Here's a question for the forum and there are some really bright apples on this tree so I know I have come to the right place.
OK- I want to do a pseudo-historical diorama of a combined arms assault against a defended french town (defended by Germans) and being assaulted by the good guys in green (ie Americans). I want to display an American armored company supporting american infantry versus a German Armor company supporting German armor (with a contigent of FJs hopefully ).
My question is this- on the US side- I have 4 Shermans, which I believe would be an accurate representation of an armor company. I'm all over the board with the Germans- I have 2 Panthers, a tiger and a King Tiger- I know I want to add the Panzer IV and stug in the mix. For the US, I also want to add a Priest and/or TD (Hellcat, etc).
So, what kind of composition should I look at? Would the Germans have a mixed company to that extent in the Late Summer/ Early Fall of 1944? I have basically purchased these tanks because they are icons of WW2, though I am not so sure they would all be deployed in a company formation together.
There were some German armored divisions with organic Tiger elements (i.e. "Großdeutschland", 3.SS-Panzer-Division "Totenkopf") but the norm at this point in the war was to organize Tigers into independant heavy tank battalions (schwere Panzer-Abteilung) which were generally attached at the corps level. German organizational doctrine was very flexible, however, and Tiger units could be subordinated to divisions as the situation required.
A normal German armored division at this point of the war would have 1 battalion (Abteilung) of Panzer Vs "Panthers" and 1 battailion (Abteilung) of Panzer IVs organized into a single Panzer regiment.
Lets take a look at the organizational chart for 2.SS-Panzer Division "Das Reich" from July 1944.
In the second box from the top we find the organization of the panzer regiment (solid square flag). There are two panzer abteilung (solid triangular flags) numbered I and II (Roman numerals). The rhomboids represent the individual panzer companies and are generally numbered 1-8 counting from the right. The rhomboids containing a "V" are Panzer V "Panther" companies and the rhomboids containing a "IV" are Panzer IV companies. The rhomboids with an arrow out the top are StuG companies. This means that this unit's Panzer IV Abteilung has been augmented with two companies of StuGs, likely due to Pz.IV shortages. The number below the rhomboids is the authorized number for each company. Panzer divisions rarely had their authorized number of tanks. I haven't seen any organizational documents that mix vehicle types below the Abteilung level. This doesn't mean that in real life scratch units containing a variety of vehicles weren't employed, particularly as units were worn down in combat.
Well when you look at Normandy there are some interesting things going on organization wise in the Armored Divisions TO & E. But I will focus on our old unit of 2AD the 66th Regiment which was fighting as a regiment and remaind so until the war ended. The basic structure of the Regiment was 3 Battalions of 3 tank companies, One company was light with M5 and the other two had M4s. Loos like the same basic TO&E stayed in use up till just after Korea so the companies would have had 4 Platoons of 5 Tanks with 2 tanks for the HQ element Co XO. Plus an Armored Recovery section and the usual maintenance section with various trucks and jeeps. So surpringly it would look a lot like what we were used to seeing along Motor Pool road at Hood.
So If you took a group of 4 M4s and added a M2 or M5 to the mix along with some Armored Infantry in Half Tracks as well as dismounted you would be able to build a decent looking display. Having some arty up close would not have been totally out of place since there is always some fluidity or lost driver wandering around out there:salute::.
Now since you are near the War College if you can get access or have a friend there who has access to their pubs see if you can get any of the pubs from the Armored School. We did a pretty extensive look at the battle of Nancy there was an Army Pub on it. WOrth a look.
Also from what I can tell of the battle in Nromandy there would have been Panthers and or Tigers supported by Panzer IVs and Stugs as well as SP guns. The Tanks would have been supported by a pretty strong Infantry Company in 251s so I think you can certainly have a good looking defense. I look forward to seeing some photos.
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