Mounted infantry shooting

[cbo]

Originally Posted by scorpio_rocks

I believe that the only troops ever trained to fight from their vehicles were early war panzergrenadiers - they quickly stopped doing it and emphasised quick transition between travelling in vehicles and fighting on foot.

I think it is the other way around. When the Panzergrenadiers aquired APCs, it was seen as transport only. Hence its early designation as "Gepanzerte Mannschaftkraftwagen" (litt. armoured motorvehicle for troops).
Combat experience from France in 1940 caused a re-evaluation of the armoured transport, initially resulting in the vehicle being re-named to "Schützenpanzerwagen" (SPW) and at the same time introducing mounted combat as one way of using the SPW ; in particular the ability to change between mounted and dismounted combat. By 1942, this had become doctrine and you will still see mounted combat performed in training films as late as 1944 with 1944 organization and 1944 equipment.

Just like tanks could dominate the battlefield in encounters against infantry with little or no anti-tank weaponry, so could the SPW. In particular when it followed up on a tank attack, where the tanks had engaged and destroyed the heavy weapons of the enemy and forced the infantry to the ground.

I think anyone familiar with German armoured tactics would recognize the focus on speed and firepower on which this SPW doctrine was based: Mounted infantry in SPWs and tanks working together, in some situations with the armour at the front and the mounted infantry following, in others the mounted infantry leading and the tanks following and in yet others dismounted infantry fighting with support from tanks and the weaponry on the SPWs.

It is also obvious, just as it is with German tactics in general, that this emphasis on speed and firepower could cause grievious losses when bumping into a solid defense supported by massive enemy firepower.
I suppose that the fighting in Italy and NW Europe rarely allowed the Germans to use their armoured formations to fight the way they were used to in the east and I only recall one incident during the fighting in the Ardennes were tanks, followed by mounted infantry tried to conduct such an attack - succumbing to US artillery fire (IIRC using airbursts, possibly by means of proximity fuzes).

But the fighting in the east more often allowed for the type of fluent fighting the SPW mounted infantry was intended to do.

But I think you are probably right in assuming that as the war progressed from mid-1943 onwards and particularily as it moved into more built-up areas and the more intensively cultivated farmland of central Europe, such methods became more difficult to use. And against the Western allies, it was probably even more difficult. But mounted combat stayed part of the Panzergrenadier curriculum to end, as far as I can tell.

What is perhaps surprising, is that the modern German Panzergrenadiers seems to follow the tactics of their ancestors to some degree, as German manuals even in the 2000s emphazise the ability to fight mounted as well as dismounted and the change between the two forms of combat as the charactertic of the arm.

There is a good write-up on this here: http://fkpg.de/wp-content/uploads/PzGren-ab-1945.pdf