Pz Gdrs not SPW hotrodders - US MTO experience

[Andreas]

Originally posted by JasonC:

"assume that the armoured element attacked together"

Often they did, though frequently the Pz Gdrs dismounted.

Yes, I guess that has become clear by now.

Originally posted by JasonC:

"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.

I am not sure I understand - I guess I did not make myself clear enough. What I meant was that the only case I can think of where your numerical analysis would give you the wrong result was if the armoured Panzergrenadiers actually were not used (that would be an explanation for low SPW losses, not?). Since I don't think that is the case, it follows that breaking down the level of analysis to lower units will not tell you much, if anything. So I agree with you.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by 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.

If troops are not fighting from inside of it, it is not an IFV, it is a fire support vehicle. No?

[flamingknives]

I think that the British term them Mechanised Infantry Combat Vehicles (MICV) As FSVs tend not to carry troops.

[winkelried]

... numerical analysis ...

i have a figure of 10'000 for the production of German 251 SPWs during the period of 1943 to 1945 - does anybody have a reliable loss statistic for the same time period? Looking at the number of 45 251 SPWs in a PzGren Bat this would mean that the Germans equipped 235 such batallions during this time period.

(this figure does not include the 250s and the 251/9 /10 /16 /17 /21 and /22 variants) total production for 251s was ~13'000 and ~5'000 for 250s.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by winkelried:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> ... numerical analysis ...

i have a figure of 10'000 for the production of German 251 SPWs during the period of 1943 to 1945 - does anybody have a reliable loss statistic for the same time period? Looking at the number of 45 251 SPWs in a PzGren Bat this would mean that the Germans equipped 235 such batallions during this time period.

(this figure does not include the 250s and the 251/9 /10 /16 /17 /21 and /22 variants) total production for 251s was ~13'000 and ~5'000 for 250s. </font>

[sand digger]

As recorded in the official history, the Australian 9th Div developed a form of mobile attack using universal carriers during the series of battles known as El Alamein 1 in 1942.

Such attacks were made against defensive positions, often those on a low hill or rise. Basically the position was shelled for a short time, smoke was dumped on it and then the carriers loaded with infantry raced directly onto the position, the infantry dismounting and engaging the enemy, with bayonets if required.

When properly timed and executed in appropriate circumstances it worked very well.

[Fredi]

This has been very interesting but I'm no longer sure what this discussion is about really..

I am convinced that the Germans had a doctrine for fighting with mounted infantry well before the war. Guderian probably thought it would be nice to have fast moving armored infantry in his blitzkrieg..

However, having a doctrine does not mean it is your only means of operation. They probably had plenty of doctrines and used what the situation required.

I also suspect economy and battlefield reality played a major part. AFV's are precious and if you attack with them, they will get knocked out unless they are heavily supported.

So.. the Germans adapted to circumstances, a thing they proved to be masters of.

I personally believe the doctrine is solid but that it needs the added firepower of modern fully stabilized cannons to work.

And even now I wouldn't recommend it for assaults, merely for advancement.

[Cogust]

I think Rob is right on the money, that mounted attacks DID occur but they got really bad press as they were almost always done against inferior opponents (morale- or equipmentwise) or in really favourable terrain (open rolling steppe with tanks supporting the attack with direct HE). Not much fun to write an essay about a mounted attack on a weakly held position, defended with only small arms and s few support weapons, that fell almost instantly as the defenders were taken by surprise by the rapid appearance of the attackers. Much more fun to write of the big and ugly fights like Stalingrad, Kursk, Normandy and Italy.

[JonS]

Originally posted by winkelried:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> ... numerical analysis ...

i have a figure of 10'000 for the production of German 251 SPWs during the period of 1943 to 1945 - does anybody have a reliable loss statistic for the same time period? </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by JonS:

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

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> ... numerical analysis ...

i have a figure of 10'000 for the production of German 251 SPWs during the period of 1943 to 1945 - does anybody have a reliable loss statistic for the same time period? </font>

[JasonC]

Cogust - if you think so, it will be trivial for you to find and report to us the details of times and places where it happened. Or do you think lopsided easy victory assaults in which the defenders are overrun and evaporate, leave no trace in detailed narratives that cover every battalion on every day, in every period the Germans attacked in the west?

It is not a matter of cherry picking battles for sexiness. The Germans did not attack so many times in the west that one can't simply survey them all. One can. I have. Where are the mounted SPW overruns?

At Kasserine? SPWs behind tanks pass through open ground with no defenders present to encircle units. That is as close as it gets.

At Gela in Sicily, Salerno or Anzio in Italy? A few armored cars find a seam, once, at Salerno. That is as close as it gets.

In Normandy, either 17SS in the Caretan (oops, don't even have any), or Lehr in July (they had scads of them, but only half a dozen make it into actual combat reports), or at Mortain (other than artillery targets for holdouts, nada)? Doesn't happen. A few SPWs trailing tanks in a night attack with Lehr is as close as it gets - while flocks of them are just parked under trees behind the attack.

Breaking out of the south of France? Panthers lead, some columns of mixed vehicles are shelled along crammed roads - the closest thing to it. In Lorraine in September? Some Panzer brigades are shot to hell in half a day, tanks leading - as close as it gets. At Schmidt in the Hurtgen? No trace of it. Market-Garden? There was one light armor attack across a bridge, but it failed miserably. Heavy tanks blowing apart every block is what it actually took.

How about in the Bulge, where whole divisions were overrun? One guy proposed Peiper - detailed examination showed no such thing occurred. The closest was a village an infantry division had been attacking for a day, charged by 2 Panthers, with SPWs behind them. Elsewhere? In the 28th division sector, Pz IVs leading a reinforced recce battalion past some holdouts - as close as it gets.

Alsace? Where, what units were supposedly overrun by mounted Pz Gdrs? Remagen after the bridge was taken? No report of it.

That is not cherry picking. If it didn't happen on those occasions, it didn't happen period. The Germans did not attack Americans with armor and take any ground, outside of those occasions.

Some suggested it was an earlier thing and required still being on the offensive. So I looked at GD at Kursk, and found the closest approximation was one time when tanks ran into the edge of a village to gain a foothold, and grenadiers followed, and took out a Russian battery.

GD lost 4 SPWs in the entire Kursk offensive. The average panzer division in the spearheads of the greatest armor assault in history lost less than 1 SPW per day - against thousands of T-34s, thousands of ATGs, tens of thousands of AT mines, large scale artillery fire and air attack.

[ March 01, 2004, 09:36 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[sand digger]

It would be interesting to hear of any mounted SPW 'overrun' attacks in NA 41-42, because that is my preferred sphere of interest and there is always more to learn.

However all indications are that in that part of the war anyway the Germans avoided close quarters combat where they could and usually folded quickly where they couldn't.

[JonS]

They didn't have any SPWs there with which to try it. ISTR someone posting here that they had a princely total of 6 SPWs in all of DAK.

[i.i.koshkin]

While reading through old AARs I ran across this excerpt from Lt. Col W.B. Kern. He was commanding the first battalion of the A.I.?. (can't read the copy - think it's regiment) near Teboursouk (again, letters somewhat fuzzy) Tunisia. The action was from 1942:

During the engagement of December 3-6, I used a platoon of half-tracks to counter-attack, employing them as tanks against a German company which had penetrated the front line and which had no anti-tank weapons. The attack was highly successful.

It's mighty light on details but I thought it interesting enough to post.

[jrcar]

Jason you don't get it. By 1944 in Europe the Germans are mostly on the defensive, in close country, against an enemy with a high AT threat... doctrinally it would be murder to send in the SPW.

I do not have time to do as you request, but I would love to.

The fact is the examples and situations you are quoting to prove your opinion are exactly the situations where SPW mounted attacks would not occur. This neither proves nor disproves your opinion.

Fact German doctrine includes mounted attacks from SPW.

Fact doctrinally this would normally only occur where the situation is favorable (open country, low at threat).

Fact we don't have easily accessible accounts of every German battle.

Fact your evidence is exactly the sort of battle where troops dismount prior to beginning the attack.

In my opinion (I can't document it, haven't tried either), mounted attacks from SPW did occur, but not on a regular basis. It is a valid historical tactic in CM. It is easily countered by the proper application of weapons (ie the oodles of light AT guns the Soviets had).

I would not normally use in CM, and I agree with you that you can attack over open ground without them.

Cheers

Rob

[jrcar]

Bah this got me looking:

Source "Grenadiers" by Kurt Meyer:

p 183

Attacks with a company of tanks and mounted infantry in SPW in the snow over 10km against a village largely neutralised by Stukas and arty. The SPW get hung up in snow drifts though.

p177

Reference to advance by Tank Bn supported by SPW and "mounted infantry". Attack a village, the tanks stay back and eliminate the AT defences, inf dismount in the village (the objective).

p 170

SPW and AC's advance with assault guns in providing "covering fire for the lightly armourd vehicles", "Speed was our only weapon against the Russians" "We cut through the Russian attack waves in a wedge formation and burrowed deep into their ranks".

The later is a preemptive attack against an enemy infantry assault.

This is Feb-Mar 1943, counterattack after Kharkov.

Unfortunately not many good descriptions of this sort of combat (most focus on the armour) that I know of... more than happy to be educated.

Cheers

Rob

[JasonC]

I do get it, you've just started to examine the issue. Common CM uses of light armor are completely unhistorical.

The Germans didn't have flocks of SPWs until the late war. Early, they were scarce. In the late war they were on the defensive and there were lots of enemy AT weapons, yes, exactly. So they didn't charge in SPWs.

In between I've looked - early 1943 in Tunisia is not mid 1944 in France - and there is precious little sign of them.

The "proper" conditions for using light armor aggressively, let alone leading with it, are so rare they almost amount to "when there isn't any fight". Doctrine and reality did not mesh. Reality was dismounted infantry or large forces of full tanks or both, practically always.

Tanks are not so scarce they can't lead in most of the occasions when terrain etc favor armor attacks. They are required to destroy the enemy AT network, if he has one - light armor cannot do this. Yes, in the wake of tanks mounted infantry can pass through an already beaten enemy. Even that seems to have been rather rare.

Occasionally this is used (following a few charging tanks e.g.) to get a foothold in terrain where infantry is needed and tanks alone don't work (e.g. entry to a village).

Patrol or screening work in entirely open ground, particularly against enemies without proper combined arms, are a separate use of light armor that it is obviously good at. Steppe or deep desert patrols e.g.

If light armor can charge straight into infantry of any numbers, it is definitely a rare outlier based on enemy stupidity and lack of combined arms. Normally, infantry works in terrain that protects it from such attacks, or with armor, or at the least with significant amounts of guns (and then usually defending).

You might find rare cases where tactical issues make this impossible e.g. just after crossing a river, or airborne or partisan forces. Then light armor might be almost as useful as tanks (just lower firepower) and can fill in for them.

But against an ordinary enemy, light armor does not lead attacks. It is kept out of the way (most of the time), or it follows real armor (rarely, for occasional transport of infantry to a foothold tanks take e.g.). Infantry leads in terrain (or other conditions - night, stealth, etc) that is unsuited to tanks, real tanks lead in terrain that is.

[ March 03, 2004, 01:51 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[JasonC]

jcar, suppose somebody said "German doctrine was to use their superior tanks to blast through enemy defenses rapidly, then exploit with deep slashing operational moves into the enemy rear, destroying his HQs artillery supply etc. The technical ascendency of their Panthers and Tigers made this feasible." What would be the problem with such a statement?

The Germans might have wished things would go that way. But it is not what actually happened. They conquered Europe in Pz IIs, IIIs, and 38s. They didn't have Panthers and Tigers yet. Once they did, they may have dreamed of deep slashing operational breakthroughs, but they didn't get any. They got a few local break-ins - those were easy throughout the entire war, just concentrate enough armor on a few km of attack frontage - but enemy reserves always beat them to the resulting gap and stopped them in attritional running battles.

The earlier period worked for doctrinal reasons and enemy unpreparedness, not technical anything. Later when they had all the tools - heavy tanks, flocks of SPWs - it did not work, because the enemy was no longer unprepared. The doctrinal wishes and war realities and equipment evolution are disconnected in a similar way here.

They didn't have tons of SPWs until after their lost the strategic initiative and the vulnerable, unprepared opponents the printed doctrine might have been workable against. Against the real enemy they faced most of the time they had any number of them, that printed doctrine was not remotely relevant.

The point is also that infantry delivers specific combined arms powers and effects, and those effects are what the tanks need from their infantry support. It only delivers those effects after it has dismounted. I mean things like use of terrain, crossing obstacles, stealth, exhaustive search. Tanks do not need mini-tanks to do halfway what they do themselves better. Infantry is tactically powerful, in its proper roles.

Better than light armor is. The "proper" conditions for aggressive use of light armor are pretty close to "when the tanks win anyway on their own without more ado". There is a "transitional" case that I've discussed, where tanks can get part of the job done but then need infantry power to take over. Like the two different linked tasks of getting a foothold in a village and clearing it completely. In those cases, SPWs mounts can help transition from an armor-based attack to an infantry-based one. But they are doing so largely as transport, not as weapons.

What they are not doing is recon by death, or charging the defended treeline, or acting as the first wave mounted, under tank overwatch. Things CM players love to do with light armor - in part because they treat it as expendable when the real participants never would. It was too valuable as mere transport (operationally I mean) for that.

[ March 03, 2004, 02:36 PM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Michael Dorosh]

Light armour may be overused in CM because the real Allied crutch - artillery - is under-represented.

In the Canadian example, we had no light armour worthy of the name. The carrier platoon did not charge headlong at the enemy any more than the SPW did. How did CW infantry get forward? Through flexible, massed fires from 25 pounder regiments, augmented with 3 inch mortars, 4.2 inch mortars, 4.5 and 5.5 inch howitzers...and occasionally bigger stuff than even that.

Artillery fired in a line across the front - not the oval shape we see perpindicular to friendly lines we see in CM - and the barrages could be made to roll or creep with the infantry right behind.

etc. etc. as discussed here before.

Given the absence of sophisticated artillery control equal to what the real life FOO had, one can't blame the CM player for attempting to tilt the balance in other ways.

[Andreas]

Okay, I had a quick look for an action of 1.PD in 1941, where I thought they may have advanced mounted.

Attack on Duderhofer Hoehen, 11th Sept. 41. Force is KG Eckinger, essentially the SPW battalion of 1.PD and some tanks and other support (I./113 and 6./Pz.1).

Attack is carried out mounted, against Soviet infantry and AT guns. Throughout the battle description, speed is emphasised, and it can be infered (where it is not mentioned expressly) that a lot of the combat was from the SPW.

'Mounted it breaks into the southern part of Duderhof. Russian infantry with AT guns [...] is crushed by the tanks at the point. Major Dr. Eckinger turns his battalion south, depending on the lay of the land and the situation tanks and SPW alternate in the lead [...].'

'Quickly threading through Duderhof to the east, and moving mounted through enemy bunkers Major Dr. Eckinger succeeds in breaking into the bunker line that is equipped with heavy coastal guns.'

'Pioneer assault teams [...] fight down more coastal guns under cover from tanks and SPW.'

[jrcar]

Jason your lack of military background is showing

It is interesting that you say this:

"What they are not doing is recon by death, or charging the defended treeline, or acting as the first wave mounted, under tank overwatch. Things CM players love to do with light armor - in part because they treat it as expendable when the real participants never would. It was too valuable as mere transport (operationally I mean) for that."

Because that is very much how recon consider themselves in real life, even today.

Recon are generally expected to fight, and die, to gain information (especially from a German and American perspective. Thats why recon forces have generally become heavier and heavier (witness the Bradley recon vehicle).

A lot of the time the first thing the recon knows about the enemy is when they fire on the lead vehicle, in the worst case hopefully the second vehicle survives to report on the resulting fireball.

Historical examples include the Brit Recon units trying to find their way to Arnham (just off the top of my head). Light vehicles, yes including jeeps, driving around well out in front.

BTW confirmed this with my ex Armd Corps LTCOL colleague (who bought our last lot of recon vehicles, the ASLAV), in case you don't trust an ex intelligence guy

I think Andreas and myself have found the historical examples you suggested didn't occur... Plus this morning I found a reference to the 21st Panzer Div on I think July 7 beginning to conduct a fully mounted attack (in SPW) when Allied Naval gunfire support stops it... which goes to support Michael's point (which you have also correctly noted in the past).

I recall (my book is with the Panther Games guys at the moment) in Jentz a comment about changes in doctrine required as a result of German experiances in the first few days in Normandy, where it in part talks about not being able to do mounted attacks... but I am operating off memory.

Cheers

Rob

[JasonC]

Andreas - tanks lead and crush the AT defense, inserting SPW mounted infantry into a town - right? I've covered that use already, several times. The only addition in your example is threading through the town, and eventually getting to some naval guns from the rear.

Here are other uses I've found -

operational break-in and rescue - example is February 1943 during Kharkov counterattack. Russians extended, blown. Fragmented German heer infantry in the area. A KG is formed from StuGs and a SPW battalion, plus a flock of trucks and medical personnel. StuGs blow a hole, KOing a few isolated tanks to do so. (Pattern - real AFVs lead and destroy the AT network first).

Whole shebang roars off down a road, 30 miles into space. Reindezvous with cut off remnant of a heer infantry "division" (hundreds of men, a cadre no more), many of them wounded or non-battle casualties (frostbite, sick, etc). Loads them onto the trucks and heads back.

A Russian ski battalion has slipped in behind them. They hold a village and have blown a bridge. Dismounted assault, supported by fire from all the vehicles, to recross. "House to house" fighting (not mounted). Reopens the road, whole shebang returns to German lines. Elapsed time - a day and a half.

What is essential about the SPWs in this case? Just StuGs would have been helpless on the return. All trucked infantry would have been vulnerable in the break-in phase - made to dismount by a few MGs or a light barrage etc. The light armor undoubtedly helped with all around defense while off in the enemy area, too.

Other mounted attacks I found - a few night raids during the Kharkov counterattack. The pattern is a few men on foot infiltrate close to unwary Russians, to locate them. Then a company to a battalion of tanks or assault guns leads an SPW force, Pz Gdr or recce, in a sudden "coup de main" attack. Pz Gdrs unload in the enemy's midst, while all vehicles fire. Repeated several times in late February. But always at night, preceeded by foot scouts, against the unwary.

Another use of the SPWs - supply, evacuation, and reinforcement runs through a largely taken urban area, with some snipers (and civilian resistence) remaining. Tanks wouldn't deliver infantry to defend the other end, or ammo and water, or be able to evacuate wounded. SPWs do. Trucks would be unsafe running the streets. (Andreas' example seems to have elements of this, after the initial break in).

I found a few other examples of mounted attack in this period. In each case, an SPW equipped unit, Pz Gdr or recce, is teamed with a heavy AFV unit, and catches mostly infantry forces (a few guns sometimes) in open snow terrain, on the march rather than deployed, and without entrenchments. Naturally they win easily. The tanks alone would. The Pz Gdr infantry being along makes it easier to round up the defeated (harder to hide from them when they can dismount etc).

Leading in battle via recon by death? No. I've looked for it extensively. It is not there. A few motorcyclists getting shot first during an advance to contact, from operationally separated forces - sure. The whole side immediately breaks contact to properly deploy, and comes back with the infantry on foot in an hour or so. That happens all the time.

Other factoids from Hughes and Mann's "fighting tactics of the panzergrenadier" (which has naive bits certainly) "the ideal of the mobile panzergrenadier was, by the end of the war, something of a fiction." Mopping up operations, holding pocket walls, debusing clear of contact -the usual modes on the attack, during the period of successes. Midwar, the SPW stuff is mounted "for the advance to contact" - after contact they aren't. Kursk in particular, "attritional slog", "fighting as infantry". Some SPW units held in reserve but not committed mounted. Occasionally debus "even" (sic) right on the battlefield when mopping up a demoralized enemy.

"Battles fought in 1943 demonstrated clearly that the lightly armored mSPW remained far too vulnerable to enemy fire to be used in the midst of battle."

In the west, got out and walked into the tactical zone in part to disperse vehicles due to the threat from aircraft.

69 SPWs in the entire force on the eve of the whole war. Thus not a factor at all in Poland. Only 355 delivered in calendar 1940. Thus a neglible factor in France. Nearly all in Barbarossa trucked, recon are on motorcycles supported by wheeled armored cars. These are the classic blitzkriegs, and SPWs had precious little to do with any of them.

Total SPWs deployed, including under repair, peaks at 6155 at the start of December 1944.

I've already shown it was 1/6 of the mobile infantry style companies at Kursk. SPWs are outnumbered by real AFVs at Kursk by 2 to 1. By the time of Normandy they are more numerous, many panzer divisions have 250 and some considerably more than that. Some PDs with 250-300 SPWs nevertheless lost only a handful through the end of July. Air attack a leading cause of loss. They are routinely considered part of automotive and mobility reports, not AFV strength returns.

Lorraine, not much sign of them in the narratives. A typical kill score for a US TD battalion is 14 tanks, 2 trucks, 1 halftrack, 1 staff car. I've already mentioned numerous similar tactical passages.

Detailed accounts of SS panzer corps at Kursk are remarkably "free" of SPWs. A few dashes to here or there, led by tanks and across unopposed spaces. Total losses barely into 2 digits. Mines a leading cause of loss.

As for jcar and his contemporary reports, my whole contention is that the Germans did not do it, that it is a revisionist backward projection of current practices. The Germans had doctrinal wishes about the subject which remind modern officers of their own doctrines, but they were wishes not tactical realities. (Also, I don't "lack a military background". I served in SP artillery).

The tactical reality was that against a real enemy, not sleeping etc or empty spaces between forces, real AFVs (1) led and (2) had to destroy the AT network for mounted anything to do anything. While infantry (3) performed essential combined arms roles for real AFVs only once it dismounted. (4) SPWs occasionally let infantry do 3 in places 2 let them get to, where trucked infantry would have found it hard to get.

And that is about it.

In case the "exhaustiveness" of the overall story is not obvious, I summarize -

- when they had the strategic initiative and actually were conducting successful mobile warfare, they didn't *have* SPWs yet. The "schutzen" (sic) were in trucks.

- late when they had flocks of them, they usually weren't attacking. And the enemy was too strong to use them up front even on the rare occasions the Germans took the offensive tactically. Limited use of roles like getting a foothold in a village.

- in between they got some offensive combat use out of them against operationally overextended, scattered enemies in early 1943, following heavy AFVs and typically also relying on predictable forms of tactical surprise. (Remember, most at this era are in trucks, and most uses of the SPW mounted portion are far from the picture of mounted assaults against a prepared enemy).

- transitioning between the previous and the second, by the time of Kursk (with now 1/6 SPW mounted), the enemy was already too strong up front. They may have wanted to continue the earlier story but they could and did not, in practice. That is, the transition (back) to debusing off the battlefield had already occurred before they gave up the offensive.

[ March 04, 2004, 01:18 AM: Message edited by: JasonC ]

[Bastables]

Originally posted by JasonC:

In Normandy, either 17SS in the Caretan (oops, don't even have any), or Lehr in July (they had scads of them, but only half a dozen make it into actual combat reports), or at Mortain (other than artillery targets for holdouts, nada)? Doesn't happen. A few SPWs trailing tanks in a night attack with Lehr is as close as it gets - while flocks of them are just parked under trees behind the attack.

B

SPW were sent to the rear during Normandy as the Grenadiers (and Panzer Divisions themselves) were expected to dig in and hold defensive positions; this is especially true of Panzer Lehr with its SPW heavy TO&E.

I think the fact that the Pz div were in defensive positions/operations has a greater bearing on the lack of SPWs in combat reports in Normandy: allied with the high infantry attrition rates that meant infantry/grenadier units were required to be fed into the line and could not provide mobile reserves.

Also even before Operation Cobra and the resulting pin prick attacks by Panzer Lehr; the division with 5,934 casualties and only 3,437 replacements was almost deprived of grenadiers. Most of the infantry components were cross-attached infantry battalions (5 of them), who obviously were not trained in either operation with tanks or tanks and SPWs.

[Michael Dorosh]

It's too bad; I once interviewed a Panzer Lehr vet who had been in SPWs in Poland (if there were only 69, as Jason points out, that would be a rare breed). That was 15 years ago or so; I was too shy to follow up with him and too ignorant to know what kind of stuff to ask him about. I mostly just oohed and aahed at his photo album and his medals. Would have killed for a chance to ask him what he did in Poland, knowing what I know now and seeing where this conversation is going. Missed opportunities...

Obviously he was not in Panzer Lehr at the time; by 1944 he was a platoon leader in Pz Gren Lehr Regiment 901.

[JasonC]

The Germans did have light armor in the early war. But it wasn't SPWs and it didn't carry infantry.

They had about 1000 armored cars with MG or 20mm main armament, and 1500 MG armed Pz Is, and 1250 20mm and MG armed Pz IIs. The light tanks were in the panzer regiments - the Pz II was an average tank during the France 1940 campaign.

The armored cars were in the recce regiments, working with motorcycle infantry. The schutzen were in trucks; the guns were also towed by trucks (SPA didn't come until the second half of the war).

By the time of Russia, the tank regiments had become distinctly heavier, with some Pz IIs but mostly medium tanks - Pz 38s and Pz IIIs were the average tanks. The recce guys still had armored cars, only a few SPWs in addition, and motorcycles.

Only about 1/6 of the SPWs built over the whole war had been built by the end of 1942. In any numbers, they were a late war item, like Panthers or Hummels. Which also didn't have much role in the success of "the blitzkrieg".