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German Infantry/Armor Divisions


Mord

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Can somebody point me to a list of German Infantry And Armor divisions that fought in Normandy and France up to August? I can't find any lists or the like.

Thanks.

Mord.

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theirs a good overview of all german divisions in normandy in the book "Invasion France 1944" from Janusz Piekalkiewicz especially on page 131.

all over their were 59 divisions in france at 06.june.

in detail for normandy as far as i can see on the map their were:

91 airborne,

Infantry divisions: 709th, 243th, 352th, 716th, 711th, 346th, 84th,

Tank divisions: 21th, 12th SS, and the Panzer Lehr divsion

all these divisions were parts of the 7th and 15 th german armys.

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Thanks guys.

What are the Luftlande?

Mord.

'Airlanding' division. IIRC the 91st Luftlande Division was formed in 1943 with the original mission of seizing strategically important islands from the Finns in case Finland decided to get out of the war, but they ended up being used in Normandy, instead. Basically they're just normal infantry.

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Ok. Thanks...nobody has any links though? I found a great one for US Divisions.

QUICK QUESTION.

Is armored infantry drawn from an Armored Division? By that I mean, where does the force pool come from?

For example in the game say we choose armored infantry to play...in real life where would they come from? Like say US 2nd Armor Div was in Normandy would armored infantry be part of their main force?

It confuses the hell out of me.

Mord.

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German armored divisions were supposed to include:

- 1 armor regiment with two battalion (one PzKfw IV battalion, one Panther battalion)

- 1 tank destroyer battalion

- 2 mechanized infantry regiments with 2 battalions each (with, I think, one of the 4 battalions equipped with SdKfz 251s)

- 1 artillery regiment with 3 battalion (one of them self-propelled)

- 1 reconnaissance battalion

At least, that's the theory - in practice, quite a few divisions in Normandy weren't up to the TO&E, for instance missing their Panther battalion.

Anyway, in 1944 a panzer division would include more infantry than armor.

Edit: Us armored divisions included 3 tank battalions, 3 mech infantry battalions (entirely on half-tracks I think), an artillery regiment with 3 battalions (all self-propelled) and a recce battalion.

Edit 2: For the Germans, there was also one mech infantry division (panzer grenadieren division) in Normandy - I suppose it included less armor than the regular panzer divisions, or maybe no armor at all?

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Which division(s) did the 897, 898 and 899th Panzergrenadierregiments report to? These units fought north of St Lo in July. I dont think they're 352nd ID but could be wrong.

Also, were the battalions comprising each Wehrmacht regiment invariably numbered 1-3+?

EDIT: thanks for the link - it shows 697-699 PG regiments comprising 342 ID, but no 897-899. And if it's a typo in the intel reports and histories, 342 ID was not in France after 1941. Mysterious....

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Wehrmacht Battalionen were numbered with Roman numerals.

I./Panzergrendier-Regiment.897

II./Panzergrendier-Regiment.897

Then, the component Kompanien were numbered sequentially by Regiment which meant that the Batallion designation was superfluous when referring to a Kompanie and usually left out, i.e., it was obvious that...

3./Panzergrendier-Regiment.897

...was part of I.Batallion.

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Thanks. I just found that too. The US 35th ID histories report prisoners only from the 897th and 899th, which makes sense. They simply confused Grenadier with PG; forgivable since the prisoners were largely Bohemians, Czechs and Poles...

PS In case you're in touch with the folks at AHF or Feldgrau, feel free to point out the following information which is missing from the unit entries:

The 897th and 899th Grenadier regiments saw heavy action north of St Lo during mid July '44 and seem to have been heavily depleted even before that fight; POW reports state that they were also organized as "KG Kempner". In spite of seemingly being heavily comprised of levies from the old Austro-Hungarian empire (Czechs and Poles -- prisoners told their captors that the officers had to keep close watch on their men at night to stop them surrendering), they gave a very good account of themselves in the stubborn defense of the La Meauffe - St Gilles road ("Purple Heart Corner") as well as the "textbook" fortification and defense of the "Carillon Nose" which is shown in that famous map of hedgerow defenses from the St Lo Green Book.

And I will now sign off from the forums for a bit to work on my campaign map of the above area. It looks like about 1200m x 1200m will do for size, with submaps "carved out" for the various vicious fight....

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Man...I am like batting zero today...my search abilities are in the toilet...

OK...I also need a site that has division marking/patches for German infantry and armor...I found plenty of US division patches...Did the Germs even wear divisional patches like the US? The site Sergei gave me has some but they aren't any use.

Mord.

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I read his post and somehow missed the link...man...my brains is fried.

So, The Germs didn't have divisional patches like the US?

Mord.

P.S. OH, and THANKS Migo!

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@Mord

I'm not a Wehrmacht uniform grog, but my understanding is the same as Sergei. Generally speaking, Divisional symbols/patches were not present on uniforms.

There were a few exceptions in the form of cuffbands for units like Großdeutschland, Feldherrnhalle, many SS divisions and, interestingly, Infanterie-Regiment List which was named after an officer in Imperial Bavarian Regiment 16, the unit Adolf Hitler served with in WWI.

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Hey Mord, the 91st Luftlande Div was scraped together from various units in 1943 and were supposed to be trained in counter-airborne landings, but they didn't have alot of that before D-Day, but they have some smaller units within it's TO&E that were trained as such. They were the principal unit that the US Airborne ran into the first few days and nights after their drop (aside from coastal divisions. IRRC, they had 2 Grenadier Regts (1057 and 1058) and the 6th Fallschirmjaeger Regt. was attached.

I hope you're going to mod their uniforms. :D

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