Dismounted PanzerGrenadiers coy.

[chuckfourth]

Hello
Each platoon in the dismounted armoured panzergrenadier company, "PzGrKp gep (a)" has a 3 MMG squad attached to it. I believe this is intended to represent the rear LMG having been taken out of the halftrack and used in the squad. I think there might be two inconsistencies here, firstly the rifle platoons halftracks didnt carry tripods so the 'extra' MG's should be LMGs not MMGs. Secondly I think it would make sense to model these not as an extra squad with 3 LMGs but to use the same modeling as is applied to the 2 BAR American squads, ie combine the 2 LMGs into the same weapon slot and increase that slots hit value. In this case the hit value would move from 8 to 13.
Best Regards Chuck.

[DRG]

OK, I'll look into that

Don

[Nick_Hyle]

Don, I swear when we came up with this (3xInf + 1xMMG[3]) formation for dismounted PzGr Kompanies we had documentation that they did have tripods stored in the SdKfz 251s.

I'll take a look in my books.

[DRG]

Nick

They did.

This quote from "Schützenpanzer" by Bruce Culver and Uwe Feist

"The Motorized infantry regiments in the Panzer Divisions were
organized with two battalions each. Each battalion contained three rifle
companies and a heavy support company. A rifle company had three rifle
platoons, each of which consisted of three infantry squads ( Gruppen ) .
Each squad had two MG34 light machine guns, one on a heavy tripod mount, and
8 Mauser 7.92mm Kar 98k rifles. The heavy MG section in each platoon had two
MG34's on Heavy tripods, and there SPW's also had a heavy mount for the
vehicle's forward MG34"

Of course, Chuck thinks this is wrong ( of course...) personally, I think both sources are correct and the tripod was available if needed and the gun could be set up either as a LMG or a MMG depending on the tactical situation. ( one of the strengths of the MG34/42 was this flexability )

These nit picking conversations are getting a bit tedious though... Now we're down to should the Moterized PzGren be in Opels of Protze when in game terms there is little difference and in reality the Pzgren formations would be happy with anything with wheels that had a motor.

Don

[Gud]

.... the ability to field fully motorized (or perish the thought, mechanized) coys of PzGrd post 1943 was really wishful thinking. In theory one regiment should be half-tracked, in practice it was one battalion (2 in SS), and in reality a company or two.

[chuckfourth]

Hi Gud
Of course there is always the exception, pz Lehr had all the grenadiers in armoured transport.
Best regards Chuck.

[chuckfourth]

Hi DRG
I think this as a bit more than nit picking. why I hear you ask?
First the grenadier coy with a MMG in each squad and the grenadier coy without rifle squad MMGs play very differently, ie firepower and mobility are worlds apart.
The Protze has a much better cross country abiltiy than the Opel. This is important when the grenadiers are trying to follow tanks. Not to mention that if the protze was used the grenadier coy would now have effectively 6 rather than 3 squads very different to what we now have ie a lot more flexable.
From the link below we also see that Grenadier coys were also mounted on bicycles and in 250s. Adding the bicycle formation into the game would I think add a lot of interest, and keep the germany had no petrol or equipment players happy.
Lastly is seems there may only be the one reference supporting MMG rifle squads, everywhere else (I can find) says MMGs restricted to the support coy.
So where we now can choose betwen Opel or 251 we would be able to choose Opel or 251 or protze or bicycle or 250 mounted coy.

For completeness sake Ill drop this post in here also

Looking at The link Clause supplied
http://chrito.users1.50megs.com/kstn/okh/okhmain.htm
It would appear that maybe shutzenpanzer has suffered in translation or that this is a typo.
There are several grenadier TOES this one in particular
http://chrito.users1.50megs.com/kstn/kstn11141nov41.htm
details the protze mounted grenadiers as described in Bayonet.
Also I have looked at I think each grenadier formation and yes these TOEs do show the rifle squads carrying 2 LMGs and the tripod MMGs restricted to the Support company. This is also the case in the one book I have "german tanks and fighting vehicle of WWII" ISBN 0 7271 0006 8 and pretty much anywhere else on the internet I can find.

The LMG interpretaton makes sense to me as
Obviously a company assault would be impossible to coordinate using this number of MMGs.
All the extra tripod MMGs would only really be useful in prepared defensive positions. So the rest of the time the tripods wouldnt be of much use. This would be a bit wateful as they were very expensive to make (much more than the actual MMG) not to mention training a gun crew in each squad only to 'waste' them as LMG operators.
The normal infantry battalion only had MMGs in the support Coy if this formation was good for the infantry why would the grenadiers need a MMG to be assigned to each rifle squad as well? seems far too generous an allocation ie very top heavy.
Apologies for the tedium Chuck.

[DRG]

chuckfourth said:
The Protze has a much better cross country abiltiy than the Opel. This is important when the grenadiers are trying to follow tanks. Not to mention that if the protze was used the grenadier coy would now have effectively 6 rather than 3 squads very different to what we now have ie a lot more flexable.

True enough, the Protze with A/T wheel capability would be better at following tanks and I will consider that change but splitting the Pzgren squads in half so they could be placed into 6 Protze is not going to happen.

Don