How did DIVISIONS deploy to fight?

[HarryInk]

Cheers all!

Well, I'm roaring along with my CMBB reading and it occurs to me that amidst text like:

"On the first day of the atack on Ponyri the railway embankment on the north-western edge of the village had been taken by the 292nd Division. Thereafter 18th and 9th Panzer Divisions clawed their way in Ponyri... " [from Robin Cross' Citadel: The Battle of Kursk

And so on and so on. In general, most of this histories I've read talk in divisions, rarely in regiments, and almost never in battalions or companies like we play. Divisions obviously deserve a little more understanding...

So, can anyone give me a little advice about how I can get a feel for how DIVISIONS were used in battle?

Cheers

[ July 22, 2003, 09:45 AM: Message edited by: HarryInk ]

[Schoerner]

To get a quite good impression of the scale and timing at divisional scale, i suggest you to take a look at HEARTS OF IRON.

There you'll have a lot of the influences that affect strategic decisions and everything will become clearer simply by playing a game.

btw: THE grand strategy game.

[Grisha]

By about mid 1942 the Soviets were consistently using two echelons in their divisional formations. For example, a rifle division would deploy two regiments in the first line, then the third regiment in the second line. The same deployment was used down at battalion and company. Typically, 1/9 of a division's force was placed in reserve, and this fraction was used as well at battalion and company level.

This deployment was for either attack or defense, and only the frontage/depth was altered in either posture.

[Andreas]

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.

[Grisha]

True, Andreas, but a single echelon was used most often in cases where either troop quality might be an issue (as at Yassy-Kishinev), or division strengths were low. And, then three divisions would be deployed, back-to-back, in three echelons. Otherwise, it was basically two.

[ July 22, 2003, 07:23 PM: Message edited by: Grisha ]

[Andreas]

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 ]

[Keith]

For the Germans, from 1942 onward, the infantry divisions became based around a two-battalion regiment due to heavy infantry casualties in Russia. What resulted was an inflexible formation, but to please Hitler divisions were not merged. The tactical ramification of have a two-battalion regiment is that all your troops are "up" with no reserve to reinforce a successful attack or rest a tired battalion.

[ July 28, 2003, 12:28 PM: Message edited by: Keith ]

[Keke]

Originally posted by Keith:

What resulted was an inflexible formation, but to please Hitler divisions were not merged. The tactical ramification of have a two-battalion regiment is that all your troops are "up" with no reserve to reinforce a successful attack or rest a tired battalion.

That is not quite true, since Germans formed regimental Kampfgruppen which were very flexible. Two battalion regiments meant nothing else but one battalion less in the regiment.

Edited to add that Finns hade the same system. Finnish 'Kampfgruppen' were called "Osasto" or "Taisteluosasto" (Detachment or Battle-Detachment).

[ July 28, 2003, 01:43 PM: Message edited by: Keke ]

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Keke:

That is not quite true, since Germans formed regimental Kampfgruppen which were very flexible. Two battalion regiments meant nothing else but one battalion less in the regiment.

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.

[Keke]

Andreas, sorry about my poor choise of words. Ofcourse a regiment with two Bns are weaker than a regiment with three Bns, and a division with two Bn regiments weaker than a division with three Bn regiments. It is so obvious fact that didn't bother mentioning it.

Naturally, if the division with the reduced amount of Bns is given *the same task* than the division with more Bns, it suffers from it (and unfortunately for Germans this was usually the case). What I like to point out though, is that German army regiments didn't operate with the same kind of rigid (note: doesn't mean less efficient) system than Soviet regiments, so they could keep up with the traditional "two up, one behind" deployment with proper regimental Kampfgruppen. See what I mean?

[ July 28, 2003, 02:58 PM: Message edited by: Keke ]

[Cogust]

I believe that the Germans reduced the amount of infantry battalions to INCREASE the firepower of the infantry. They certainly will have less infantry per division, but they will have more divisions instead (the missing battalion have to go somewhere). The firepower increase comes from the fact that they have more regimental and divisional support companies per infantry company.

A two battalion regiment has the same amount of support companies as a three battalion regiment, hence each battalion will be much better supported with fewer battalion per regiment than otherwise. Reducing the amount of infantry but keeping the firepower mostly intact (the firepower mostly comes from the regimental support companies, HMGs, mortars, Paks, IGs plus divisional artillery) makes a lot of sense if you are on the defensive. In the defence you want firepower and lots of it, not just manpower and strong maneuver elements as that's mostly needed on the offensive.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Cogust:

They certainly will have less infantry per division, but they will have more divisions instead (the missing battalion have to go somewhere).

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.

[Keke]

Originally posted by Andreas:

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.

It is a fact that Germans more willingly formed new divisions than reinforced old ones.

[Cogust]

Originally posted by Andreas:

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.

And your point with the above statement is what exactly? Just dodging my post by making joke or did I just express myself poorly (knowing myself and my English skills it could be either of the two )?

Of course the Germans had lost a lot of people, that's why they needed to reorganize their forces in the first place. They had to choose between reducing their amount of divisions or to reduce the strength of their divisions. THey chose the latter and did so no good grounds as that would weaken their firepower less than making the number of divisions smaller. The reason for this is that the heavy weapon to man ratio got higher after they eliminated every third rifle battalion but kept all the regmental and divisional support weapons. An army on the defensive (as the Germans were at the time of the reorganization) needs firepower more than it needs infantry manpower, and the firepower is mainly located in the heavy weapon companies, not in the infantry battalions.

The point is that by reducing the amount of infantry battalions they were able to have more heavy weapons companies and thus they retained a higher concentration of firepower. Each division is weaker (only slightly weaker, except on the attack where the lack of infantry would be troublesome), but the firepower of the total amount of divisions in the army is significantly higher than you would have if you kept the three-battalion regiment.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Keke:

It is a fact that Germans more willingly formed new divisions than reinforced old ones.

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.

[Cogust]

Originally posted by Andreas:

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.

That's not what I said, at least not what I meant. Of course they didn't remove battalions from the eastern front to construct new divisions, they reorganized their divisions into a different shape (both those on the eastern front that usually were horribly understrength and those newly formed).

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.

I disagree. So you say that by having less heavy weapons per infantry company each infantry company would somehow be able to hold a wider frontage? The number of men is constant either way, you don't get less soldiers by having fewer infantry battalions, you get different soldiers (more heavy weapons in this case). Heavy weapons can project their firepower over wider area and with more hitting power than infantry squads can. ISTR that a Landser using heavy weapons will cover more ground that the same Landers carrying a squad weapon. Would a German company benefit more on the defence from an extra HMG platoon (28 men in CM:BB) or from another rifle platoon (33 men in CM:BB)? I'd say the former.

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.

That depends. On the attack the division will be severely hampered by lack of infantry, but not as much if they are of the defensive.

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.

On the basis that they actually fired all those support weapons in reality, ammo shortages only became troublesome in 1945 when the Allies took control of and/or bombed more and more ammo factories and even then they were able to fire their weapons until they surrendered. Unless they were cut off of course, then ammo shortages would be more common for obvious reasons.

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.

I'd say that the Germans would have fared even worse if they hadn't increased their heavy weapon ratio. This way even severely understrength battalions could offer a credible defence as they had more HMGs, mortars and IGs per rifle man than their adversaries. The Allies had superior force ratios in all other areas, air, artillery and tanks and they had more infantry as well. The only thing that they didn't have that the Germans did was a high ratio of heavy weapons per rifle company.

By the way, not all divisions were reduced to six battalions in the regiments.

That's right, and those divisions (all SS divisions, a few special formations and a few infantry divisions still in the old pattern) were most oftenly used onthe offensive. The German infantry division had been relegated to line holding duty at the end of the war (as they weren't an efficient attacking force, much better on the defence) and almost all the divisional sized attacks in -43 and onwards were done by Panzer divisions along with Panzergrenadier divisions.

[Keke]

Originally posted by Andreas:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Keke:

It is a fact that Germans more willingly formed new divisions than reinforced old ones.

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?</font>

[Cogust]

Just to clarify.

I'm arguing that the move form three battalions per regiment to two battalions per regiment probably was a sensible decision. I'm not saying that the German habit of creating new units while letting the old divisions turn into hollow shells was a good one, quite the opposite as such a division have little or no staying power.

The ideal thing would be to reduce the amount of infantry battalions, to keep the rest of the divisions at something approaching full strenght. There might still be room for a few extra divisions, but not at the expense of the existing ones as was done historically.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by Cogust:

I disagree. So you say that by having less heavy weapons per infantry company each infantry company would somehow be able to hold a wider frontage? The number of men is constant either way, you don't get less soldiers by having fewer infantry battalions, you get different soldiers (more heavy weapons in this case).

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.

Originally posted by Cogust:

On the basis that they actually fired all those support weapons in reality, ammo shortages only became troublesome in 1945 when the Allies took control of and/or bombed more and more ammo factories and even then they were able to fire their weapons until they surrendered. Unless they were cut off of course, then ammo shortages would be more common for obvious reasons.

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.

[Sardaukar]

IMHO, when Germans reduced their regiments to 2 battaillon ones, that was tactically a big change. Since battaillon is mostly the smallest unit to be expected to achieve individual success and usually the bases for Kampfgruppe, reducing their numbers seriously limited the flexibility of Wehrmacht. Less playing chips, less options tactically.

Majority of blame for that can be traced both to Adolf Hitler and OKW/OKH, since even available manpower was extensively used to form new divisions, especially Luftwaffe Field Divisions and Waffen SS divisions.

Results were:

1. Not enough replacements to experienced units, causing dramatic drop on combat capability especially on 1944.

2. Committing manpower to new divisions without experienced core and officer/NCO corps, causing very bad combat experiences for those units.

3. Creating fake situational awareness in higher echelons, not based on true strength, but division numbers.

Well, if Germans absolutely had to reduce the number of battaillons, manpower should have gone into already existing units, not creating new battaillons in new units. Synergy of mixing raw troops with experienced and established organization is obvious, as it was during early WW 2 to Germans.

As it was discussed on this board too, breaking through enemy front lines was not a problem usually, barring difficult terrain and other geographical things or extensive fortifications. Exploiting the breakthrough was. Reducing the number of battaillons divisional commander had, he basicly had nothing to contain the breakthrough. Early war, Kampfgruppe was practical tool for Germans, later in war, it was necessity, since line units had no reserve to contain breakthroughs as would been in 2-1 deployment.

Cheers,

M.S.

[jrcar]

A good topic since its gone off the topic a bit

On the defense "depth" (the distance through which an enemy forces must fight before reaching purely support organisations with little combat power) and "coverage" (the length of front a unit can cover) is very important.

Coverage is provided by "sensors" (in ww2 human eyes, the key feature being at night) and the ability to reach out and touch something (weapon range and weapon effect). These are interrelated, there is no point having a weapon that can shoot further than you can sense (hence artillery have “forward observers”), and there is not much point if you can see the enemy, but can’t do anything about it. Therefore it is important to get the right mix of sensors and shooters. During the day in open ground a HMG is far more combat effective than a sub-machine gun, at night in the forest the opposite is true.

Depth can be provided by having lots of physical layers of defense (in a Division of 3 Regts you have may have 2 regts forward and one in depth, each regiment has 2 battalions forward and 1 in depth giving you 3-4 layers) or by having fewer sparser layers, but having increased firepower to provide the same or similar combat effect (slowing and killing the enemy). The use of obstacles significantly enhances your ability to create depth (and to a lessor extent extend coverage) as long as you can still cover them with sensors and weapons. This allows a platoon with obstacles to have a similar effect on the battlefield to a company without obstacles. The military mantra is space and time, create space and force the enemy to take as much time to cross it as possible.

The Germans choose (or was forced upon them, a moot point perhaps?) to have fewer physical “layers”, but to maintain the same firepower in a 2 Bn regt as a 3 Bn Regt. This makes a great deal of sense where you have the industrial capacity to create the weapons that produce the firepower (principally artillery in an infantry division), and diminishing human resources. An additional benefit of this is that it is cheaper to train say an artillerymen than an infantryman (especially in a country that had, by the standards of the time, well educated citizens), and you can use people that would not make good infantry (ie hearing defects…), thereby optimizing your human resources.

On a side note one thing that I found disappointing in CMBO, and to a lessor extent in CMBB, was on defence people buy lots of infantry, and few obstacles. This I think is a symptom that infantry are too cheap, or obstacles too expensive.

BTW Hi Conny .

Cheers

Rob

[c3k]

Gents,

As to this whole 6 battalion division thing. OF COURSE a 6 battalion division is not as capable as a 9 battalion division. Now, the Germans needed to reduce their divisions to 6 battalions. Don't get in a snit about how or why or whether that was a good decision. That's what they did. The next problem was how to organize them.

The previous formations had 9 battalions. To ease manpower shortages and create new divisions, it'd be easier to just take a singly regiment away from each of 2 divisions and use these as the backbone of a new division. Just add some divisional support elements. Presto! It's quick, it's easy, and it didn't work. They tried.

Precisely because each of the divisions only had 2 main maneuver elements/support echelons: the regiment. The divisions which had 6 battalions in 2 regiments didn't hold up as well as the 6 battalion THREE regiment divisions. The reason was the aforementioned ratio of supporting arms for each rifleman.

So, divisions of 3 regiments each of 2 battalions was better than those of 2 regiments each of 3 battalions.

Please carry on.

Ken

[Michael Emrys]

Do I correctly understand that the Germans took a platoon out of the company at the same time they took a battalion out of the regiment?

Michael

[jrcar]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

Do I correctly understand that the Germans took a platoon out of the company at the same time they took a battalion out of the regiment?

Michael

Without referencs to hand, yes about the same time... but they increased the number of automatic weapons thereby giving roughly the same combat power.

Cheers

Rob

[Cogust]

Originally posted by 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.[/quote)

Of course you have less men if you've only got 2/3rds of the infantry strength, that's quite obvious isn't it? But that is for each individual division, overall the number of bodies would be the same, either you got drafted or you didn't, the number of battalions in the divisions didn't influence the number of soldiers in the Wehrmacht as you could either keep a higher field strength in the divisions (not allowing them to become shells) or you could crete more divisions. The result would be that each division would have less manpower, almost the same fire power and would cover less of the front than a division with three battalions per regiment as there would be more divisions covering the front.

And von Mellenthin says that his forces were well supplied in all respects way into 1945, he was particularly pleased with the German artillery during the Normandy fighting. You can find incident to prove almost everything during WWII, but I'd say that overall ammunition wasn't terribly lacking, quite the opposite as the German army kept happily adding automatic weapons and support weapons to their infantry units to keep firepower high while manpower dropped.

[ July 29, 2003, 01:27 AM: Message edited by: Cogust ]