What are the different units in the game?

[lcm1947]

I am totally confused or should say ignorant of what the different types of infantry in the game are. It may not even be important to play the game but seeing that I am a very inquisitive kind of guy I would love to know what these types are for or do. I mean why so many of them. You have your Jager units, your Grenadier, your Fusilier, your Aufklarungs not to mention your Pioneer, etc. Anyway, I don't expect anybody should go to the trouble of describing them all to me but that would be great, no what I was hoping for was if anybody knew of a site or someplace I could find a even brief description of them. It's hard to know what to pick if you don't know what they were intended for or what they are best at. I tried comparing them but other then the number of men in a particular squad or a few different or less weapons you really can't figure anything out about them. Any help would be appreciated. I'm sure I'm not the only one wondering - I hope anyway.

[Dan5681]

well as far as I know (and many know a lot more) it goes like this...

Pioneers are Engineers

Jeager are Light infantry

Auk...them, there Recon

erm grenadiers I dont really know I think those and the Fusiliers are basic infantry types.

Somtimes Companys of Inf look the same the trick is to buy a Battalion and look at the differences there. Hope I help mate oh yeah and if not try here... Fieldgrua website

Dan

[Maj. Battaglia]

Well, there's this thread in the CM:BO forum now:

Types of infantry

This covers the Germans in CM:BO and many of them translate over to CM:BB. As for the Soviets, I don't have a link for you, but I bet someone will be along shortly.

[Joachim]

2nd that

Grenadier were historically crack heavy infantry attack troops, sometimes armed with grenades (sic!). Guess that's why there name was chosen to denote the armored breakthru troops.

Jaeger (lit: hunter) were (historically) light skirmishers. Jaeger-Regiment sounds better than Light infantry regiment.

IIRC Füsiliere were historically (30-years war or evenolder) standard line troops with firearms. Not crack, but still line troops. My french ain't good enough, but IIRC it stems from a French word. It's exact meaning might clarify things.

Aufklärung is Recon, they are usually a bit low in manpower, but armed more heavily to make up for that (only if you buy a btn! ->Hvy wpns Coy). Their task was to seize and defend terrain till the rest of the divsion arrived, not to hold it for long (at least in theory ).

The later Volksgrenadier-Divisons and their VG or Füsilier Coys were to remind of the glorious past. Claiming that the new organization was to honour something, not necessary because of lack in men and equipment.

And of course, the other branches like Luftwaffe and Waffen-SS had their own organizations - even if it was just to show that you are different (Starting in '42, the Waffen-SS got better equipped as the Allgemeine SS controlled more and more factories (e.g. slave labor camps, factory owners or high ranking corporate staff as members because they got privileges (like family members not to be sent to the Ostfront)).

The Luftwaffe unsuccessfuly tried to make up for lack of manpower thru more heavy weapons, so I guess this is in the game.

Security is for rear area duty, where you usually don't need heavy weapons or (heavy) AT equipment. There are usually two btn types: Those with and those without the HW Coy. Probably depending on the type of rear area - in France you would not expect tanks and big partisan formations, in some parts of Russia the partisans had tanks, when whole formations were cut off and joined the partisans.

Gebirgstruppen are mountain troops, usually equipped to fit combat in the mountains - many light IGs as long range arty might hit a mountain on its flight, few ATGs, of course with skiing equipment.

Gruß

Joachim

[Screaming Flea]

Come to think of it, what are those "Sturm truppen" that appear later in the game!? Are they the "uber trooper" of the German Infantry?? They are listed among the Grenadier units but are more expensive.

They pack a heck of a lot of firepower (4xMP44, 3x schreks and a tank killer pack).

[Jakob]

Originally posted by Dan5681:

Hope I help mate oh yeah and if not try here... Fieldgrua website

Dan

Small correction. The website is located at: Feldgrau

Definitions taken from Feldgrau:

Fusilier: An historic German term often used to refer to heavy infantry units, original refering to the type of weapon carried of the same name. During WWII used to name infantry formations with some recon abilities that replaced an infantry division's recon battalion mid-war when the Germans reduced the number of standard infantry battalions in their divisions from 9 to 6.

Grenadier: An historic German term often used to refer to heavy infantry units, originally refering to the task and type of weapon carried, in this case hand thrown explosives (now known as grenades). Early in WWII used to refer to certain units to signify their elite status. On 15th October 1942 all German regular infantry regiments were renamed as Grenadier-Regimenter in the hopes of increasing their morale by establishing links to their elite counter-part units of the past. Grenadier was also used later in WWII to refer to the basic level of German soldier in an infantry unit. Instead of simply being a Gefreiter one became a Grenadier. Other resurrected historic terms were Fusilier Jäger and Musketier.

Jäger: If used in conjunction with other unit types it indicated the infantry component of that general type, such as Fallschirmjäger, Gebirgsjäger or Skijäger. When used in its hunting sense jäger did not necessarily imply infantry. Thus Panzerjäger meant anti-tank or tank hunter and not armored infantry. Also refers to a term put into use in 1942 to help boost the morale of light infantry units

[Phemur]

Fusilier: An historic German term often used to refer to heavy infantry units, original refering to the type of weapon carried of the same name.

I'm no linguistics expert, but I'm going to disagree with this definition until I get the sources from the website.

The sources I've checked, Fusilier is actually a French term meaning rifleman. It's derived from the word Fusil, which is the French word for firearm (pistols, rifles, etc). Fusil-mitrailleur, for example, means machine gun.

Fusil itself is derived from the latin word "focilis", which means fire stone or flint stone.

The fusil was the striking plate on very old fire arms, and the term was generalized to emcompass most personal firearms.

[Edit: Fixed some incorrectly spelled words)

Phemur

[ July 04, 2003, 04:14 PM: Message edited by: Phemur ]

[Joachim]

Originally posted by Phemur:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> Fusilier: An historic German term often used to refer to heavy infantry units, original refering to the type of weapon carried of the same name.

I'm no linguistics expert, but I'm going to disagree with this definition until I get the sources from the website.

The sources I've checked, Fusilier is actually a French term meaning rifleman. It's derived from the word Fusil, which is the French word for firearm (pistols, rifles, etc). Fusil-mitrallieur, for example, means machine gun.

Fusil itself is derived from the latin word "focilis", which means fire stone or flint stone.

The fusil was the striking plate on very old fire arms, and the term was generalized to emcompass personal firearms in general.

Phemur </font>

[lcm1947]

Man, it never ceases to amaze me at the accumulative amount of knowledge of this forum. Many thanks to all the replys and information not to mention sites. That pretty well explained everything I wanted to know. Now I just have to put it all together of when I should pick which units etc. Thanks again all. You guys are great.

[ July 04, 2003, 01:26 PM: Message edited by: lcm1947 ]

[Phemur]

Adding your statement to mine above exactly fits what the "Fieldgrau" website stated.

I re-read what I wrote, and I was wrong. I should have stated that I disagreed with the German origin of the word, not what it meant.

In any case, I was wrong about that as well. I'm glad Scarhead took the time to clarify the origins of the German use of the word.

I didn't realize the German language had borrowed so much from the French. It's usually the other way around, especially concerning military terminology.

Very interesting post.

Phemur

[lcm1947]

Ok,Ok I need a little clarification here if I may? In going over my notes that I wrote down I'm still not quite sure what Gernadier and Fusilier means. The answers don't exactly explain what these two where and the dictionary was no help either. So anybody have an exact definition? I know they are front line infantry of sorts but why would they use two different names to describe the same function or duty. It was stated by somebody that the Fusilier's were sort of a recon type unit but that's what the Aufklarung's were so that's a little confusing. I also read all the sites and references that everybody give me but still not completely sure about these two names.

[Amedeo]

Originally posted by lcm1947:

Ok,Ok I need a little clarification here if I may? In going over my notes that I wrote down I'm still not quite sure what Gernadier and Fusilier means. The answers don't exactly explain what these two where and the dictionary was no help either. So anybody have an exact definition? I know they are front line infantry of sorts but why would they use two different names to describe the same function or duty. It was stated by somebody that the Fusilier's were sort of a recon type unit but that's what the Aufklarung's were so that's a little confusing. I also read all the sites and references that everybody give me but still not completely sure about these two names.

Historically speaking the terms Grenadier and Fusilier derived, as already explained, from the late XVII century introduction of 'new' infantry specialties to complement or substitute the pikemam-musketeer combination. The grenandiers were soldiers armed with hand-grenades, therefore they were selected among the tallest (to increase range) and boldest (they had to close with enemy formations) men. Those requirements remained also when the use of actual 'grenades' disappeared from field practice in the early XVIII century. So by mid '700 grenadiers is a term referring to 'heavy' élite infantry. The term 'fusilier' at first meant simply "soldier armed with a flintlock", but when the flintlock became widespread it was a term with a wide range of meanings: in Frederick the Great's Army the Fusiliers were line infantry, after Frederick's death the Fusilier regiments were renamed Musketeers (like the 'older' regiments of the line) and new Fusiliers units were raised as light (trained in skirmishing and open order action) infantry. In other armies, during the same time, the term Fusilier wa sused in other meanings: i.e. in the French Army it was the standard name of the ordinary infantry soldiers, in the Russian Army it was a sort of grenadier. The term Jaeger means 'hunter'. Jaeger units were (in the XVIII and XIX century) light infantry units armed with rifled weapons and trained to be better marksmen that the ordinary infantrymen. The terms stems from the fact that the first rifled weapons were used for hunting (where precision is paramount and cost and ROF is not an issue).

Returning to German WW2 practice you might consider that the terms used in this way:

Grenadier - 'heavy' infantry élite soldier

Fusilier - 'light' infantry soldier

Jaeger - 'light' infantry élite marksman

Thus the armoured infantry was eventually renamed Panzergrenadier since it were heavy-armed élite shock troops. The parachutist were light infantry and so they were named Fallschirmjaeger. Anyway don't read too deep into the use of historical terms in modern armies because many denominations are kept only for morale and tradition reasons.

Regards,

Amedeo

[lcm1947]

I am simply amazed at some peoples knowledge. Thank you very much Amedeo I really appreciate you taking the time to reply and what a spendid reply it was. Extremely interesting thank you again my friend. I could not have hoped for a better answer.