page_title: Mechanized infantry
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Mechanized infantry / History
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Westfront, deutscher Panzer in Roye Deutscher Sturmwagen in Roye [I. Weltrkrieg 1914 - 1918, Westfront, deutscher Tank während der großen Schlacht von Frankreich, März bis Juli 1918,]
context_page_description: Mechanized infantry are infantry units equipped with armored personnel carriers or infantry fighting vehicles for transport and combat.
  Mechanized infantry is distinguished from motorized infantry in that its vehicles provide a degree of protection from hostile fire, as opposed to "soft-skinned" wheeled vehicles for motorized infantry. Most APCs and IFVs are fully tracked or are all-wheel drive vehicles, for mobility across rough ground. Some nations distinguish between mechanized and armored infantry, designating troops carried by APCs as mechanized and those in IFVs as armored.
  The support weapons for mechanized infantry are also provided with motorized transport, or they are built directly into combat vehicles to keep pace with the mechanized infantry in combat. For units equipped with most types of APC or any type of IFV, fire support weapons, such as machine guns, autocannons, small-bore direct-fire howitzers, and anti-tank guided missiles are often mounted directly on the infantry's own transport vehicles.
  Compared with "light" truck-mobile infantry, mechanized infantry can maintain rapid tactical movement and, if mounted in IFVs, have more integral firepower.
context_section_description: Some of the first mechanized infantry were German assault teams mounted on A7V tanks during World War I. The vehicles were extra-large to let them carry sizeable assault teams and would regularly carry infantry on board in addition to their already large crews that were trained as stormtroopers. All machine-gun-armed A7V tanks carried two small flame throwers for their dismounts to use. A7V tank would often carry a second officer to lead the assault team.
  During the Battle of St. Quentin, A7Vs were accompanied by 20 stormtroopers from Rohr Assault Battalion, but it is unspecified if they were acting as dismounts or were accompanying the tanks on foot. During the battle, tank crews were reported to have dismounted and attacked enemy positions with grenades and flamethrowers on numerous occasions.
  Another example of the use of such a method of fighting is the capture of Villers-Bretonneux, in which A7Vs would suppress the defenders with machine gun fire and assault teams would dismount and attack them with grenades.
  Towards the end of World War I, all the armies involved were faced with the problem of maintaining the momentum of an attack. Tanks, artillery, or infiltration tactics could all be used to break through an enemy defense, but almost all offensives launched in 1918 ground to a halt after a few days. The following infantry quickly became exhausted, and artillery, supplies and fresh formations could not be brought forward over the battlefields quickly enough to maintain the pressure on the regrouping enemy
  It was widely acknowledged that cavalry was too vulnerable to be used on most European battlefields, but many armies continued to deploy them. Motorized infantry could maintain rapid movement, but their trucks required either a good road network or firm open terrain, such as desert. They were unable to traverse a battlefield obstructed by craters, barbed wire, and trenches. Tracked or all-wheel drive vehicles were to be the solution.
  Following the war, development of mechanized forces was largely theoretical for some time, but many nations began rearming in the 1930s. The British Army had established an Experimental Mechanized Force in 1927, but it failed to pursue that line because of budget constraints and the prior need to garrison the frontiers of the British Empire.
  Although some proponents of mobile warfare, such as J. F. C. Fuller, advocated building "tank fleets", other, such as Heinz Guderian in Germany, Adna R. Chaffee Jr. in the United States, and Mikhail Tukhachevsky in the Soviet Union, recognized that tank units required close support from infantry and other arms and that such supporting arms needed to maintain the same pace as the tanks.
  As the Germans rearmed in the 1930s, they equipped some infantry units in their new Panzer divisions with the half-track Sd.Kfz. 251, which could keep up with tanks on most terrain. The French Army also created "light mechanized" (légère mécanisée) divisions in which some of the infantry units possessed small tracked carriers. Together with the motorization of the other infantry and support units, this gave both armies highly mobile combined-arms formations. The German doctrine was to use them to exploit breakthroughs in Blitzkrieg offensives, whereas the French envisaged them being used to shift reserves rapidly in a defensive battle.
caption: 21 March 1918: German A7V tanks in Roye, Somme during Operation Michael.
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