Late-war US and German OOB questions

[cillmhor]

Hi,

I was looking for some help on a detailed OOB for a US heavy armoured division in late 1945 (the 3rd US Armoured). I know about the units involved, but need to know what made up an armoured regiment, armoured recon battalion etc. If someone can point me in the right direction that would be great and would help me with a scenario I have in mind in the post-Remagan breakout.

How many M4s were in a armoured company and battalion? and an armoured inf regiment?

Detailed OOBs needed for:

83rd Armoured Recon Battalion
32nd and 33rd Armoured Regiments
36th Armoured Inf Regiment
414th (attached) standard infantry regiment
Tank Destroyer company
67th, 83rd, 54th and 391st Armoured Field Art Battalions.

Also any help in identifying these German units would be much appreciated:

SS-Pz.Auf.Unterfurhrer-Aus.Abt.
Panzer Abt Kloskowski

And can someone tell me the differnce between certain between certain battalion listings ie:

aufklarer
aufklarungs-ausbildungs
Auf-aus-u-ers-abt
unterfurhrer-aus-u.lehr

Again any help very gratefully received, all of the above queries are related to SS-Ersatz Panzer Brigade Westfalen

Cheers

Cillmhor

[Huib Versloot]

[Ratzki]

Let me take a stab at a US armoured division. My American unit knowledge is fairly weak so someone out there will be able to correct my mistakes, but this should be fairly close.

The 2nd and 3rd Armoured divisions were not reorganised in '44-'45 and maintained an organization that should be classed as a Heavy Armoured Division. The make up was:

-2x Armoured Regiment
with each Regiment having 1x light Tank battalion, and 2x medium tank battalions.

-1x Armoured Infantry Regiment
having 3x Armoured Infantry Battalions

-1x Cavalry Battalion
-1x Self Propelled Tank Destroyer Battalion
-3x Self Propelled Artillery Battalions
-1x AA Battalion
-1x Engineer Battalion

A light tank battalion is 3 companies of 15x M5 each, and an HQ of ??1-2 M5?? for each company.
A medium tank battalion is 3 companies of 15x M4 each, and a HQ of ??1-2?? M4 for each company.
About 50 tanks per company total. I can not tell you the make up of what model tanks and how many of each as this is just some general information that i have.

The Cavalry would be Armoured cavalry with M8's.

The Engineer Battalion would be lifted by Halftrack.

I do not have a clue what made up the AA Battalion. Would guess to be Self propelled M-16/M-15's with a towed heavy component of 90mm AA Guns.

The TD Battalion would be predominantly M18 with 1, maybe two platoons of M10's per company. It has 3 companies with 3 platoons each with 4x M18/M10's per platoon.

SP Arty would be 3 batteries of 6x 105mm pieces. with 2 SPG's per platoon.

Someone please correct the mistakes and ommisions that I have made, I will look and see if I can find any more information.

[Don Fox]

Couple of quick notes on the American OB:

TO&E for a tank company is 15, plus 2 HQ tanks (17 total). For medium tank companies, they were a mix of Sherman variants (75s and 76s). There were also two M4 HQ tanks at the Battalion level, plus additional M4/105's. If you are designing in CS, these elements are in the standard OB (but unfortunately, the HQ tanks are not built in to the OB, and need to be added...I have not checked yet in the Matrix version to see if they included them).

TD Battalions did not mix vehicle types; they were 100% of their slated vehicle type (M18, M10, or M36).

[Ratzki]

TD Battalions did not mix vehicle types; they were 100% of their slated vehicle type (M18, M10, or M36).

So even when replacement vehicles were ordered, they would be of the same type? I do not know what the factory run is for each type of vehcle, but would have thought that the newer, more proficient, or more numerous vehicle design would replace reguardless of type. I figured they would not mix in platoons, but would replace whole platoons inside a company.

[cillmhor]

US OOBs

Thanks for all of this, very helpful and just the kind of information I need. I am not sure what type of TDs the 703rd Tank Destroyer Bn. had at the Battle of Paderborn in March 29th 1945 (the scenario I have in mind). The 9th Armored's 656th TD Bn. had M18s at that time, were the M18s more common?

I also saw a picture captioned as a recon unit being led by an M5? Does this mean that there were M5s in the cavalry/recon battalion? Or is the caption just a general comment, recon meaning at the front of the advance? In other words were M5s attached to Recon Battalions?

Would the cavalry battalion companies be 15 x M8 etc. like the light and medium battalions?

How close to the combat zone would AA battalions be when an armoured division is advancing?

Also I have seen elsewhere that the Signal Battalion is listed among the combat units of the Division, is this true and what was the make-up of a Signal Bn.?

German OOBs

Thanks very much Huib, again just what I was looking for.

So the two unterfurher battalions are officer cadets, probably? The Westfalen Bridade was formed on 29 March from SS training staff and personnel at the Sennelager training grounds north of Paderborn, so they were very adhoc, and only lasted a a few weeks as a unit with Paderborn being there most significant engagement.

Would it make sense for there to have been three battalions for each regiment within the Brigade, as appears to be the case from the unit OOB I have?

Also there was a small panzer unit made up of training tanks from the school; Panzer Abt Kloskowski a safe bet?

Cheers

cillmhor

[Ratzki]

Motorized and Mechanized Cavalry would have M5's and I am pretty sure M4's, but I believe Armoured Cavalry would be M8's with 5x M8's in each platoon with a HQ of 2x M8's as pointed out by Don Fox in the above post.
A Signal Battalion would probably consist of a Battalion HQ, Company HQ's, and the Wire Company itself. Weapons would be light only. Now this is from a Russian Signal Battalion so I am just inferring the same would apply to an American Signal Battalion.
Again corrections to what I have stated are more then welcome.

[FM WarB]

I have read that it was practice in the U.S. "heavy" armored divisions to form armored batalions of one light company with light tanks and two medium companies. The very poor anti armor capability of the M5 light tanks made batalions with only light tanks impracticable on the battlefield.
The armored regiment would thus have three batalions, each with one light and two medium companies.
In 1945 limited numbers of the new M24 Chaffee light tank and the M26 Pershing heavy tank may also have been available.

[cillmhor]

Thanks once again to everyone for the help. I'm getting the Matrix edition of CS and that may help me with my OOB for the CM scenario I have in mind. It looks like I am going to have to guess that the TDs were M18s, unless I can dig up a detailed OOB for the 3rd Armoured in March 1945.

Thanks again.

cillmhor

[Huib Versloot]

Thanks once again to everyone for the help. I'm getting the Matrix edition of CS and that may help me with my OOB for the CM scenario I have in mind. It looks like I am going to have to guess that the TDs were M18s, unless I can dig up a detailed OOB for the 3rd Armoured in March 1945.

Thanks again.

cillmhor

703rd had M36 TDs.

Huib