How One Gunner’s “Unauthorized” Firing Pattern Killed an Entire Panzer Column

September 14th, 1944. Staff Sergeant Raymond Kowalski crouched behind the breech of his M18 Hellcat's 76mm gun outside Lunéville, France, watching eleven Panther tanks roll down Route Nationale 4 in tight column formation. Standard U.S. Army doctrine said fire one aimed shot, assess hit, relocate. Fire discipline. Precision. Survive.
Kowalski had followed that doctrine for eight weeks. Scored four confirmed kills. Lost three tank destroyers. Watched six crew members die.
The problem wasn't accuracy. American gunners could hit German armor at twelve hundred yards. The problem was speed. By the time you confirmed your first kill, the rest of the column had scattered, called artillery, or flanked your position. You got one tank. Then you died.
The 704th Tank Destroyer Battalion had destroyed twenty-three German tanks since landing at Normandy. They'd lost nineteen tank destroyers doing it. The math didn't work. Trading one-to-one against Panthers and Tigers meant losing.
German armor doctrine emphasized column movement on roads. Tight spacing. Fifteen to twenty yards between vehicles. Maximum road speed. Minimum dispersal. Fifty-ton tanks couldn't maneuver quickly. Once committed to a road, they were locked in.
American doctrine said exploit that. Set up ambush. First shot disables lead vehicle. Second shot disables trail vehicle. Column trapped. Then pick them off one by one.
Theory was perfect. Practice was fatal. The moment your first shot fired, every German tank traversed guns toward your muzzle flash. Eleven 75mm cannons firing at your position. You died.
Kowalski had watched it happen four times. Good crews. Good positions. Perfect ambushes. First shot killed the lead Panther. Second shot never fired because eleven tanks turned the American position into rubble.
Three days earlier, Kowalski had been cleaning his gun. Noticed something. The M18's hydraulic traverse could swing the turret 360 degrees in twenty seconds. Faster than any tank in the war. The 76mm gun could fire eight rounds per minute sustained. Faster than a Panther could reload.
What if you didn't aim?
What if you fired continuously while traversing across the entire column? Eleven tanks. Twenty yards apart. Two hundred yards of road. Sweep your gun across that space while firing as fast as the loader could slam rounds. Eight shots in thirty seconds. Some would miss. Some would hit. Chaos would be immediate. Germans couldn't return fire if they didn't know where you were aiming next.
Kowalski mentioned this to his commander, Lieutenant Marcus Webb. Webb said it violated every principle of tank destroyer doctrine. Wasted ammunition. Reduced accuracy from sixty percent to maybe twenty percent. Risked barrel overheating. Required firing without proper sight picture.
Webb's exact words: "Sergeant, that's the stupidest tactical concept I've ever heard. Fire discipline exists for a reason."
Kowalski nodded. Said nothing. Cleaned his gun. Thought about six dead crew members.
Now eleven Panthers were rolling toward his position outside Lunéville. Webb was two hundred yards behind him with the command tank. The radio was on. Webb could hear everything Kowalski did.
Time to find out if stupid tactics could kill eleven tanks in forty seconds.
Or if Kowalski would be dead in forty-one.