Was the US armored doctrine of the sword and the shield of tanks being used mainly against infantry and tank destroyers to attack tanks and concentrating on Sherman production effective?

Answer 1

It was not effective and was abandoned. U.S. armored doctrine was based on a misreading of the German blitzkrieg, which they incorrectly assumed consisted of hoards of massed tanks poring through a gap. In reality, blitzkrieg was a rapidly moving, combined arms effort, with tanks only part of the effort. The early German blitzkreig tanks were almost jokes, some mounting machine guns and very light 20 mm cannon. True blitzkrieg consisted not only of tanks, but mobile infantry, anti-tank guns, artillery, and air support. The key was rapid movenment and local firepower dominance, which confused and demoralized he enemy. U.S. Army planners produced the tank destroyer concept where the destroyers would zip around the invading tanks and shoot them from hiding. U.S. tanks would be used for rapid envelopment against non armored units. Therefore, U.S. tanks did not need anti-tank capability. When tank destroyers encountered the reality of combined arms, artillery, dive bombers, and anti-tank guns, and the fact that the Germans had gone over to more defensive tactics, they could not fulfill their role of just destroying tanks. The tank destroying role unfortunately fell on the somewhat more robust but inferior Sherman tank with disatrous results, because by this time the Germans had significantly upgraded their tanks. The tank destroyers was relegated to other roles such as assault gun and mobile artillery.