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Anti-tank Ditches

An antitank ditch is an artificial obstacle in the form of a wide and deep earthen ditch dug in front of the forward edge of a defensive position or in the depths of the defense in order to stop enemy tanks and defeat them with antitank fire. The ditch is dug with breaks, and the approaches to it are mined and covered with fire of all types. They were widely used in the first period of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45. Anti-tank ditches are additions to natural obstacles, closing the gaps between them, or bringing the delaying capabilities of natural obstacles to critical ones. These are considered to be:

• Terrain slopes greater than 35 degrees.
• Vertical walls greater than 1.5 meters high.
• Ravines, gullies, and canals greater than 3 meters wide.
• Marshes and bogs greater than 1 meter deep.
• Forests with trees greater than 21 cm in diameter.
• Forests on slopes greater than 15 degrees with trees greater than 10 cm in diameter.
• Urban development zones.

It is considered that an anti-tank ditch in itself is not a satisfactory obstacle and in all cases its action should be supplemented by appropriate obstacles, anti-tank fire and anti-tank mines, and to make it difficult for the enemy to make a passage through the ditch, use wire obstacles and anti-personnel mines. In addition, the flanks of the ditch should be connected with insurmountable natural obstacles.

According to the profile, the main types of anti-tank ditches are considered (although other profiles are not excluded):

1. Rectangular ditch.
2. Triangular ditch.

The standard Rectangular Ditch width is 3.3 meters at the top, although in case of acute time shortage a ditch width of 1.5 - 2.0 meters is allowed (it is believed that such a narrow ditch can delay the enemy for 3-5 minutes). The depth of the ditch in all cases should not be less than 1.5 meters. However, increasing the depth of the ditch to more than 2 meters with a significant increase in the volume of work does not increase the stopping power of the ditch. The walls of the ditch should be so steep that the soil does not collapse from them.

The soil extracted during the ditch digging should be thrown to its side, forming an embankment 1-2 meters high. This embankment prevents tanks from jumping over the ditch. Even if the vehicle does manage to overcome the ditch itself at speed, it will hit the embankment with its front part, as a result of which the rear of the tank will sink into the ditch and the vehicle will lose mobility. It is recommended to erect appropriate obstacles at a distance of 4.5-7.5 meters from the ditch towards the enemy.

And in the modern American and Soviet Field Manuals, the tactics of using an anti-tank ditch are not considered at all. Combined arms specialists do not pay enough attention to the ditch, considering it only one of the elements of tactical equipment of the battlefield. Engineering specialists believe that their task is the ditch itself, and everything else is the business of combined arms.

Meanwhile, anti-tank ditches can play a sharply negative role instead of a protective one. The fact is that the ditch can be used by the advancing enemy as cover for infantry, mortars. Quite a lot of infantry can accumulate in the ditch unnoticed, which then suddenly attacks and breaks into the trenches with one throw. And the sappers of the attackers have the opportunity to unnoticed prepare passages through the ditch. Preparation of mortar fire towards the ditch cannot be considered sufficient already because the inner part of the ditch is usually not visible from the trenches, and keeping the ditch under continuous mortar fire is both impractical and impossible.

The Manual of the Second World War suggested ditches not to be laid parallel to the front of defense, but in the form of a broken line. So that each face of the ditch could be seen from the trenches from at least one point. Machine gun fire could be prepared from these points. And in some cases it was considered necessary to have firing points at the bends of the ditch. Sometimes even tank trenches or trenches for anti-tank guns for longitudinal fire on the ditch were placed here.

Brigade engineer Shperk specifically wrote in 1942 in his book: "Firing points flanking obstacles should be located so that from them it would be possible to take the face of the obstacle, approaches to it from the enemy side and exits from the obstacle in our direction under longitudinal fire. Therefore, for ditches they should be located on the axis of the obstacle...."

For some reason, the experience of previous wars is forgotten, although in the area of non-explosive obstacles, essentially, nothing new has been invented. But in the era of local wars, the main burden of battles will be borne by relatively small units and subdivisions, whose capabilities for overcoming obstacles are significantly lower than those of large formations, and the supply of modern mine-explosive means, as a rule, will be insufficient. The ability to construct barriers from improvised means and to use them tactically skillfully can prove decisive in many cases.

The Triangular Ditch should be about 4 meters wide and at least 1.5 meters deep (at least us-zagrad-4.jpg (17210 bytes)1.8 meters in loose sandy soil). A depth of 1.2 meters is possible, but it is believed that a ditch of this depth can only hold up tanks for 3-5 minutes. The soil extracted from the excavation is thrown out to the enemy side, without forming a ledge or wall. It is believed that this loose soil reduces the speed of movement of tanks. On the enemy side, the slope of the ditch is made gentle, and on its side, as steep as possible.

A triangular ditch is considered less efficient than a rectangular one, because although the volume of extracted soil is smaller, such a profile of excavation is inconvenient for earthmoving machines and their productivity decreases by 1.4-1.8 times compared to productivity when digging a rectangular ditch.

In the United States, anti-tank ditches are most often dug by regular engineering vehicles, such as the M9 Armored Combat Earthmover (M9 ACE), the M728 Combat Engineer Vehicle (CEV). The latter is usually called a combat engineer tank, although this is not correct. The D7G Mine-Clearing/Armor Protection Bulldozer (D7G MCAP), loaders, scrapers, and motor graders are also used.