From: Steve Grammont (islander@midmaine.com)
Date: Tue Dec 24 2002 - 12:21:42 PST
Hi Steve,
All the following is off the top of my head, so take it with a pinch of salt.
>I seem to recall on the History Channel showing of the 291st Combat
>Engineers Battle of the Bulge, that they seem to imply that they manned the
>57mm AT guns.
I do not think there were any AT guns held at the Battalion level for
Engineer Battalions. There might have been some assigned to Regiments ar
Groups. More likely they would have been GHQ units attached for specific
missions. In the case of the Bulge, everything was a mess for quite a
while, with units intermixing ad hoc.
>If not, were there specific units that had the 57mm AT guns?
Originally, if I am not mistaken, the Tank Destroyer Battalions were
armed only with AT Guns. This was prior to the widespread use of the 57.
By 1942 they were more or less fully equipped with self propelled AT
weapons (mostly M-10s). However, they still retained some towed 37mm and
57mm guns.
Corps HQs had an independent AT Battalion assigned to it.
Of course towed guns were part of the normal organization of infantry
formations. For standard Infantry they were organic to the Regiment in
an AT Company. For Armored Infantry Battalions they were organic to the
Battalion as a 4th Company (mixed AT and light Howitzers). I think
Marines had them organic at the Regimental level too.
Er... for what it's worth :-)
Steve
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