manchildstein (ii) Posted December 15, 2002 Posted December 15, 2002 i have heard that, at least at the higher levels (regiment, division?) that these "command tanks" had no gun and instead their turrets were filled with radio gear and a wooden dummy gun. what about on the battalion level? would the PzBefWg tanks in the battalion's hq company have no main gun? thanks in advance (tia)
Bastables Posted December 16, 2002 Posted December 16, 2002 Around late 43 early 44 Command tanks were just normal Panthers/PIII/PIV/StuGs with less ammo and more radios/antenna.
Andreas Posted December 16, 2002 Posted December 16, 2002 My guess is that the Abteilung commanders would be in a PzBefWg, i.e. earlier in the war a tank with no gun. You often see 2-3 PzBefWg on strength in the returns of PR 11, which leads me to believe that one would be with the PR commander, and the other two for the Abteilungs commanders. As an aside, company commanders in mixed III/IV (lg) units were encouraged to use the weaker IIIs, to ensure they concentrate on fighting their company, instead of fighting their tank (Scheibert - 'Bis Stalingrad 48km'). This is for the 1942/3 timeframe.
manchildstein (ii) Posted December 16, 2002 Author Posted December 16, 2002 ok.. thanks guys... i did a search on the web and found some scale model kits called, 'pzbefwg' and they had antennas all over the place... for this scenario... a battalion of the panzer regiment of the 11th panzer 'near dubno'... for this scenario i'm going to represent the 3 pzbefwg of the hq company as pz iii f and deplete their ammo a bit... perhaps in 'real life' these 3 tanks were a combination of dummy guns and normal...
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