M18 Hellcat

   American prewar armored doctrine was based on the assumption that enemy armored attacks would be delivered at a time and place of the enemy's choosing against an American defense. Similarly, American armored attacks would be delivered at a time and place of friendly forces choosing against an enemy defense. For this, the U.S. envisioned using tanks in the attack solely in a support and exploitation role, usually in conjunction with infantry. Tank destroyers, such as the Hellcat, were to be used against tanks that had already penetrated the front lines. The Hellcat was not intended to engage in protracted combat but to quickly respond to breakthroughs in the line by enemy armor. To aid these purposes, it was designed with light armor and extremely high speeds. U.S. doctrine originally called for the Hellcat to be held in reserves so that it could block an incoming armored thrust.

This doctrine failed on the battlefield where attacking Sherman tanks ran into defending German tanks far more often than intended and the tank destroyers were called in to assist. Tank destroyers were often deployed to attack enemy armor at long range from an ambush position, taking on the role of self-propelled anti-tank guns. During the battle for Italy, tank destroyers compensated for a shortage of 155mm artillery ammunition by using their 3 inch or 76mm guns in indirect fire role. Near the end of the war, there were so few German tanks that tank destroyers were increasingly used as self-propelled artillery in support of infantry for lack of any other targets.

In practice a tank destroyer battalion was assigned nearly permanently to a division and would move toward an enemy penetration from local assembly areas. The doctrine of the time had Shermans acting in support of infantry to break enemy defenses (Infantry leads, tanks follow or support by fire), and then exploiting the attack (Tanks lead, infantry follows) with infantry in support during exploitation.

Prewar expectation was that all anti-tank work was supposed to be done by tank-destroyer crews, because attacking tanks could concentrate against a small part of a defending line. Independent tank destroyer groups were to counter concentrate, to stop enemy tanks from penetrating deeply. Speed was essential in order to bring the Hellcats from the rear to destroy incoming tanks. Obviously this would make it harder for an armored force to achieve a deep breakthrough, a main objective of armor, if the enemy had tanks. It would also be easier for an opposing armored force to achieve a local breakthrough against an American unit which would not have all of its anti-tank assets at the front during the beginning of any attack. This doctrine was not entirely used as it would create a small window of time of weakness in the armored battalion until tank destroyers moved to the front. Tank destroyer battalions assigned to front line divisions often split up to companies attached to regiments, and platoons attached to infantry battalions. When so attached, defending tank destroyer units supplemented organic antitank weapons (bazookas and 57mm towed guns).

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