Americanizing the tank: U.S. Army administration and mechanized development within the Army, 1917-1943. (Volumes 1-3)

This dissertation examines the U.S. Army's ability to respond to technological change by analyzing the development of American principles of mechanized warfare in the period 1917-1943. The author argues that the tank did not generate any fundamental shift in the Army's conceptualization of warfare during this period.;Through focus upon the organization and decision-making processes of the War Department, this study illustrates how institutional biases and preconceptions concerning the nature of warfare influenced the tank's absorption into the U.S. Army. The Army's administrative separation of its combat elements by function and narrowly defined missions prevented full exploitation of the tank's potential through adoption of combined-arms principles. Nor did awareness of foreign mechanized activities stimulate positive change, since the U.S. Army tended to interpret foreign action selectively to vindicate the course of American mechanized development. Conformity to tactical and organizational patterns that predated the tank's invention thus characterized American ideas concerning mechanized warfare.;The complexity of the Army's administrative organization also prevented any single individual from having a decisive impact upon mechanized development unless representative of prevailing War Department trends. The attention given to Lesley J. McNair's ability to curb expansion of the Army's armored potential epitomizes this characteristic and contrasts the limited influence of American advocates of mechanized warfare.;This dissertation first indicates how administrative factors and the National Defense Act of 1920 determined the nature of mechanized development in the early interwar era by minimizing the impact of technology-based innovations in tactics, doctrine, and organization. Analysis follows of the influence of foreign mechanized activity and War Department uncertainty concerning the relative importance of tank forces in the late 1930s. The administrative rise and fall of the Armored Force, the growing importance attached to antitank measures, and the North African campaign of 1942-1943 mark the end of this confusion. The final chapters address these subjects and underscore the limited influence of mechanized battle concepts upon an army whose composition and understanding of warfare continued to reflect a tradition-inspired emphasis upon infantry and artillery.