Logistics and divisional 'tails'

[Aguirre]

Okay, here's one for the Übergroggen . I remember reading a while ago on this forum that, during the war, formations tended to have more men in supporting roles than they did on the front line, with various ratios given for different combatants/formations/periods. A few questions have been bothering me about this, so I thought I would ask them. My interest is primarily in the Wehrmacht and RKKA:

1: Firstly, is there actually any clear-cut or agreed upon definition of what a 'font-line soldier' is? Is this simply anyone designated as an 'Infantryman' in TO&E?

2: Am I indeed correct in assuming that the supporting personnel referred to were actually organic to a division? If so, what roles did they take, and to which units did they belong?

3: What sort of higher level support units were there, and how standardised was their distribution? What sort of support would an infantry corps expect?

4: Is there any way I can find more information on this topic without actually spending money?

I am aware that these questions might be tricky (or simply tedious) to answer, so any and all responses will be greatly appreciated.

Edited to prove that I can count.

[ May 16, 2005, 07:18 AM: Message edited by: Aguirre ]

[JasonC]

Not just infantrymen. The personnel of the infantry platoons, the heavy weapons platoons of the infantry companies, MG and infantry AT type platoons of the heavy weapons companies but not mortar men. Actual tank crewmen.

Anything beyond that starts getting iffy. Actual crews of PAK are only sorta front line, since sometimes they aren't at the gun in combat and sometimes the guns fire indirect (Russian 76mm e.g.). FLAK much less often. Mortars not meant to be but often are. Pioneers and engineers sometimes fought in the line but most of their duties were elsewhere.

The big contributers to not front line troops are the staffs of all the HQs from battalion upward, the entire artillery arm, transport units and drivers, people doing maintenance and repairing things, medical personnel, depot supply types and ammo handlers, clerks, messengers, radio and signalmen, batmen, cooks, aides for officers above captain, guards doing rear area security, construction battalions and bridge trains - plus the lion's share of the ambiguous types in the previous paragraph.

[John D Salt]

Originally posted by Aguirre:

[snips]

1: Firstly, is there actually any clear-cut or agreed upon definition of what a 'front-line soldier' is? Is this simply anyone designated as an 'Infantryman' in TO&E?

If there is a clear-cut definition, I've managed to avoid hearing of it.

The sensible thing to do if you want to gather comparative figures is to make sure that the basis of comparison is the same for all the nations you compare. This might be, say, counting men in rifle companies or sabre squadrons as "front line" and everyone else as "supporting".

Alternatively you might consider the service branches each army has, and decide which to count as "teeth" and which to count as "tail"; recent British practice, IIRC, counts Infantry, Royal Armoured Corps and Army Aviation Corps as combat arms, Artillery, Engineers and Signals as supporting arms, and all the others as supporting services. The problems with this are that the branch structure of each national army will be slightly different, and it can be difficult to un-mix the branches withing a single unit -- for example, a WW2 British armoured regiment will not all be cap-badged RAC, but will include REME fitters, RAMC medical personnel, RAOC drivers, and so on.

Originally posted by Aguirre:

2: Am I indeed correct in assuming that the supporting personnel referred to were actually organic to a division? If so, what roles did they take, and to which units did they belong?

Dunno, depends on who was doing the referring. I would expect to find pretty much the full range of supporting services in a division, which is why it is typically referred to as the smallest formation capable of conducting independent operations (though a brigade might in a pinch). Thus a division, of practically any nationality, would be expected to have its own organic artillery, recce, engineers, signallers, medics, nut-stranglers, loggies and military police.

Originally posted by Aguirre:

3: What sort of higher level support units were there, and how standardised was their distribution? What sort of support would an infantry corps expect?

I don't think there has ever been an army that had standardisation at corps level. However, the sorts of things that you might find as corps assets are more specialised versions of the division support: heavy and long-range artillery, specialist engineers such as for water supplies, deep recce, specialist signallers such as intercept and other EW, and base hospitals.

Originally posted by Aguirre:

5: Is there any way I can find more information on this topic without actually spending money?

If you've got access to a good library, yup.

All the best,

John.

[Michael Dorosh]

Even in the infantry companies, though, it is murky. The Company Sergeant Major runs admin for the company - but does go out on patrols (if he is a good CSM). The Company Quartermaster Sergeant, however, while deployed with the company, may never see a shot fired in anger. But he is still exposed to enemy fire while performing his duties. Is he a "front line soldier"?

[JasonC]

Mike - classifying single positions is irrelevant to the actual questions this sort of thing is meant for. The Germans tracked two numbers, "trench strength" and "ration strength", for a definite planning purpose - to record combat "burn out" and need for replacement and relief - for the first of them - and supply requirements for the second. Only trench strength protects the rest of the force and maintain line integrity. Everybody eats.

Incidentally, another source of differences between the two are wounded still with a unit and non battle casualties. Also replacements still in processing or training.

The differences are not minor, in divisions in the front line. Before Kursk, 2SS reports 20659 ration strength, 7350 combat strength. 3rd PD reports 14170 ration, 5170 combat.

Sample combat strengths for a Kursk PD (20th) - these are the infantry-type battalions -

I/59 PzGdr 477

II/59 Pz Gdr 484

I/112 Pz Gdr 479

II/112 Pz Gdr 530

Recce 542

Pioneer 325

The portion of combat strength in the infantry type battalions was typically around 1/2 to 2/3rds. The portion of losses taken by them range 3/4 to 7/8.

So you've got roughly 1/3rd combat as opposed to ration. And then 2/3rd of that are the infantry type battalions. And they take 3/4 of the losses. The total manpower or ration strength thus makes it look 3-4 times as easy to absorb losses and keep fighting, as it actually is. A division that loses 1500-2000 men can see the actual trench strength of its infantry fall by half.

[Andreas]

The Germans had a third number 'Battle Strength' (Gefechtsstaerke), which ISTR included support weapons, while 'Grabenstaerke' excluded them.

There are problems with using ration strength to determine actual strength. According to Michate on the axishistory.com forum, there are the following problems with it.

Ration strength in the German army includes soldiers, civilian personnell, wounded and ill soldiers, soldiers on vacation and leave, and Hiwis and POWs. Not to mention that according to the testimony of German commanders, the ration strength number were anyway often inflated.

Here is an interesting comparison:

17th October 1942, 6th Army and 4th Panzer Army

Ration Strength: 334,000

Fighting Strength: 66,549 (20%)

According to Schroeter.

[Aguirre]

Originally posted by John D Salt:

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

5: Is there any way I can find more information on this topic without actually spending money?

If you've got access to a good library, yup. </font>

[Aguirre]

Thanks for the excellent responses. The information has put things in perspective a bit, which is mostly what I wanted, and I imagine will make further research a fair bit easier.