Disbanded divisions

[Joe Cleere]

Sid hit on a very important point. I've noticed that the pre-war divisions were very seldom disbanded, and almost always rebuilt. The one exception I can think of right now is the 10th Panzer Division, which was destroyed in North Africa. The pre-war, first wave divisions were the core of the German army and were its best divisions.

[Reb]

Jan-Henrik

McDonald disagrees with you. I checked the OOB in back of Time of Trumpets - he states all regiments had three like early war org and included the guys you mentioned from 582 VG plus Luftwaffe and Navy personal totalling 17,000 men.

Not sure of course, if that is gospel but the large size of the div in comparison to others has been quoted in numerous sources.

Do you have a source I could refer to for your 2 bn statement?

(I'm studying that compaign just now and its of interest to me)

thanks

Reb

[Jan-Hendrik]

Scherzer, Tessin, http://www.diedeutschewehrmacht.de , Keilig and the organisational scheme from NARA

Who is McDonald?

Jan-Hendrik

[Reb]

Jan-Hendrik

Charles McDonald was a young captain in the Ardennes with 2nd Inf Div in the Krinkelt-Rocherath fighting. He wrote a book about it called "Company Commander" (which is pretty good actually) which got some attention and he was ultimately a chief historian for the US Army and wrote a series of pretty impressive works on the Western Front.

His "Time of Trumpets" is one of the better works on the Ardennes and he pays a lot of attention to the German side. His OOB seems pretty accurate and was the first comphrensive OOB I saw for the German side. And he doesn't fall into the trap of pretending the pz divs were "full strength" which many western authors do.

That said, his work is becoming a bit dated and the web site you gave me looks pretty authoritative. (and its good enough that even a linguistically challenged English speaker like me can navigate).

I've been studying the small armoured fights by 9th and 10th US Armd Divs for various roadblocks and crossroads during the advance of 47 Pz Korps hence my interest. I just found SLA Marshall's "Bastogne: the first eight days" on line which I found interesting. It was written just after the war and its obvious that subsequent authors drank deep from this one.

cheers
Reb

[Hans Weber]

Hello

Regarding 26th VGD

Both Jan-H. and Reb are right in their own way.

The division officially had a 6-Battalion structure (2 per Regiment). There is no doubt about this. On the other side, with 17'000 men, it could have easily reverted to a 9-Battalion structure. I remember having read a statement by Danny S. Parker that it had the equivalent of 6 (instead of 4) Companies per Bn. He did some good research back in the 80 for tabeltop wargames, that was before he wrote his well known books. His own "Hitler's Last Gamble" still is one of the best researched games, I think.
I don't carry a Gliederung of the unit for this date (besides the rather basic Korps-Gliederung for the start of the offensive). I suppose that the information McDonald used came from an interview taken from Kokott and maybe some G-2 reports. Sometimes these are the only usefull alternatives when the original German documents are missing.
It would be interesting to hear from someone who has been able to locate a December Gliederung of the unit, though.

Cheers
Hans

[Jan-Hendrik]

Sorry, all 3 Rgts. had 1.-8-Kp + 13.(IG)&14.(PzZerst)Kp



Jan-Hendrik

[Qvist]

Just a few bits and pieces:

1. At least it is clearly identified as belonging to 32.Welle (it is identified as such in an OrgAbt order of 14 September, which lists a number of ID who are to dispatch their Restteile to their home WK (in this case, WKIII), there to be reformed as VGD 32. Welle). It subsequently appears, associated with 584.VGD, which apparently had initiated its formation process about three weeks previously, in an overview listing the locations and completion dates of these divisions. In the formation order for 32.Welle (AHA, 25.8.44), the only thing that is said about KStN is that it will be similar to the divisions of 29.Welle, except where Chef BdE specifically orders exceptions. The Gliederung of "Gren.D. 29.Welle" calls for three regiments of two batallions. Eventually however, there was produced a separate Gliederung for "VGD (Division 32. Welle)", which contains the structure Jan-Hendrik refers - 3 Regiments each of two batallions, and 4+4+1+1 Companies.

Incidentally, it was formally redesignated as a VGD only on 11 October (along with 9., 59. and 257.ID). It actually seems to have carried out its reformation process in WK XXI (Ie, in Western Poland) - at least, this is where it is shown in the periodical overviews of "Die in Aufst. U. Umgl. Befindlichen div.".

2. On 27 August, the structure of the 32.Welle divisions were changed :

Pz.Jg.Abt.
- 1 s.Pz.Jg.Kp (mot) (12 guns) removed
- reduction of the remaining s.Pz.Jg.Kp to 3 guns a piece

Art.Rgt.
- Added one Pak-Artl.Btl. of 3 Bttr x 6 Pak
- Each of the 2 le. FH Abt. cut by 1 battery

Vers.Rgt.

Kf.Kp cut from 130 to 120.

3. A 6 November OrgAbt overview gives a combined strength of 72,000 for 7 divisions of 32.Welle. If 26.VGD had 17,000 men, it must in other words have been about twice as strong as the other 6 divisions in the same Welle were on average.

4. The reference to "Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine personnell" needs to be put in context. You sometimes get the impression from authors that they think of these as a group of personell that was handed over to divisions directly, to beef them up over and beyond their normal allocation of personell through the regular channels. This is not generally the case (though it does appear to have occasionally happened). Men transferred from the LW and KM constituted a very large proportion of the manpower used for new formations and Ersatz during late summer and fall 1944, but generally they were transferred to the Ersatzheer, who then used them as part of their general manpower pool in pretty much exactly the same way as new recruits called up - for example, to form the divisions of 32. Welle. Hence, that there were many men originating from the LW and KM in a division doesn't say anything about whether or not it had an unusually large establishment or unusually many men.

5. I don't know exactly when 26.VGD was transported to the front, but it had an initial completion date of 31 October, and I do have some BdE strength figures for VGD divisions who were despatched to the Field Army in November - which hence seems likely to include it. These are:

I Dekade...........5 VGD.........40,000
II Dekade..........3 VGD.........24,000
III Dekade.........1 VGD..........8,000

Obviously, these are rough figures - but as you will note, they indicate exactly similar strengths - around 8,000 men - for each of the divisions.

cheers

[Piet Duits]

Hi all,

Now it becomes interesting.
As we know, the 32. Welle, better known as Volksgrenadier-Divisionen were the improved versions of the 29. and the 30. Welle Divisions.
The "exact" SOLL-Strength of both types of division is still not clear to me, especially not when it comes to the 29. Welle formations.
The 30. Welle were clear in what KStN were needed where and when, making it for me a lot easier to decipher. *)
However, these divisions indeed were soon renamed as Volksgrenadier-Divisions.

---
*) Euh... clear? The Pak-Battr. was formed under KStn 433 f as of 1.11.43 reinforced with 2 guns to 6 guns per Batterie. It had quite a few changes compared with the 29. Welle.
---

Now -for me that is- the interesting part: did they have changes in organization (read: menpower)? I don't know for sure. I have nearly completed collecting all the relevant KStN for both the 30. and 32. Welle formations (excluding the 29.), so when finished and compared with my other sources, I should be able to tell you exactly how much men and weapons were needed per division.

BUT... that's not enough.
There were several different changes within the Volksgrenadier-Divisions.
Some divisions had 1 Grenadier-Batallion on bicycles (with a slightly different unit strength), other divisions had a Füsilier-Batallion instead of the authorized Füsilier-Kompanie. Was this Füsilier-Batallion of the same strength as the Grenadier-Batallion (fahrradbew.)?
Then the Divisions-Kampfschule could be upgraded to a complete Feldersatz-Batallion.
There are several other options as well. The Nachrichten-Abteilung should -according to my sources- be formed under the 1.5.44 Inf.Div. 44 KStN for such a unit, but with changes. I have the totals for these changes, but only in some ways can I figure out where the changes were made (especially when compared with the 1.11.44 set of KStN for the Nachr.Abt. of the Inf.Div. 45).

This may sound irrelevant for the most of you, but it is not. Why not? Well, the numbers you guys are using had to be based on something.
KStN-strength.

17.000 for the 26. VGD seems way too much. Even taking into account that the division might have been reinforced with remnants of the various Luftwaffen-Landesschütz-Batallionen and/or other Heerestruppen.
Even then an estimated total of 14000 would be the highest number I would give to them.

About the changes in the Versorgungsregiment, ordered by the GenStdH for all Infanterie-Divisionen (incl. VGD's): the order to change the 150t Kf.Kp. into a 120t Kf.Kp. (KStN 1217 b as of 1.11.43) was not always followed. For some reason, you can find the 150t Kf.Kp. with at least the 12. Inf.Div.
This was a strange type of unit anyway, so it could have been a Sonderzuweisung.

Please continue to contribute to this interesting topic guys!


Piet

PS: Some number to add to the confusion:
a regular Grenadier-Regiment of a Volksgrenadier-Division totalled 1855 men (44 Offz., 3 Beamte, 271 Uffz. and 1537 Mannsch.) (confirmed KStN strength)
The official US Army Handbook on the German Army gives slightly different numbers:
46 Offz., 267 Uffz., 1541 Mannsch. = 1854

[Reb]

Piet

The strange thing with 26 VG is that the Fusileer Bn was actually the third regiment and had two (or perhaps three?) battalions. Jan Hendrik's site that he showed me shows two bns.

In McDonald's OOB he keys thumbnail sketches of each of the German divs and very few get the plus marks that he gives 26 VG.

the question is, to me anyhow, can we really assume the various VG divs were in the same shape? (despite OOB). Parker referred to some of them of as a barely organized rabble - which in the Ardennes some certainly performed poorly.

While some, like 26 VB and to an extent, 12 VG (burned up a bit in previous fights) seemed to be pretty good and had better than average men and equipment. I don't have my books with me today but it was either 18 or 62 VG that pretty much took the 106 US Div apart.

Others just sort of milled around getting blasted by artillery...

I suppose it all comes down in the end to the leadership cadre and the quality of the recruits they were built with.

cheers
Reb

[Jan-Hendrik]

Again a siging *möp* by me...

The name Füsilier-regiment for the 39ers was a traditional name for this particular Rgt. !! Its OoB was exactly the same as the two other Rgt.s with the by Piet mentioned I.Btl as RadfahrBtl. !

The 26.VGD had indeed a DivisionsFüsilierBtl- 26 (which was lead by the later RKT Major Rolf Kunkel) instead of an AA



Jan-Hendrik

[Reb]

Jan-Hendrik

I noticed in chasing down that site you noted that the Fusileer status began around '43 IIRC.

Is there a story in that?

cheers
Reb

[Qvist]

The division officially had a 6-Battalion structure (2 per Regiment). There is no doubt about this. On the other side, with 17'000 men, it could have easily reverted to a 9-Battalion structure

I think the key point here is do we know it had 17,000 men? The only thing that suggests it is that McDonald says so. I have the book ("The Battle of the Bulge", I assume it is the same one), and I must say I do not at all agree with you Reb that he pays a lot of attention to the German side. The book is in fact marked by nuemrous inaccuracies and weak generalisations in the information given about the German forces, which is unsurprising when you consider the sources he has used - (a small number of) published general works, some of the postwar studies written by German officers and interviews with veterans, none of whom provide any sort of basis for an understanding of organisational issues or the strength of individual formations. In his bibliography, he writes (about the materials he collected from German veterans) "since my work is focussed on the American view, I was able to use only portions of that material where it dovetailed with the story froom the American side". A rather strange method in my opinion, but that's a different matter. What in any case seems clear that whatever view one takes of the usefulness of the book - an authority on the other side of the hill he decidedly is not, and hardly much of a reliable source of information on it either.

What is clear is that there seems to be nothing to indicate that 26.VGD was rebuilt to the old 9-batallion structure. If it had 17,000 men, it was vastly overstrength. And there is so far not anything to indicate that it did have 17,000 men either, apart from McDonald stating it ( a point of information he does not source, and which wouldn't be the only inaccuracy he commits in that brief passage). My guess would be that the general basis for his unit info is US intelligence.

Does anyone have Dupuy's "Hitler's Last Gamble" - which unlike McDonald does base its information on good sources?

cheers

[Piet Duits]

the question is, to me anyhow, can we really assume the various VG divs were in the same shape? (despite OOB). Parker referred to some of them of as a barely organized rabble - which in the Ardennes some certainly performed poorly.
cheers
Reb

Reb,

Yes, I think you can.
Why? Well, units were authorized to form divisional subunits out of personnel already with the division.
For example the FEB's were often formed like this. In time these units became official.
But, and this I have found yesterday, there are other cases known that a particular division, say 11. Panzer-Division, build additional subunits not authorized according to the official organization, and were ordered to disband them.
The VGD was a considerable fighting force, if well led and properly trained. Exactly this is important: well trained.
This is something I have come across often: the Ersatz that came from the various Wehrkreise were poorly trained, unfit for combat etc. Combine this with the Ersatz that came from the Luftwaffe and the Kriegsmarine, and you will get a disaster waiting to happen.

The divisions which received a fair lot of veterans combined with green recruits acted better I suppose than units largerly build out of Luftwaffe personnel.

There were several things though that didn't work out right. For example the additional 2 guns to an Artillerie-Batterie. This was refused from all layers. So, what did the artillery crews do: field 3 to 4 guns, and hold the remainder in reserve. This was not allowed, but it worked. Especially during forced retreats and guns got lost, the units still had several pieces to work with.

Back to your question: I think the germans were hard on the way to get their units standardized in a way. If this had happened earlier in the war, let's say 1943, before Kursk, the german army would have been more stable. But that's just a guess from me.
Besides the artillery batteries being too large in pieces, the VGD was based on proven organizations. For an Infantry Division that is. I doubt that, especially given the time, more improvements could be made.

Piet

[Reb]

Qvist

McDonald's book was "A time for trumpets." I wonder if you could be mixing that up with Toland's "Battle: Story of the Bulge?"

McDonald did, IIRC, interview MG Kokott CO of 26 VG.

When I get home tomorrw I'll doublecheck and also look in SLA Marshal and Hugh Cole. The latter is an "official" US history and has the advantage of access to German post war statements and a nearness to the topic. It has the disadvantage of taking statements from US troops a bit too literally - Tiger tanks everywhere!

Please note - I have no agenda with this other than trying to nail down the facts and see as many sources as I can.

cheers
Reb

[Qvist]

Hi Reb

No. Charles Mcdonald, "The Battle of the Bulge". I assume this is the same book published under a different name in Briatin, especially as there is no book by himself under the name you quote in the bibliography (which contains several other entries by McDonald), and since the book contains exactly the statement you quoted in the OOB Appendix.

Sorry if I seem overly dismissive about this, but it is a source of continuing amazement to me that it is seemingly regarded as entirely permissible in Anglo-American historiography to write what purports to be serious history without even trying to take into consideration a vast and easily accessible documentation, or any German research for that matter. To write a book about the Bulge on the basis McDonald has - at least if it is to be anything more than a description of "the american experience" borders on the incompetent. If it is really the case that Marshall and the other authors has done nothing better than that for the US official history than take into account German post war statements, it almost defies belief. The whole surviving documentation of the German army sits on microfilm in Washington, which you'd think a well-funded official history might want to take advantage of. It's no wonder that with a few honorable exceptions Anglo-American WWII history is in such a miserably sorry state, with works that aren't even competent still being regarded as classics.

cheers