Guys: I was watching a nice set of WWII documentaries last week called “Battlefront” and they were referring to armor and infantry as divisions. Can someone help me with the terminology of the following:
Platoon, Division, Regiment, Battallion…others? Are they all related to the number in each group? Are there ones I missed?
Sorry…pretty basic stuff[D)], Sometimes you gotta’ ask the question…
Thanks Manny…now does that refer to the number of tanks too??? That seems HUGE…or is a Panzer Division made up of infantry AND troops, totalling the amounts you listed?
A Panzer Div is made up of tank, Infantry, artillery, engineers and everything else you can thing of. They contain everything they need to operate in the field and are usually broken into a number of battle groups. A Panzer Div would have approx 20,000 men at full strentgh, while something like a parachute Div would have about 12,000.
The total number of tanks a Pz Div was meant to have depended on the period of the war, from the top of my head a type 44 Div would have had around 150 tanks. The 20,000 men was every arm of the Div.
Well the number of tanks changed at various stages of the war. The offical tank strength went down as more Pz Divs were created but of course German production couldn’t buld enough tanks to equip the new ones and replace losses at the same time. So, the strentgh was reduced. Also, each Pz Div would have had StuGs and Paz JaG which would have taken the place of towed AT guns. In some cases StuG would replace tanks as they were quicker to build. So the offical strength and the actual strength were usually two different things.
Typically a PD would have 1 Armored Regiment and 2 Panzergreandier Regiments to round out the 3 Regiment Division model…As was previosuly stated, the total number of personnel would vary greatly throughout the war…the 1st SS and Panzer Lehr Division in the Spring of '44 had about 20,000 men each and the Lehr had approx. 180 tanks!!!..but these numbers were higher than the norm…16,000 to 18,000 men was probably more typical…Also, early in the war German PD’s had 4 tank battallions per Division vs. the later 2…
This is whats called TO&E- Table of Organization and Equipment. On paper what a unit (any size) is to be composed of , manning, and equipped with. TO&Es for the same unit type will vary over time. Production, supply, replacements and combat attrition will all have their effects as well.
I have a great book, called “Wehrmacht Panzer Divisions 39-45”, part of the “Essential Tank Identification guide” series (there are also guides to wingie thingies). Has the TOE for each Div at various stages of the war.
For example, the 10th Panzer Regiment, 8th Panzer division had 49 PzII, 125 38(t), 30 Pz IV at the start of the Balkans campaign, less by Barbarossa and the leftovers moved to AG Center after Leningrad.
you get the idea… the value of the book lies in that it gives you color pics and markings for each (well, most) regiments,a s well as letting you know who was where with what.
Exactly…but there were official unit strength guidelines throughout the war…these were rarely met in practice as units were almost continously engaged…in a few rare cases they were, such as a few PD’s in Normandy that were stationed for long periods of time resting and refitting behind lines…