Japanese squads of three-to-nine men attacked individual tanks. Men of the United States Army’s 193rd Tank Battalion recorded the attack method as such: Come May of that year, it was determined that at least 64 tanks had been knocked out by infantry & mine attacks. The attackers would also climb aboard the tanks and claw open hatches so they could throw grenades and explosives inside.īy the Okinawa campaign of 1945, the tactics of the Japanese had been identified. These were often used in suicidal point blank ‘Kamikaze’ style attacks with infantry charging the American tanks armed only with an explosive device. The stubborn island defenders had various grenades and mines at their disposal. In the Island hopping campaigns of the War in the Pacific, the major threat to tanks of the United States Marine Corps (USMC) was Japanese infantry.
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