Pz Gdrs not SPW hotrodders - US MTO experience

[JasonC]

Peiper is one of the clearest examples of failure of combined arms in military history. His force was destroyed because it lacked sufficient infantry to secure bridges and defiles in the horrible terrain, by working off road between these points to secure passage for the tanks. When US infantry and engineers had possession of these points, Peiper could not bring his armor weight to bear against them.

He had to use his extremely limited infantry in coordinated attacks along the limited and predictable avenues marked by roads and heavy bridges. Artillery took a toll of this infantry, which was never numerous enough to begin with. Once he could not longer force open any point he choose around his KG, he lost his line of communications, immobilizing the heavy tanks for want of gas.

When he did try to use his infantry for this, though, it went in dismounted. When he did charge held areas, it was done with Panthers or King Tigers. And it was extremely risky even for those. With SPWs it would have been plain suicide. Even when just caught on a road while scouting, those were made short work of by US infantry and engineers.

When he didn't have infantry for it, his huge KG with fantastic equipment (King Tigers, Panthers, etc) was stopped for hours by small hasty minefields, scratch forces of engineers, AAA, a few TDs, etc, and blown bridges.

Doctrinal imagination is imagination, not historical narrative. Fridericus has as much as admitted he can't attack with dismounted infantry in CMBB or CMAK, calling it impossible. It isn't impossible, it isn't even all that hard once you know how to do it and exercise a little patience. If he doesn't, it isn't because Pz Gdrs were SPW hotrodders, it is because he hasn't bothered to learn infantry tactics.

Here are some highlights of the fate of Peiper's KG. Compare the picture of mounted charges in SPWs supposedly routinely and successfully.

(2 Panthers led the column).

About 1400 the column resumed the march, taking some time to negotiate the sharp turns and narrow streets in Ligneuville. At the western exit the point of the column ran onto the trains belonging to CCB, 9th Armored Division, which was preparing to move east in support of the combat command then engaged in the St. Vith sector. A couple of Sherman tanks and a tank destroyer made a fight for it, demolishing the leading Panther and a few other armored vehicles. Peiper's column was delayed for about an hour.

Stavelot and its bridge were open for the taking. The only combat troops in the town at this time were a squad from the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion which had been sent from Malmedy to construct a roadblock on the road leading to the bridge.

For some reason Peiper's advance guard halted on the south side of the river, one of those quirks in the conduct of military operations which have critical import but which can never be explained. Months after the event Peiper told interrogators that his force had been checked by American antitank weapons covering the narrow approach to the bridge, that Stavelot was "heavily defended."

But his detailed description of what happened when the Germans attacked to take town and bridge shows that he was confused in his chronology and was thinking of events which transpired on 18 December. It is true that during the early evening of the 17th three German tanks made a rush for the bridge, but when the leader hit a hasty mine field, laid by American engineers, the others turned back... Perhaps, as he says, Peiper was waiting for his infantry.

the German infantry attacked, captured the ATGs south of the river, and drove the two platoons back across the bridge. Taken by surprise, the Americans failed to destroy the bridge structure, and a Panther made a dash about 0800 which carried it onto the north bank. More tanks followed.

For some while the Germans were held in the houses next to the river; an antiaircraft artillery battery from the 7th Armored Division wandered into the fire fight and did considerable damage before it went on its way. A company from the 202d Engineer Combat Battalion entered the town and joined in the fray. By the end of the morning, however, the German firing line had been built up to the point where the Americans could no longer hold inside the village proper, particularly since the hostile tanks were roving at will in the streets.

With German tanks climbing behind the lone platoon and without any means of antitank defense, Solis seized some of the gasoline from the Francorchamps dump, had his men pour it out in a deep road cut, where there was no turn-out, and set it ablaze. The result was a perfect antitank barrier. The German tanks turned back to Stavelot. (124,000 gallons of gasoline burned in this makeshift roadblock, the thin historical basis of later Hollywood renditions).

As Peiper puts it: "We proceeded at top speed towards Trois Ponts in an effort to seize the bridge there.... If we had captured the bridge at Trois Ponts intact and had had enough fuel, it would have been a simple matter to drive through to the Meuse River early that day." One company of Mark IV tanks tried to reach Trois Ponts by following a narrow side road on the near bank of the Ambleve. The road was almost impassable, and when the column came under American fire this approach was abandoned.

Company C, 51st Engineer Combat Battalion, occupied Trois Ponts... Numbering around 140 men, the company was armed with eight bazookas and ten machine guns... During the night Yates deployed the company at roadblocks covering the bridge across the Ambleve and at the vulnerable highway underpass at the railroad tracks north of the river...then appeared one 57-mm. antitank gun and crew which had become lost...Yates commandeered the crew and placed the gun on the Stavelot road to the east of the first underpass where a daisy chain of mines had been laid.

A quarter of an hour before noon the advance guard of Peiper's main column, nineteen or twenty tanks, came rolling along the road. A shot from the lone antitank gun crippled or in somewise stopped the foremost German tank, but after a brief skirmish the enemy knocked out the gun, killed four of the crew, and drove back the engineers. The hit on the lead tank checked the German column just long enough to give warning to the bridge guards, only a few score yards farther on. They blew the Ambleve bridge, then the Salm bridge, and fell back to the houses in the main part of town. In the meantime one of the engineer platoons had discouraged the German tank company from further advance along the side road and it had turned back to Stavelot.

Frustrated by a battalion antitank gun and a handful of engineers, Kampfgruppe Peiper now had no quick exit from the valley of the Ambleve. With but one avenue remaining the column turned northward toward La Gleize...as the Germans neared a creek (the Lienne) a squad of Company A, 291st Engineer Combat Battalion, blew up the only bridge. Reconnaissance north and south discovered other bridges, but all were too fragile to support the Tiger tanks which had come forward with the advance guard. During the evening one detachment with half-tracks and assault guns did cross on a bridge to the north and swung southwest toward Werbomont. Near Chevron this force ran into an ambush, set by a battalion of the 30th Division which had been sent to head off Peiper, and was cut to pieces. Few of the Germans escaped.

(Stavelot was where the KG's supply line was cut). Colonel Frankland launched his attack at Stavelot. On the slope north of the town a platoon of 3-inch towed tank destroyers from the 823d Tank Destroyer Battalion made good use of positions above the Germans to knock out a brace of Mark VI tanks and a few half-tracks...Twice during the afternoon tank-led formations drove toward the town, but both times the American gunners dispersed the field gray infantry and the tanks decided not to chance the assault alone. It is not surprising that the German infantry gave over the field. The 118th cannoneers fired 3,000 shells into the assault waves. Without the Ambleve bridge and a free line of communications through Stavelot there was no fuel for Peiper.

Peiper was engaged with the bulk of his troops in an attempt to blast a path through Stoumont, the barrier to the last possible exit west, that is, the valley of the Ambleve

The kampfgruppe, whose major part was now assembled in the vicinity of La Gleize and Stoumont, consisted of a mixed battalion of Mark IV tanks and Panthers from the 1st SS Panzer Regiment, a battalion of armored infantry from the 2d SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment, a flak battalion, a (company) of (King) Tiger tanks (which had joined Peiper at Stavelot), a battery of 105-mm. self-propelled guns, and a company from the 3d FJ Division which had ridden on the tanks from Honsfeld. The force had suffered some losses in its breakthrough to the west, but these were not severe. By now the critical consideration was gasoline.

Notice - only 4 infantry companies, to several hundred vehicles.

As the first light came on 19 December Peiper threw his infantry into the attack, supporting this advance from the east with tanks firing as assault guns. The grenadiers and paratroopers were checked by fire from the American lines as they crossed the open fields. (mounted? I think not)...The enemy thereupon reverted to tactics successfully employed in reducing village resistance on the march west, sending two or three of the heavy-armored Panthers or Tigers in dashes straight along the road and into the town. At least six German tanks were crippled or destroyed in this phase of the action, two of them by antiaircraft crewmen, Private Seamon and Pvt. Albert A. Darago, who were handling bazookas for the first time...One of the two 90-mm. antiaircraft guns also did yeoman service in the unfamiliar ground-laying role and destroyed two tanks from Peiper's heavy Mark VI battalion before the German infantry got in close enough to force its abandonment.

The Germans took some two hours to force their way inside Stoumont, but once the panzers ruled the streets the fight was ended. The rifle company on the south was cut off and the company in the town liquidated. The third company withdrew under a smoke screen laid down by white phosphorus grenades, reaching the reserve position manned by the 1st Battalion about noon. The (10 Sherman) tank withdrew without loss...This engagement had seen the Americans fighting without the artillery support so essential in American tactics. The 197th Field Artillery Battalion, assigned the direct support mission, did not reach firing positions in time to help...The newly wedded tank-infantry team yielded ground only in a slow and orderly withdrawal. The impetus of the German advance was considerably reduced when a 90-mm. antiaircraft gun, sited at a bend in the road west of Stoumont, knocked out a couple of German tanks and momentarily blocked the highway.

the Americans heard tracks clanking along the road between their position and the creek; this was the reconnaissance detachment which Peiper had sent north and which had found a bridge, albeit too weak a structure for the German tanks. A brief fusillade from the ridge and the Germans fled, leaving five battered half-tracks behind. One prisoner from the 2d SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment was taken."

From the US center for military history.

[fridericus]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

The German system of awards was unique among the major combatants in that awards like the Deutsches Kreuz were routinely given for leadership, in addition to/in place of battlefield bravery. Many ritterkreuzträger wore the decoration because of the bravery of their men and their own leadership, not necessarily or specifically because of their own personal acts of bravado.

Not sure the point you were trying to make - seems you are referring to PK officers taking over infantry units when their leaders were lost. That's nice, but it supports my comments about the verisimilitude of wartime photographs rather than supporting your own position (ie you tried to say the fact that because PK officers were decorated it proved the veracity of their photos, now you are saying their decorations had nothing to do with them).

If I am reading you correctly.

please dont forget, english isnt my mother tongue, so i make too many mistakes. sorry, when i cant explain exactly what i mean. i just wanted to show, that the PK-men were there, where the battle was. i agree with you, that sure many pics were taken without battle, but i wont see this as a dogma.

when you see this web page , you will agree with me, that the Ritterkreuz was for operational success and "tactical deeds of bravity, who reach operational success". the Deutsches Kreuz was made for men, who fulfilled the requirements for the EKI some moretimes, but never gained enough operational success with them for beeing awarded with the Ritterkreuz.

During the whole war only 7500 Ritterkreuze were awarded --- in total size of german armored forces of 20 mio. and 6 years of war it isnt much.

[Andreas]

Originally posted by fridericus:

when you read Martin van Crefelds "Kampfkraft" (i dont know the english title, perhaps armypower or such), you will see, that german decorations were the only in the whole war, which were given only for good reasons, but not, as in other armies, for the rank or such.

Haven't read the book, but I am absolutely certain that is not correct. British decorations such as the MC, the MM, the GC and the VC were only given for solid reasons of bravery, and were not easily earned. the DSO and OBE could be given for leadership skills, instead of personal bravery, I believe, although it is possible it was awarded for both. I believe the US Congressional Medal of Honor again is a bravery only award.

My grandfather received the EK II for general service, the EK I for (sort of) bravery. Numerours German generals received the Ritterkreuz zum Eisernen Kreuz for leadership skills, it had nothing to do with them being personally brave or not.

Please elaborate what you mean by 'good reasons', and how the German system differs.

[fridericus]

Please elaborate what you mean by 'good reasons', and how the German system differs.

it would have been easier, when you had read the book. martin van crefeld is prof. on the hebrew university and as a jew i wont be a too good friend of the wehrmacht. he wrote this book in a job for the us army.

he just compared the percentage of different decorations awarded in the different armies to generals, officers, ncos and enlisted men. this percentage he compared in the armies within the 4 groups. then he saw, that onlay in the wehrmacht, for example, the officers got nearly exacly their men-percentage on Ritterkreuze. in all other armies the generals and the officers got too much decorations compared too their group-size in whole army. then he compares the different recruiting system, health care etc.

the Ritterkreuz was awarded for operational success, equal wheather bravity or not.

[Michael Dorosh]

Andreas, I think most DSOs were for leadership - if won by someone below the rank of lieutenant colonel, that was a rarity and may have reflected personal bravery also. I have a disc at home with every award writeup in the Canadian forces for all of WW II; perhaps someday I'll have time to sift through the DSO citations and see what they have to say about that.

One of the COs of my own regiment got the DSO for a successful action (Clair Tizon) - it was well deserved, but his men called him Mad Mac and described him as "shell shy"; he dug deep bunkers and wore a US helmet for personal protection. His sucessor (also a DSO winner) wore a softcap into battle and visited the frontline battle positions much more frequently.

I think many DSOs may have been cumulative also, ie won over a period of days or even weeks, but I don't have too many specific cites in mind at the present. But I think your descriptions of the various "bravery only" awards is apt. MacArthur was an exception - I think he got the MOH for Corregidor, which was a political move. Did Wainwright get one as well?

[Nidan1]

Michael, check out a website that gives a brief overview of MOH citations, I think you will find that MacArthur's award was not totally political.

Rank and organization: General, U.S. Army, commanding U.S. Army Forces in the Far East. Place and date: Bataan Peninsula, Philippine Islands. Entered service at: Ashland, Wis. Birth: Little Rock, Ark. G.O. No.: 16, 1 April 1942. Citation: For conspicuous leadership in preparing the Philippine Islands to resist conquest, for gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action against invading Japanese forces, and for the heroic conduct of defensive and offensive operations on the Bataan Peninsula. He mobilized, trained, and led an army which has received world acclaim for its gallant defense against a tremendous superiority of enemy forces in men and arms. His utter disregard of personal danger under heavy fire and aerial bombardment, his calm judgment in each crisis, inspired his troops, galvanized the spirit of resistance of the Filipino people, and confirmed the faith of the American people in their Armed Forces.

[ February 24, 2004, 07:46 PM: Message edited by: Nidan1 ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Hi Nidan - no disrespected meant to General MacArthur, I just meant to say he didn't do an Audie Murphy; the award was not for personal bravery in direct combat, but was for other reasons (political, or leadership).

I think maybe the official citation may be playing up his disregard of personal safety, but even if not, the citation was primarily for outstanding leadership rather than, say, standing on the back of a burning tank destroyer and despatching 100 Germans (or, alternately, gobbling like a turkey and using a Springfield to capture 100 Germans )

[JasonC]

I'm sure military honor and who deserved to win WW II is a burning topic for some, but please discuss it in another thread. We had a reasonably interesting tactics discussion here.

[Claus B]

Interesting discussion (German SPW tactics that is )

A couple of points that may be of interest.

German field manuals for the motorized infantry and Panzergrenadiers apparently started out viewing the SPW (then known simply as "gepanzerte Mannschafttransportwagen" ~ armoured troop transport) as nothing but an armoured truck, i.e. it would give the troops protection during transport, but they would leave the vehicle to fight. That appears to have been the situation in 1940. In this scenario, the infantry would follow the armour, clear any opposition left by the armoured attack and occupy ground, but when reviewing the 1940 combat experience, the German general staff suggested the creation of mixed combat groups, where infantry in SPWs would no longer follow behind the tanks but operate with them in close cooperation. The March 1941 regulations for the motorized infantry emphasized their characteristics as speed, off-road mobility, firepower and armour, but still gave the task of the infantry as clearing up after the tanks and occupying ground.

But by 1942, things started to change. The term "gepanzerte Mannschafttransportwagen" was replaced by "Schützenpanzerwagen" ~ infantry armoured vehicle and for the first time the possibility of mounted combat was mentioned: "The issue of armoured vehicles (Schützenpanzerwagen) allows the company to fight from the vehicle. Depending on the opposition and terrain, [the troops can] rapidly switch between mounted and dismonted combat. The SPW is the main weapon of the armoured infantry company" - H.Dv. 299/4a May 1942. It goes on to emphasize that the infantry in SPWs should follow the tanks closely, that the superior vision from the open-topped SPW allowed the mounted troops an excellent view of the battlefield and gave them excellent opportunity to deal with Soviet anti-tank teams (remember, at this point, there were very few anti-tank rifles available). "Enemy points of resistance on the main battlefield, field emplacements (litt: "Feldstellungen") and foxholes that cannot be seen and thus not attacked by the tanks can easily be recognized from the SPW and attacked from the vehicle using mounted weapons, maschinepistols, rifles and handgrenades".

As the war progressed, field manuals appears to have stressed this switch between mounted and dismounted combat, apparently increasing the emphasis on the former.

In a 1944 training movie (commercially available on the "Panzer-Marsch" video by VAF, Code no. CHR 034), the method of mounted combat against a Soviet penetration is shown. Jagdpanzer IVs cover the area with fire, SPWs drive in at speed, occasionally stopping to fire, followed by SPW-flamethrowers, burning out foxholes etc. After having cleared the penetration, the troops dismount and take up defensive positions.

Now, the point of all this is, that there seems to be pretty solid evidence that mounted combat was something the German army subscribed to in theory, at least. Of course, manuals often contain practices that are obsolete, rarely used or impractical, but it would seem to me, that changes were made towards more mounted combat, based on combat experience, as the war progressed.

Interestingly, when researching Danish Army records from the 1950 and 60ies, when the Danish Army started to get its first armoured personell carriers (US M3 and M5 half-tracks, later the M113) I came across papers dealing with the practices of foreign nations. Here, it is emphasized that US practice was to drive the APC up to the front then having the troops dismount and fight on foot while German practice, based on their war experience, was to fight mounted whenever possible (see also http://www.freundeskreis-panzergrenadiere.de/c.htm).

As for the practice of driving a group of infantry into combat in a big, thin-skinned SPW, I think it made good sense as long as the opposition was not well entrenched and lavishly equipped with anti-tank weapons. The SPW protected the troops from 90%+ of all the crap the flew around the battlefield, the exception being the odd anti-tank gun, anti-tank rifles and possibly heavy machinguns. Furthermore, the SPWs were intended to cooperate with tanks whose job it was to remove such obstacles, leaving the infantry to the SPWs against which the mounted, armoured infantry would've been clearly superior.

And that is probably another important point: SPW tactics and mounted combat were developed in 1941-1942 on the eastern front, and I would suggest that it remained a reasonably usefull tactic there for the duration, clearly influencing the post-war Panzergrenadiere in the Bundeswehr. It may well have been another issue in the west, particularily in 1944/45. One may also wonder just how often there was opportunity to make the kind of fast, combined arms attacks in which mounted combat made any sense.

After all, we are dealing with what was usually a small part of the armoured division, often a single battalion. It is a method of combat used only in the attack and only when conditions allowed and unit histories are often vague when it comes to the tactical details of combat.

That said, I think it is great that JasonC has tried to find some examples of the practice or non-practice of mounted combat. I found one very unspecific example in Fürbringers history of the 9. SS-Panzerdivision, referring to mounted panzergrenadiers taking the village of Sokolow on April 9th 1944 near Tarnopol. There are many references to attacks by the divisions SPW battalion, but as it is often the case, no mention is made on the methods used.

Claus B

[fridericus]

thanks, claus.

before i didnt know the grenadier field manual.

[JasonC]

We've all read the manuals. Nobody here is an ignorant git. They didn't do it, it didn't work. Later documents like the US contrast are written from their documents, not from reality.

Supposedly it was an offensive period thing that got going in 1941-2, right? There weren't many SPWs fielded that early, but maybe the doctrine developed and then they fielded them and finally got to do it. Later they are defending. OK, then the peak of this use should have been Kursk, when they had time to deploy some and were still attacking. I've shown about 1/6 of the mobile division infantry was SPW mounted at the start of Kursk offensive. So, did they hotrod into battle?

I looked at Grossdeutschland in detail. They had I/Grenadier and one company of the recce battalion in SPWs, 65 total at the start of the battle. They had the Panthers. Counting them, the formation had 350 tanks, and 31 companies of infantry type. First narrative, then punchline.

Grenadiers go ahead of the tanks when the latter get stuck in minefields. No mention of SPWs.

Panthers work with I/Gdr and push to NW Tscherkassoje. "Grenadiers assault and capture a Russian battery". Just a foothold in the town by nightfall. A night infantry attack gets most of it. This is the most likely mounted action in the whole narrative. Panthers lead, they dash into the edge of a town and get a foothold, infantry gets out and holds nearby buildings. This MO is the closest to mounted razzle dazzle I can find.

There are numerous other places in the narrative where the Gdrs are clearly fighting dismounted. There is at least one when they are defending against a heavy tank-infantry attack where they might have had and used their SPWs on defense - but it is StuGs that stop the penetration.

All through the narrative, flanking fire, AT fire, heavy flanking fire stop attack after attack.

At least one of these seems to have been planned as mounted and then called off because the enemy shot at them. This concerns the reinforced recon battalion (which also had 30-40 armored cars), assigned to get a foothold in a defended wood. They were "unable to advance in the face of heavy tank, AT, and arty fire".

At the nadir, GD had 3 running Tigers, 6 running Panthers, and 11 running Pz IIIs and IVz - probably also around 25 StuGs at the same date, less heavily engaged up to then. Down from 350 at the jump off. Many of these were damaged of course - a few days of defensive action and the Panther runners climbed to 20s then 40s, for example. But they had a lot of tanks put out of action. OK? And the infantry certainly suffered. In 14 days, the division took 2291 battle casualties, 432 KIA or MIA plus 1859 WIA.

Total SPWs lost over the entire Kursk offensive by GD PD?

4.

They aren't charging in the things people. It is a fantasy, not real world tactics against a fully equipped enemy.

[ February 25, 2004, 01:06 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[George MC]

Originally posted by fridericus:

the haltracks of the wwii were well suitted for attack, but never for defense because of their lack of armor and weapons.

in an attack the haltracks drove with high speed in the enemy with all men firing from the car, when reaching the enemy positions, the men jumped off and the bloody melee started. the haltracks didnt have a top-armor, so in the late war too many of them were shelled by arty.

after the wwii the israelis mounted enough MGs on the little m113 and used them like the germans, as their whole army works. there are only little differences in the system of discipline.

I'd take a look at the Pzgs and SPWs post at the CMBB forum.....

[JasonC]

So was PD GD an outlier?

Well, 1SS took 2896 battle casualties, and it lost 15 SPWs. 2SS took 2328 and it lost 3 SPWs. 3SS took 2802 and lost 13 SPWs. 11 PD took 1825 and lost 14 SPWs. 3 PD took 1416 and also lost 14 SPWs. All told, 63 SPWs lost in the southern spearhead armor formations. This includes cases that were only damaged. Only 26 are total write offs.

13,558 battle casualties for all 6 divisions, which had 144 infantry type companies. 1/6 of the infantry in the south was SPW mounted, there were 595 SPWs in those formations at the start of the battle.

This would seem to indicate that 2SS and GD made somewhat less use of their SPWs in combat than the others. But 11% losses, only 4.4% TWO, over a period when the average infantry company lost nearly 100 men and running tanks fell by at least half, even with constant recycling of damaged tanks, is hardly consistent with regular offensive use.

[ February 25, 2004, 01:51 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Michael Dorosh]

I'm not sure I understand how these numbers are useful. Do you have figures per battalion so that we can compare losses in the SPW battalions vs. the dismounted battalions?

Also, do you have causes for battle losses among the SPWs? GD was in a muddy region, with lots of landmines. Many of the Tigers and Panthers were lost to mechanical breakdown rather than enemy action. I have the history of the Panzer Regiment GD but like most German histories it is long on tales of heroism and short on nuts and bolts descriptions, especially of any unit other than the main subject.

Jason, if you are using Spaeter, I would suggest that his book is written in strokes far too broad to get an accurate picture of what they did, or didn't do. Like I said earlier, if we could find someone with access to German archives, it would make the job a lot easier. From my standpoint, a laundry list of numbers of losses really proves almost nothing. Though I agree with your conclusions, I'd be hard pressed to say (or prove) why.

I mean, saying that so few SPWs were lost is "proof" that they were not used at all kind of defies logic. One could say that they were super-effective at making headlong rushes into the enemy; the fact that the manual mentions it, and so few were lost, is proof of that. (!)

[ February 25, 2004, 02:06 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[JasonC]

Because there is no way hundreds of tanks and hundreds of SPWs can charge into the layered AT defenses of the Russians at Kursk, and fight bloody running battles with hordes of reserves thrown in, including literally thousands of tanks, and have the end result be an order of magnitude more tanks knocked out than SPWs. There is no way an average infantry type battalion can lose 250-300 men out of 450-600, while the SPWs lose only 5-10%, if the former are charging mounted in the latter. The SPWs survive the battle with tiny losses, while the infantry and tanks are cut in half.

The only way that happens is if the SPWs aren't being used as heavily as the better protected tanks. Way, way less heavily. CMBB players could take light armor losses in half an hour in a large scenario, in a single light armor unit, greater than what whole PDs lost in 14 days of the greatest armor battle in history.

The worst cases among SS Panzer divisions at the spearpoint of the Kursk offensive lost 1 SPW per day. CMBB players can lose that many per minute from a single company, if they are reckless enough to charge with the things. That proves to a demonstration that CMBB players are using their light armor much, much more recklessly than the real participants did.

As for the source, it is the zipped raw data from the Kursk database on the Kursk webpage, taken from German staff reports. For some OOB matters and casualty summaries I have also used Zetterling and Frankson's "Kursk 1943", a standard basically German side account.

[ February 25, 2004, 02:25 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[MikeyD]

I wonder how our light armor tactics would change if each scenario was doubled in length and each map got some extra elbow room. I suspect a lot of foolhearty tactics are dictated by constrained circumstances and limited time. You'd be less prone to rush your halftracks or ACs through the breach at turn 20 if you thought they'd be of some practical use another 35-45 turns further into the game.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by MikeyD:

I wonder how our light armor tactics would change if each scenario was doubled in length and each map got some extra elbow room. I suspect a lot of foolhearty tactics are dictated by constrained circumstances and limited time. You'd be less prone to rush your halftracks or ACs through the breach at turn 20 if you thought they'd be of some practical use another 35-45 turns further into the game.

Or three or four games down the road....

[Andreas]

Michael

If you (IMO reasonably) assume that the German Panzerdivisions were split as normal, into an armoured element (Panzerregiment, armoured Panzergrenadiers, armoured SP guns, armoured Pioniere, armoured Recce elms), and a non-armoured element with all the rest, and if you then (IMO reasonably) assume that the armoured element attacked together, then Jason's numerical analysis makes sense. I would find it hard to believe that the armoured Panzergrenadiers saw less action than their non-armoured counter-parts, and that would be a main reason for his explanation not to hold water.

[Sirocco]

For what it's worth, in his pictorial book Schutzenpanzerwagen, War Horse of the Panzer Grenadiers, Horst Scheibert states:

"Originally, though, the vehicles [trucks] were just supposed to transport them onto the battlefield so they could be dropped there and carry on the battle along with the tanks. Thus the pictures originated that we know from the campaigns in Poland and France."

He goes on to say:

"When it was found that in Blitzkrieg action, with it's quick battles, too much time was lost in dropping and picking up troops who fought battles on foot ... the production of armoured vehicles was hastened."

...

"Later these vehicles were more correctly called ... SPW ... since they were used - as it soon turned out - not only for transport, but also for shooting from the vehicle, and the grenadiers were unloaded only in country with a poor view, such as in forest, town and night battle."

He concludes:

"Unlike the tanks, though, they were protected only from hand weapons and shrapnel. Their use along with tanks came to an end when more and stronger enemy tanks and anti-tank weapons appeared. Toward the end of the war, this led to their use in the second battle line."

As Scheibert was a company commander in an armoured unit in 1942-43 I thought it might make interesting reading.

[JasonC]

"assume that the armoured element attacked together"

Often they did, though frequently the Pz Gdrs dismounted.

"then Jason's numerical analysis makes sense."

OK, tell me how. You get to use a company of mounted Pz Gdrs behind a wave of tanks, but have to fight mounted, against defenders with tanks, ATGs, and artillery. Now, you have to lose a single SPW in a full day of fighting only 1/4 of the time. That is the heaviest loss case in the middle of the battle of Kursk.

The lower loss totals (the divisions that only lose 3-4 in the whole campaign) are probably explained entirely by air attack, mines, and occasional losses to random indirect artillery fire.

"I would find it hard to believe that the armoured Panzergrenadiers saw less action than their non-armoured counter-parts"

Saw less action, or fought dismounted? The narrative shows the Grenadier regiment of GD in plenty of action. It just doesn't manage to lose any SPWs. Or use many, come to that. Not because they didn't fight, because they got out for the hard parts.

There is maybe one occasion in which they attacked mounted behind a wave of Panthers to seize a foothold in a town, coup de main style. This was at Tscherkassoje. The grenadiers are said to have captured a Russian battery after "assaulting" after the Panthers. They don't take the town. That happens later that night, by a night infantry attack, dismounted, from two directions.

And incidentally, no the rest of the Pz Gdrs are not bereft of tanks. On the contrary, there are enough AFV formations to go around. In the case of GD PD, the Panzer regiment, the Panther brigade, and the StuGs. The armored group went with the first of those initially. The StuGs were less used until later in the fighting.

Read the combat narratives. There are all kinds of occasions where infantry is called for tactically, and SPW mounts would just plain get in the way. You need infantry to do things like get through mines and AT ditches, get across rivers, clear towns, clear woods, sometimes to take rocky hills (the last not at Kursk, but a factor e.g. in North Africa and Italy). And to infiltrate at night, quietly.

When these aren't the tasks, full tanks lead and get the job done. When they are the tasks, you want dismounts. The only time you find an important role for mounts is when you are rapidly transitioning from one to the other e.g. seize a foothold in a town, then expand it on foot. Tanks lead in the first half when it is one of those transitional cases, but mounts can help bring up the infantry for the second half, more rapidly.

You don't lose 1 SPW per battalion per day at the height of a battle like Kursk because they are charging. And there is no mystery about it, because dismounts simply don't suck. They are necessary. Infantry has a specific kind of combat power, terrain and stealth related, that nothing can replace. It delivers this specific, necessary combined arms "power" only when it dismounts.

[JasonC]

Want more evidence? There is Panzer Lehr in Normandy. This is a special case, because Lehr had SPW mounts for the entire infantry force - all 4 Pz Gdr battalions, both infantry type companies of the recon battalion, and the whole pioneer battalion.

On 10-11 July, Panzer Lehr counterattacked in the US sector, right into the middle of the US drive toward St. Lo. Lehr was a unique formation - its entire infantry force was equipped with SPWs. So, did this counterattack feature scads of SPWs charging against US infantry, firing from inside, and dismounting only for a final assault at grenade range? It did not.

"the TD's spotted three Mark V tanks on the road west of la Scellerie and opened fire, destroying with 12 rounds the tanks and one half-track.

A well-camouflaged Mark V, carrying several soldiers and accompanied by others on foot, rounded the west corner of the crossroads. (More Panthers, no mention of SPWs or infantry this time. Same again in a neighoring sector).

the American infantry hunted down the remnants of enemy *foot troops* which had accompanied the armor.

Aerial reconnaissance at 0900 had reported *40 enemy tanks, parked under trees, along the paved highway west of le Desert*. The 9th Division Artillery covered the road with such heavy fire that it became a death trap for anyone trying to use it. American P-47's and P-51's flew three missions against tanks on the XIX and VII Corps fronts during the day, claiming a total of 22 tanks destroyed.

(They clearly were not tanks, as total tanks lost in the engagement makes clear. And why, at the height of the counterattack fighting, were 40 "tanks" parked under trees alongside a road behind the center of the German main effort? From German side accounts we know the actual tanks went forward, and that Jagds were used for one prong as there weren't enough turreted tanks. It is obvious to me these 40 "tanks" are SPWs of one of the attacking Pz Gdr battalions, parked where they dismounted.)

"a message sent by runner from the roadblock toward Hill 91 announced that enemy tanks, each followed by about 20 infantry and armored vehicles, were moving toward the 3d Battalion CP. The battalion instantly alerted its companies and began to prepare countermeasures. Before these preparations were completed, two enemy vehicles slipped by the outposts and opened fire on Company K. The Americans returned the fire as the Germans approached, knocking out one tank with bazooka and rifle grenade fire, killing a member of the tank crew and wounding several others.

During this fight another tank, with two more and an armored car following close behind, had approached within a few yards of the 3d Battalion CP. An American officer opened fire with a machine gun mounted on a jeep just inside the CP area, precipitating a fight in which 3d Battalion personnel made use of bazookas, grenades, pistols, and machine guns to rout the enemy. The armored car and one tank became immobilized in mud and were destroyed by the Americans...When the battalion area was cleared near midmorning, the enemy had lost 5 Mark IV tanks, 4 armored cars, and 60 prisoners.

a group of seven Mark IV's and approximately a company of infantry penetrated the left flank of the 3d Battalion on the river road. By 0930 a tank, accompanied by a small group of infantrymen, had been sighted near la Coquerie, a mile behind our forward lines."

In all, the US side narrative speaks of 5 light armored vehicles as actually engaged, while at least 40 were parked long the roads behind the counterattack, where they were shelled, bombed, and strafed - almost certainly while completely empty. The MO was occasional SPWs following behind full tanks, while infantry also rode tanks and accompanied them on foot.

The total number of mounts involved in a single tactical fight do not appear to have exceeded one platoon's worth. These may in fact have been gun armed HTs e.g. SPW 251/9s - of the Pz Gdr regiments. Scores of tanks are mentioned in actual firefights. The only place there are scores of SPWs is parked under trees along a road behind the attack.

This is Panzer Lehr. They didn't have motorized Pz Gdrs, all of them were armored. But it was also a night attack in hedgerow country. They needed infantry along to help the tanks, as infantry. Not a flock of additional armored vehicles vastly weaker than the tanks. The Panthers got cut up in all this. SPWs would have been committing suicide.

[jrcar]

A very interesting discussion. While valid Jasons latest two examples (Kursk and Normandy) are not the best from a doctrinal use of SPW.

Why develop SPW?

The Germans found that foot infantry could not keep up with armour.

Trucks could do logistical moves but were too vulnerable to the main killer in war (Arty) when near the front lines. They were also heavily restricted cross-country. No good for accompanying armour off road.

What was needed was something to enable the inf to keep up with the armour, and not be vulnerable to arty/small arms. Also have good cross country manoeuvrability hence the SPW is born.

The “battle taxi” doctrine has the infantry deploy to fight from the “taxi” in one of two places, depending on the tactical situation.

Dismount and fight on foot

Heavy AT threat/unsuppressed AT threat/close country (forest/buildings)

Dismount before the objective, in covered ground, out of effective fire range. Advance on foot. Use Tanks and SPW (behind tanks) to suppress enemy defence.

Remain mounted

Low AT threat/AT threat suppressed/open country/enemy has poor morale.

Dismount on or past the objective.

In Defence they are used as a highly mobile reserve or as regular infantry (dismounted). The Recon Bn is frequently used in this way.

I think the problem we face is that the battles that are well described (ie Kursk, Bulge and Normandy) are examples where the inf should fight dismounted (High AT threat, close country respectfully). Hence low SPW losses.

The battles where the SPW overrun the enemy quickly are rarely covered in detail as they are considered uninteresting.

In Grenadiers Kurt Meyer talks about mounted attacks from motorcyles

So how could you historically use infantry mounted in SPW in CM?

Where you think the enemy has low AT capability, or where you think you can suppress his AT capability.

Recon (with Inf mounted in open, dismounted in close terrain).

Mobile reserve on defence.

Cheers

Rob

[Splinty]

All this disscussion about the uses of SPW's and HT's make me wonder why it took so long to develop true IFV's. A case can certainly be made to show the need for them in WWII, yet it took until the '60's for anyone to come up with one. (the Soviet BMP1 and the German Marder 1). The U.S. didn't come up with a true IFV until the '80's. Curious.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Splinty:

All this disscussion about the uses of SPW's and HT's make me wonder why it took so long to develop true IFV's. A case can certainly be made to show the need for them in WWII, yet it took until the '60's for anyone to come up with one. (the Soviet BMP1 and the German Marder 1). The U.S. didn't come up with a true IFV until the '80's. Curious.

How many countries still use IFVs? I was under the impression no one actually fought from a Bradley anymore. We stopped using Grizzlies in Canada a while ago, and IIRC the generation LAVs don't have pistol ports.

The concept was ok for an NBC environment, but for today - with the effectiveness and availability of RPGs - who would want to fight while mounted?

Does anyone even still practice it?

[Splinty]

Good question,here in Iraq the Bradley has been placed more in the role of the HT in WWII, as a troop transport ot get infantry into the fight with one difference. The Brads armor is relatively effective against IEDs and RPGs except at very close range. In the words of one infantryman I talked to, " All an RPG does is give you a headache." However there have been cases of Bradleys being disabled, IE mobility kills. So the Brads can drop troops much closer to the fight than their WWII counterparts. Also the 25mm cannon is a much more powerful fire support weapon,than an MG. Add in the fact that the gunner has a fully functional sight system and is under armor. And a good case can be made for keeping the IFV around for a while.