US tank tactics were governed, in practice, by the terrain and the enemy as much as the quality of equipment, so they developed markedly between November 1942 and May 1945. When the United States entered the ground war against Germany and Italy in North Africa in November 1942, both a proportion of its armored equipment, and the doctrine on how to use it in battle, were immature, and its crews were novices compared with those of the battle-hardened Panzer formations. The fighting in French North Africa taught the US Army costly lessons, but these were learned rapidly. The campaigns that followed in Sicily and Italy in 1943 demanded further tactical adaptation, and this was doubly true in the extremely thick terrain of Normandy in summer 1944.
