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German Panzer Grenadier doctrine


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In the case of the German Army research is usually pretty easy since most of the German Army's field manuals and handbooks were written by experienced Officers and instructors with lots of practical fighting experience under their belt. This may sound like a given, but in many armies the quality of instruction and advice printed or otherwise could be pretty dubious at times. Some armies printed entire booklets of nothing but Our Dear and Perfect Leader's quotes and anecdotes and were full of otherwise worthless advice for fighting on a battlefield much less a modern one. 

The consequences of all this though have been for the history and military history communities to fixate on the German Army and its details to the omission of others simply owing to the wealth of easily accessible, quality information printed by it and on it. This has the effect I think of causing game designers to try and make every Army play like the Wehrmacht even if completely outside a given Army's "character" so to speak. 

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On 12/24/2019 at 2:22 PM, lsailer said:

You probably all follow this guy on youtube already, but anyway... 

+ 1.  Interesting.  I just watched it again for the third time between the BFC forums and the Few Good Men site :D.   According to rule number 25 it sounds like grenadiers did, sometimes, fight from inside the vehicle.  At least that's what the bulletin advised.  I think number 30 is basically saying monitor your f#$%ing radio!  Some things never change along with drivers falling asleep while at a brief stop #11 & #12. :lol:    

Edited by MOS:96B2P
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On 1/17/2020 at 12:51 AM, MOS:96B2P said:

+ 1.  Interesting.  I just watched it again for the third time between the BFC forums and the Few Good Men site :D.   According to rule number 25 it sounds like grenadiers did, sometimes, fight from inside the vehicle.  At least that's what the bulletin advised.  I think number 30 is basically saying monitor your f#$%ing radio!  Some things never change along with drivers falling asleep while at a brief stop #11 & #12. :lol:    

I actually disagree with that interpretation of rule 25, somewhat. 

"Dismount only when Anti-tank gun fire or terrain forces you to do so, and no bypass is possible"

If you watch that translated training film:


In particular, watch what they're actually doing, rather than what the translation says they're doing.

The panzergrenadier platoon is being used as a quick reaction force, supporting a Panzer platoon, and with some attached flame halftracks. The scenario is that of a breakthrough, and the panzergrenadiers are there to cut it off and shut it down.

In the film (obviously it's staged, but presumably it's at least as applicable as a US training film), the Panzers take fire from hull down on an overlooking ridge, and the halftracks flank and isolate the infantry to clean up. The priority is to clean this up as fast as possible - which also makes the flame halftracks make a ton of sense (will get back to that).

In that scenario, if you were to dismount as soon as possible, the infantry would have taken position behind the ridgeline, and the enemy would have been engaged relatively safely. The issue is that there's a fair chance that the action it wouldn't have been decisive, and instead the enemy follow-on forces could have reinforced. Keeping them mounted until they arrive in combat forces them to be a lot more dynamic and bold with mobility, and creates a decisive situation.

Point about Flame halftracks - rubbish? In the film, the panzergrenadier platoon is accompanied by two flame halftracks, which are shown to have the limited range we see in CM. The point of them, I think, is that they're there to mop up the last shreds of resistance fast, and make sure no-one is around for when the main infantry re-take the line. They're not there as an assault element, and the range doesn't matter quite as much - the battle is already won, and you just need to make sure that the ground is safe.

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There is a con to Germany's aufkragstaktik that is not normally brought up though. Namely, the hands-off and occasionally outright weak control field commanders exert over their subordinates led to a number of instances of German Officers and Leaders mindlessly charging much stronger Allied positions and suffering massacres as a result. It encouraged a bit of wild recklessness and that didn't always pay off. 

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4 hours ago, domfluff said:

"Dismount only when Anti-tank gun fire or terrain forces you to do so, and no bypass is possible"

If you watch that translated training film:

Keeping them mounted until they arrive in combat forces them to be a lot more dynamic and bold with mobility, and creates a decisive situation.

+1 another interesting video.  This one I've seen before. 

There have been forum threads where people debated if the Germans generally fought from their half-tracks or dismounted.    I suspect much of the difference of opinion on the issue was caused by the change in German doctrine on fighting from half-tracks.  I didn't realize there had been a change until watching the video General Jack posted.  The book "Panzer Operations" by Erhard Raus possibly referred to a change in how half-tracks were used (I failed to highlighted his brief somewhat anecdotal comment  in my Kindle and now, of course, can't find it).  In any case, early or late war, it must have been situational and determined by the Officer In Charge (OIC).  

I've always been of the opinion that it was a bad idea to attempt to fight from German half-tracks in Combat Mission.  Maybe I'll give it another try :D.  

 

3 hours ago, General Jack Ripper said:

Man, remember when YouTube had video responses?

+1 My friend.  Thanks for posting that video.  I'd seen the mention of this video before but never watched it until you posted it.  Interesting stuff.  I think I'll look for more videos by this guy.  

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2 minutes ago, MOS:96B2P said:

Thanks for posting that video.  I'd seen the mention of this video before but never watched it until you posted it.  Interesting stuff.  I think I'll look for more videos by this guy.  

Might be his best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNjp_4jY8pY

 

In general, he's a tanker who knows his stuff. He's also a consultant for World of Tanks, which biases some of it, but that's generally a minor problem.

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On 1/20/2020 at 9:06 AM, domfluff said:

That's definitely an issue though - it's a high-commitment tactic, and one which can fail badly. There can be advantage in gaining the initiative, so I can see why.

 

Exactly, and in the opposite direction there were plenty of times German units withdrew without orders too. While plenty frontline of commanders were absolutely right to beat it while they could regardless of what Hitler and OKH were screeching there were in fact, plenty of Officers abandoning strong positions for no good reason. This led to more than a few disasters as well when withdrawing German formations were overtaken by advancing Russian columns, turning a withdrawal into a rout...

If accounts of the Eastern Front were taken at face value all the time one would be led to think T-34s were growing on trees, swimming in lakes, and even hiding under the bed. Naturally this all got a lot harder as German Armies were pushed westwards, getting further from Stalin's guns but closer and closer to Nazi hangmen ready to make examples out of deserters, real or perceived...😐

Edited by SimpleSimon
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On 1/20/2020 at 12:51 PM, domfluff said:

Point about Flame halftracks - rubbish? In the film, the panzergrenadier platoon is accompanied by two flame halftracks, which are shown to have the limited range we see in CM. The point of them, I think, is that they're there to mop up the last shreds of resistance fast, and make sure no-one is around for when the main infantry re-take the line. They're not there as an assault element, and the range doesn't matter quite as much - the battle is already won, and you just need to make sure that the ground is safe.

I think you're right. The halftracks would be a means to quickly cover a lot of ground covered in hundreds of foxholes, and blast each one with a short burst of flame. Basically "cleansing" the whole area.

I'm still not convinced that they had so short range though. In this clip, we only see then firing at short range, but that might also be for safety reasons in shooting a training film...

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You might well be right. Still, it's hard to find solid, conclusive evidence to the contrary (there's some bits and pieces, as per the other thread), and the short ranged ones can be used for the above. They're still not amazing, but they do make some sense.

Prior to mopping up they still have their MG, so I suspect that's their primary role most of the time.

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On 1/20/2020 at 12:51 PM, domfluff said:

If you watch that translated training film:

 

Hmmm the translations seem to be a bit off. At 00:50, a shell comes in, and the guy says "Zu kurz", which means "too short", as in "the shell fell short". But it's translated as "Too close" as if he were getting nervous.

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Depends if shell is traveling faster than speed of sound.  Some do some don't.

 

Also:

Answered Jan 30, 2018 · Author has 1.8k answers and 462.2k answer views
 

The whole “explosives make a whistling sound” theme came from WWII, where countries intentionally put whistles on bombs primarily for the terror factor that the sound commanded by its association. The bombs fell too fast for anyone to escape once you could hear the sound, so there were no real drawbacks to it.

However in modern times we no longer put whistles on bombs or any other weapons. A faulty part might whistle due to resonance effects, but even then that would be extremely rare. In movies flying explodey things are often portrayed as making a whistling sound but this is merely a throwback to the WWII bombs, which people still accept simply because of how effective it originally was as a terror tactic and how deeply entrenched that association has become in society.

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So as mentioned I'm suspicious of the translation. I think it's also important to take it for what it is - a highly staged and idealised training film. I think it's worth comparing this to the US films of a similar nature, which are abstract and "biased", but still contain some useful information, at least in the broad strokes.

So for this, I'd assume that the action depicted is not an impossibility. It might be on the wrong scale (although I'm not sure about that), or overly optimistic, that kind of thing, but presumably the make-up of forces isn't stupid, which means it's useful to try to understand why they're being used in that way.

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10 hours ago, Erwin said:

However in modern times we no longer put whistles on bombs or any other weapons. A faulty part might whistle due to resonance effects, but even then that would be extremely rare.

I remember reading Danish WW1 memoirs where they would sometimes notice that an incoming shell made a different sound than usual. They called them "blindgængere" (literally something like 'blind walkers') because the droning sound they made was due to the shell losing its payload during flight, so it would not be dangerous.

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18 minutes ago, domfluff said:

So as mentioned I'm suspicious of the translation. I think it's also important to take it for what it is - a highly staged and idealised training film.

Yes, we should not take training films as historical documentation, but I still think that because it's a film designed to teach new soldiers, it's interesting they have that scene that clearly seems designed to teach that "when you hear an incoming shell, duck down in your trench, then stand up again with a smile, no big deal"

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11 minutes ago, Splinty said:

From experience, rockets make a high pitched, squealing sound as they fall. Mortars are silent, other than if the mortar is close enough, you can hear the thump of the bomb leaving the tube.

 Would you be able to say what is audible with artillery shells? Do they “whistle” before striking or are they silent (aside from if one can hear them be fired of course).

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My FOB was never hit by artillery. I did take artillery fire during Desert Storm, but there was so much noise from tanks firing and small arms that I don't recall any sound other than the impacts, which were cut off rather abruptly by our counter battery fires.

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On 1/21/2020 at 12:17 PM, SimpleSimon said:

If accounts of the Eastern Front were taken at face value all the time one would be led to think T-34s were growing on trees, swimming in lakes, and even hiding under the bed. Naturally this all got a lot harder as German Armies were pushed westwards, getting further from Stalin's guns but closer and closer to Nazi hangmen ready to make examples out of deserters, real or perceived...😐

A large part of that is when the Russians used tanks they used them in mass.  So any poor slob going up against a T34 was usually going up against a lot of them.

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