21 PD Goodies Redux

[John Kettler]

Any grogs and/or modders with an interest in 21 PD (the one that had all the converted French armor in it) will find this March 6, 2006 E-mail of interest. This is heavy duty research done to support a 21 PD scenario pack Kingfish was doing. Some links now appear dead but may be resurrectable via the Wayback Engine.

Kingfish,

Here's the Marder I I just mentioned in model form

http://www.missing-lynx.com/gallery/german/marderi_sdwyer.html

Per Hart & Hart's GERMAN TANKS OF WORLD WAR II, page 27, 200th Assault Gun Battalion consisted of "45 Marder Is in five batteries." Pages 25-27 cover Becker and his conversions.

Think I broke the code! "Ho" = Hotchkiss, as in H-39 chassis. If you go to

www.wehrmacht.org

and search under Tank Regiment 100 in the 21. Armored division -link's a mile long, but found it by Googling "baustab becker"-, you'll find a detailed OOB and a discussion of where the unit was, derived from a whole book on 21 PD. The baustab becker term will kick up a review of an HPS game featuring 21 PD in Normandy. OOB's apparently highly detailed. Halfway down this link, you'll find a fabulous writeup on what the Germans did with captured French AFVs, to include a detailed list of types serving in 21 PD.

http://www.forum.fun-online.sk/viewtopic.php?p=52845&highlight=

Here are the tech specs for the two vehicles in question

http://www.wwiivehicles.com/germany/foreign/gw_fcm.html

Further digging indicates that I was wrong. There was indeed an LeFH16, both per the table and per Gander and Chamberlain's WEAPONS OF THE THIRD REICH.

The top three images here are all apparently Marder Is, each on a different chassis.

http://www.achtungpanzer.bos.ru/marder.htm

Further confirmation of this assertion is here.

http://www.network54.com/Forum/47207/thread/1066416701/Marder+I+%28Lorraine%29+on+the+Eastern+Front-

Here is another fine discourse on the topic, to include 21 PD.

http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=6135

Jackpot! 21 PD organization charts, tables, manning lists, etc. Extracts from research material for Zetterling's NORMANDY 1944. Main site has a good operational map, too.

http://web.telia.com/~u18313395/normandy/gerob/gerob.html

This is the FCM chassis conversion, apparently under construction. Note how thin the plates are.

http://ostpanzer.asty.ru/topics/sp_guns/french-shassis/75pakfcm/

Regards,

John Kettler

[akd]

Maybe should have checked those 2006 links...

[John Kettler]

akd,

Most of them do work. Having one or two not work after sol long is to be expected.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ASL Veteran]

FYI John, I'm not sure if you are aware of this or not, but many times when you post links (and I don't click on all of them by any means) the ones I do check happen to get blocked by my data mask program as phishing sites or sites looking for data entry. Before clicking on some of your more recent links I had zero phishing or data entry sites and after you posted some links my data mask program said I was protected from twelve phishing targets and one online data entry field.

I get the impression that when some of these sites load up there are a lot of 'extra' programs / ads / whatever that load along with the site. This only seems to happen to me when you post links for some reason. It happens repeatedly with your links. I don't recall having this issue with any other poster.

[Ts4EVER]

A while back I read a 21st Panzer status report from April 1944. What stood out to me was that besides all the converted tanks they also had lots of non standard infantry weapons, including:

G98 rifles

Berthier Rifles

French smgs

MG26(t)