Andreas

What I am saying is that by having more bodies on the ground, they would be better able to hold the ground, and more flexible in responding to an attack. They would not have less firepower, but more manpower, and would therefore be a more capable formation. The firepower of the division would be exactly the same. I would be interested in the maths by which a division has a constant manpower with 6 and 9 battalions. I would have thought that you have 1/3rd less soldiers by having 1/3rd less battalions. I am afraid this statement is quite incorrect. Just this weekend I read up on Anzio-Nettuno in the relevant 'Wehrmacht im Kampf' volume, and lack of artillery ammunition runs through the account of the battle, and is seen as one of the main reasons for the failure of the counterattacks. That was in January 1944. While I can not dig out the sources, I am reasonably certain that supply shortages were not uncommon from 1942 onwards.

Yes, so we are to assume then that all those newly formed infantry divisions in 1942 were formed from the full-strength battalions that the full-strength divisions fighting in the East had to give up for this purpose. Or should we not rather assume that this economising was simply realising on paper the reality of the force, i.e. that the divisions were in effect so far below strength, and available manpower so low that they would never be able to be rebuilt? Cogust - you stated that new divisions were formed from the battalions that the existing divisions 'lost' (I don't think they lost anything in reality, just something they no longer had was lost on paper), because those battalions had to go somewhere - my post was providing a more likely explanation, i.e. that the battalions simply had ceased to exist. As for your idea that firepower is all that matters - well it is not. In defense, almost more so than in attack, manpower is a crucial issue, if you insist on covering long lines, as the Germans did. Otherwise you open yourself up to constant infiltration, and as soon as your opponent becomes more mobile, to flanking moves. Which is precisely what happened to the German infantry divisions. Whether a reduction by 1/3rd of the infantry means the division is 'only slightly weaker', well, I happen to disagree with that quite strongly. Such a division 'lite' is a castrate, IMO and nothing more. Regarding the firepower issue - you are of course assuming that the Germans actually had the guns and ammunition to keep all these fire support elements in all those divisions fully supplied and up to strength. On what basis? If you look at the number (and quality) of guns available by mid-war, I don't think there were enough to go round to kit out all the formations, even with captured stock thrown in. I think the whole argument does not wash, one way or the other. Famed German abilities to produce Kampfgruppen ad-hoc, higher firepower, all not very convincing if you actually look at the effect it had on the ground. The decision may have seemed logical to someone at the time (I doubt even that), but it was the wrong one, IMO. By the way, not all divisions were reduced to six battalions in the regiments.

The missing battalions had indeed gone somewhere. They were under birch crosses in Russia, or maimed and unfit to serve back in the Reich. Where they did not go was into new divisions.

Re: Panthers - after a bit of digging, Jentz and the divisional history have thrown up the following. 13. PD's PR4 had three Abteilungen in 1942/3 during the push to the Caucasus. The division was then almost destroyed during the retreat into the Kuban bridgehead, and was reformed on the Krim. I./PR4 was taken away, to be converted to sPzAbt.507 in October 1943. III./PR4 was by this time also away, then converting to Panthers in France, and renamed I./PR4. This formation never returned to PR4. So, at the time of Iassy, PR4 would have had one Abteilung only, known as Panzerabteilung Gehrig. 13.PD was not unusual in having only one Abteilung - 12.PD suffered a similar fate.

Ahem - it certainly means that your division can cover less ground effectively, that it has less power to sustain combat operations, and it severely increases the strain on the force. If a six-battalion division is just the same as a nine-battalion division, then why do we still have a triangular base formation today? The effects would have been quite pronounced. The regimental KGs would be a lot weaker than otherwise, and forming ad-hoc KGs on the basis of support units would be more difficult, because these were often beefed up by adding rifle companies from the main regiments. But these no longer had any to spare. The true effect of this was a vicious circle, over time severely eroding the combat capabilities of the German infantry. To make up for the lack of 1/3rd of the infantry, gunners and other specialised units would be fed into the line - with obvious consequences for the capabilities of these specialised units when the losses mounted. The Feldersatzbatallion (if present at all) would again just become a line formation, to make up for the lack of rifle companies, destroying the system of training under frontline conditions, but not in the frontline. Reserves would be created on an ad-hoc basis by forming Alarmkompanien from whoever could hold a rifle - these were certainly not the best way of handling a local crisis. IMO, the decision to remove the three battalions from the division was almost certainly the wrong way to go about things, because it saddled the Wehrmacht infantry with a force structure that no longer allowed it to contribute in any significant form to combat operations, while forcing a massive overhead onto the whole army that must have had severe logistical impacts. Complaints about the lack of staying power of the early two-regiment formations (Gebirgsjaeger) are found from 1941 onwards. Lacking a third regiment, the division were constantly scraping the bottom of the barrel to fulfill their mission. I see no reason why a two-battalion regiment, compared to a three-battalion one, would not be in the same situation. To say that it meant nothing more than removing a battalion strikes me as a very rose-tinted view of things.

Got your email. I would try to use 'sneak' to withdraw in situation 2. Have you tried that? Also, it is a different situation from the one you were testing for.

Right, after a few days in Bella Italia, now a bit more of an exhaustive answer, since nobody else came up with one. This may not be entirely correct, but may make things clearer. The division I use as an example is the standard German infantry division of the early war. Divisions consist of two elements - 'teeth' and 'tail'. Teeth units are all combat formations within the division, and could be split into main combat (infantry/tanks and artillery) and combat support (organic recce, pioneers, AT with more specialist tasks). Tail units are there to keep the organisation functioning, by supplying it with goods needed to keep it fighting, treating the wounded, police jobs, signals work, etc. In my example, the division consists of the following combat elements: Main 3x infantry regiment (mainly on foot, but one cycle company per regiment, and regimental support can be motorised) 1x Artillery regiment (3 batteries, two of them horse-drawn, one motorised) Combat support 1x Recce battalion (motorised, maybe even some armoured cars) 1x Pioneer battalion (motorised) 1x AT battalion (motorised) 1x Field replacement battalion Depending on the form of combat that a division is engaged in, the teeth elements will have different roles. I just classify combat into two major classes, 'mobile' and 'static'. The former is when the division either pursues an enemy, or retreats from one. The latter is defense or attack with less movement. In mobile combat, a division will use its mobile elements to either scout ahead (pursuit) or screen its retreat. So, in pursuit, a division may organise a forward detachment from its motorised formations. In retreat, it may organise a rear-guard from them. In both cases, these maybe supported by the motorised artillery battery (the heavy 15cm howitzers). In static combat, the combat support elements would be used for secondary tasks - provide AT security to the main line of defense, provide pioneer work support, provide flank screening and rear-area security for the recce people, and all of them may be called on to beef up the infantry fighting component. The main power of the divison, the infantry and the artillery will do most of the fighting. They will usually be in a 2-up formation, meaning that two of the regiments are in the line, and one in reserve. This would however depend on the intensity of the combat. The artillery would always be 'on the line'. Within this, any number of variations are possible. An important thing to note though is that the number of soldiers in the infantry units, compared to those in the artillery, support, and 'tail', was small. This means that a few days of heavy combat could bleed a division of 15,000 men white, rendering it near incapable to continue combat operations, even though total casualties were seemingly 'small', say 2,500 men. This would actually be a serious level of casualties, and would mean that there is barely a rifleman left standing at the end of combat operations. Although many of these wounded would be lightly wounded, so they would return quickly, this could, and did present problems to the Germans, who had a policy of not taking their divisions as a whole out of the line to rebuild them, at least in the east. Divisions had their depots at home, and would receive replacements (and recoverees from serious wounds/illnesses) from there. I believe the British Army worked on a similar basis, although if a particular battalion had high casualties, it could be made up by a draft from a different regiment (not something I want to get into now). The Soviets by comparison just bled them white, and would then rebuild the division around what was left standing, mostly the artillery and staff components, after pulling them out of the line. The US had (until the last few months in 1945) what must have been the worst system, with units not being taken out of the line, and no organised replacement system tied to a unit, meaning that replacements were left to fend for themselves, being sent to the line in drips and drops. [ July 28, 2003, 04:16 PM: Message edited by: Andreas ]

If you speak German - www.lexikonderwehrmacht.de is the ticket.

Jon, go away, you should have enough to play with. Thanks for the report on FD Kutuzov, BTW. re: why no Panthers? ISTR (away from my books) that 13.PD had just come from some horrific battle in the spring, and was being rebuilt. It was not one of the high priority panzer divisions, and had been in constant action before, IIRC, which means it was difficult to withdraw one Abteilung for retraining into the Reich earlier. It is possible that at this stage one Abteilung was back in the Reich switching. The low total number of MBTs would indicate that. I will check when I am back in London.

BTW - anyone, (especially US Marines ) who believes the Soviets did not adapt tactically, and relied on mass/firepower alone, is advised to do a websearch for the US Marine Corps Gazette (I think, the link is in the general briefing to my Scenario "A morning commute", part of the stalingrad pack available on Boots & Tracks) article "Irrepressible in action", which explains the development of Soviet assault group tactics in Stalingrad. Tactics which the wehrmacht tried to overcome through (you guessed it) mass and firepower, and demonstrably failed at it.

nah, just trying to spice forum life up a bit

Ugh agh ugh. Another thread moved. w00t!

Hehe - got it moved through direct appeal to Martin (thanks!), and sneakily got Dandelion to post in the CMBB forum. Muhahahahahaha

Warren, over most of the time-frame I would agree that the Germans did not make that much difference in fighting. Where I would disagree with your assessment is during the last six weeks or so - when German soldiers were surrendering en masse in the west, they were still fighting hard in the east, trying to escape into western captivity. There also was no Breslau or Berlin that the western allies had to deal with, and the Prague Operation took place mostly after the surrender - officially AG Centre surrendered only May 11th, but there seems to have been some fighting even after that. Another difference seems to have been that the Volkssturm in the east actually did fight. If you read western unit histories (I have mostly read British ones), it is quite clear that after the Rhine crossing there were occasional very hard clashes, but they were the exception, rather than the rule. While in the east, fighting continued on high intensity beyond the surrender.

Great link, and very interesting stuff. Thanks for that. Looks like a nightmare area to attack through.

Thanks for that most intelligent, deep, and well thought-through contribution.

Thanks for that most intelligent, deep, and well thought-through contribution.

Grisha, there may have been some exceptions to this rule (wouldn't do to have the Red Army shown as a bunch of automatons, now would it? ) I can find at least one, 333rd Rifle Division in the Iassy-Kishinev Operation attacked with all three regiments up. In the same Corps, the other division attacked as you describe, two up.

Bump

Bump

Warren, unfortunately I do not have the number - I am also not sure if anyone has it, because you are looking at the period of build-up in this time. I.e. at best you end up with an average. Do the figures you have posted include sick/accident cases? Just wanted to comment on this one as well - it is of course only half the picture. Following the break-through battle in which mass was applied, the Red Army from summer 1944 became very adept at the hell-for-leather exploitation. To a degree that if Patton had gotten over his loathing for Communism, he would probably have made a decent Tank Army commander, and may have felt right at home there. During the Vistula-Oder Operation, Soviet forces advanced something like 500 or so km in three weeks. They did no longer bother to encircle anyone, but just left pockets of resistance or fortified towns behind, knowing they could not hurt them and would sooner or later fall to them anyway (Nehring's 'Wandering Pocket' probably being the most famous of these). Being able to undertake these extremely complex operations was the key to the Red Army's success in the big offensives of 1944/5. Just being able to mass the formations for the breakthrough was one thing. To then be able to follow this up with the tank armies, and thereby really 'destroy' the German formations, instead of just pushing them ahead, was the clincher that led to the extremely high losses of the Germans in summer 1944. This follow-up was something that by comparison the western allies were relatively bad at - they did not manage to prevent the escape of significant numbers of Germans at Falaise, Breskens, Anzio, from southern France, and in the Ardennes. All events at the same time or just before the Red Army destroyed 23 divisions in Bagration, another 18 totally and 3 partially in Rumania, and at least part of another AK in Brody, North Ukraine.

In terms of overview, I would rather go for 'When titans clash' by Glantz, ISTR that Clark wrote his book mainly based on German sources, because the Soviet archives were not open then.

Ah okay - that is beginning to make sense to me now (doesn't mean much ) - the breakthrough area was separated by a lake, it would make sense to keep a strong force back, instead of committing them early, and risking them ending up on the wrong side of the lake.

Bit controversial suggestion, isn't it? I remember Justin's statement on his Berlin book 'It's boring, and that's official.'

Well, they never managed to overwhelm or encircle the withdrawing Germans, so it was really a pursuit battle, not one fought to destruction. While the Soviets had to fight units that were defending themselves literally to the last man. Also, while the terrain was certainly claustrophobic in some areas (but not all, if you have ever been to the Ardennes), it was certainly not MOUT. So I still reject your argument that the numbers can be compared. Type of battle in both stages (defense/pursuit vs. breakthrough/destruction), type of terrain (wooded/open countryside vs. wooded/city), and type of outcome (regain old frontline/enemy escapes vs. capturing a city/total destruction of the enemy) are all fundamentally different, and make this absolutely non-comparable. Try Normandy as a comparison, you may convince me there.