At the time, Gen. DePuy was impressed by how a handful of Germans could hold up a regiment by sighting* their weapons properly:
If they had two assault guns and 25 men, they put one assault gun on one side of the road, perhaps on the reverse slope firing through a saddle, and put another one behind a stone house, firing across the road. They protected them with some infantry and had a couple of guys with Panzerfausts up on the road itself, or just off the road in pits or behind houses. Now, here comes the point of an American unit roaring down the road, a couple of jeeps or maybe a tank, and bang, you lost a tank or two. The company commander then decides to maneuver a platoon around and boom, he loses another tank. So, the commander decides to wait for the battalion commander to come up. And, the battalion commander, if he is very imaginative, might say, “All right, while I’m trying to solve this thing, “C” Company go wide around to the right and come up behind this town.” Those were the tactics which kept the thing moving. But, sometimes a unit would stay there and fight all day against 25 men and two assault guns. And, that happened all too often.
Commanders would too often attack the enemy head-on, whereas if they could just screen that position, just block it with something and find another way around, then they could keep going. Eventually, that is what almost always happened. They found their way around. Some units would find their way around in a matter of minutes and hours; other units couldn’t find their way around except after having lost a whole day fiddling with one of these little things. Now, what one learned from fighting a lot of these things, is an understanding of tactics. The big lesson is not to take him head-on. Anything is better than that. And, you get an understanding of sighting weapons. The Germans were just superior at that. And, to this day, they are very good at it.
*I’m pretty sure placing your artillery is siting it, while aiming it is sighting it, with a gh.
You’re correct, you put the gun in place, siting it, then aim it at something, sighting it.
Sighting might mean correlating the sight with the gun tube. For the round to go to the place you are sighting.
I’m reading the book, and it sure looks to me like he meant “siting”.
Seems like whoever transcribed the interview must’ve goofed.
The training parts early on are interesting. It seems as if the US Army has had the same set of problems for a long, long time.