Composition of Volksgrenadier Regimental Gun Company

[Dook]

A quick question for all the grognards out there: were the 75 mm guns in a Volksgrenadier Regimental Gun Company infantry guns or anti-tank guns? The Britwar site says ATGs but another source says infantry guns. Thanks in advance for your help.

[Maj. Battaglia]

According to the War Department's "Handbook on German Military Forces" (pp. 116-119), the VG regiment contains an "Infantry Howitzer Company" with four 75mm infantry howitzers and two platoons of 120mm mortars (four in each). Note that the infantry battalion heavy weapons company also has four guns, so there were 12 in each regiment.

This book is available online at the MHI Digital Library.

[Andreas]

According to von Senger und Etterlin 'Die deutschen Geschuetze', this maybe the 7,5cm Feldkanone 7M85. This was probably an attempt to emulate the very successful Soviet ZIS-3 gun, in developing a gun equally capably as field gun, as it would be in the AT role. It was the barrel, and other elements of the 7,5cm PAK 40 mated with the carriage of the 10,5cm lFH 18/40, giving it the ability to fire in high angle, reaching out to 10,275m. It was however not seen as a successful blend, probably in the same way as a camel is not generally seen as a successful blend of a horse and a water carriage. It did weigh in at 328kg more than then PAK for example. My suspicion is also that the HE round would be extremely weak, the round weighing just 5.74kg.

[Dandelion]

Speaking standard K.Stn.N for a VGD, Kompanie 9 was supposed to contain leIG 18 and sIG 33 guns.

Kompanie 10 - if any - was supposed to contain PaK 40.

Of course, there will be any amount of adjustment to reality here. It rarely pays to look at standard authorised tables at this point in the war.

Kompanie 10 was often an infantry company, bicycle borne, carrying large amounts of handheld antitank. Kompanie 9 could in turn be assigned any manageable gun, including PaK 40's even. Or indeed the Feldkanone Andreas mentions.

Regards

Dandelion

[Edit - got the company numbers wrong first time out]

[ June 25, 2003, 12:49 PM: Message edited by: Dandelion ]

[Maj. Battaglia]

Andreas, that's interesting. I have a feeling these may have been in the VG artillery regiment (one bn of 18 75mm guns, two bn of 105's (12 in each), and one 150mm (12)). But you never know. And I'm sure VG divisions had quite a bit of variation and improvisation to fill up the ranks, as Dandelion suggests.

By the way Dandelion, my source above shows the 14th (AT) company's guns replaced by panzerschrecks in the VG divisions--3 platoons of 18 each. There is a divisional AT bn that has both towed and SP 75mm AT.

[JasonC]

Infantry guns. The 13th company in each regiment was infantry guns, the 14th was AT weapons. In standard infantry divisions, the late war establishment was 2 150 sIG (often missing) and 6 75mm leIG in the 13th company.

The 14th company typically had 3 75mm PAK in one platoon, while the other 2 had panzerschrecks (18 each at TOE), which were distributed among the line companies. When the changeover was made to the VG establishment, some kept this form.

But the standard VG TOE replaced the last 75mm PAK platoon with an additional panzerschreck platoon. That meant all the PAK in a VG division were up at the divisional Pz Jgr battalion level, while the regimental AT was all schrecks.

[Dook]

Thanks for the prompt replies. So if I'm trying to portray a VG regiment's 13th company in a CMBO scenario (yes, there is someone still making CMBO scenarios), would it be more appropriate to use 4 75 mm infantry guns or a 75 mm FO?

[Dandelion]

Well, yes, to all, as:

The V.G.D. K.St.N. from 09.1944, as issued by the Ob E[rsatzheer], contains four types of charts, formally numbered I.-IV.

I'll call these "types" in lack of better ideas.

These charts, b.t.w., are virtually identical (it says they're not identical, but I haven't found the discrepancy yet myself) to the OKH charts for infantry division 1945 So if you have those you won't need the V.G.D. charts.

Anyway...

A division using only type I. charts would have a total strength of about 11 000 men. A division using only type IV. charts about 5 000 men. The others there between.

The regiments (Grenadier or Füsilier) of type II.,-IV. divisions were authorised two battalions of four companies (type I had five companies each). In addition, type II and III have two regimental companies (type I has three, type IV has one).

Companies 9 and 10 (same as 11 and 12 in type I) were Infanteriegeschütz and Panzerjäger respectively. Type IV had only the equivalent of kompanie 9(11).

Hq companies had no number, thus 1.-8. formed the battalions, with every fourth (4. and 8.) being a heavy company. Type I, with five companies per battalion, had two heavy companies per battalion, namely companies 4.,5.,9. and 10.

Infanteriegeschütz-kompanien type I and II were authorised leIG(8) and sIG(2). Type III companies replaced leIG with GrW. Type IV were authorised only GrW.

Panzerjägerkompanien type I and II were authorised PaK 40. Type III only three such, type IV none at all.

The divisional Panzerjägerabteilung also varies with type, from sfl PaK 40 to no heavy weapons.

The WK was not forced to strictly use one specific set of charts (I.,-IV.) per division, it could and would mix freely within the division itself. Much in a way resembling the mixing of 'Welle' charts.

In addition, field adaptation meant that authorisation did not necessarily manifest itself in actual weaponry.

So, there were probably type I divisions with the entire divisional Panzerjägerabteilung equipped with handheld AT only, at some point in time or other. Similarly, there were probably type IV divisions that used PaK 40's in their Panzerjäger platoon of the regimental company.

In fact, one would probably be hard pressed to find any typical unit, let alone one following authroised charts, at all.

I am familiar with the Handbook and reading it certainly put me in awe of allied intelligence services during WWII. Still, it was issued in may 1945 and is known to contain several minor errs, confusion of facts and incomplete informations. One would normally have to doublecheck statements if possible. On the topic of Volksgrenadier regiments, the Handbook gives information that correlates with German sources, but it is incomplete. The chart displayed is looking a lot like a type I organisation sans authorised amounts of heavy weaponry - thus very credible as a real life version of the theoretical K.St.N. charts, in a shape actually encountered by the allies at the front.

So, this all ends with all of us being right. Even the source stating PaK 40's for the infantry gun company might actually be right. One has to at least admit the possibility.

Ok...

...so lets move over to the next topic. What type of socks was the typical field chaplain of a turcoman labour battalion was authorised to wear when serving in southern Ukraine? - Autumn models mind you...

Regards

Dandelion

[Dandelion]

About the FO (V.B.) - my vote is that its ok, but rather not.

It rather depends on the environment and ranges. The leIG was used in a very frontline-ish manner. It would not normally be positioned farther back than the AL - i.e. max 1500 meters behind the MLR(HKL). In some accounts I've read, they'd fire direct fire until forced to abandon, then sneak back and try to recover the gun in the cover of darkness. Not always succeeding.

In CM, the setup time for a leIG is short enough - and movement speed fast enough - to actually make quite possible its use as direct support. So I think its a dashy ingredient to have one on-board.

Well that's my vote anyway.

Regards

Dandelion