6th PzD - OOB Question - Stalingrad

[von Nev]

Hey all,

I need some help here.

I was looking over the Stalingrad OOB for the 6th Panzer Division and I believe part of the division is missing specifically the 40+ assault guns commanded by Major Koch.

In both Anthony Beevor's book "Stalingrad" pg 297 and in General Raus' book "Panzer Operations" pg 175, 182 they refer to a very strong assault gun unit of over 40 vehicles commanded by Major Koch that was organic to the 6th Panzer Division when it was committed to breakthrough to Stalingrad. This unit was very powerful and during the swirling battles north of Kotelnikovo it played a large role in the destruction of the Russian 4th Cavalry Corps.

I am editing the OOB for my (soon to be published) altered S42 campaign and I need some thoughts on how I should create this missing unit. Being 40+ vehicles I imagine that it is full battalion consisting of 3 companies of 13 vehicles plus a couple battalion command vehicles. Since the 6th PzD was fully re-equipped by Nov 1942 when it left France I imagine that it had the latest Stug's (i.e. with 75mm long guns). I am thinking they are either the F or early G models (no side skirts).

Does this sound about right? Does anybody have any other thoughts or information regarding this unit?

Thanks,

Marty

[Wien1938]

Sounds ok, just one correction.

The standard StuG Company at the time was 14 StuGs, three coy to a battalion and an HQ plt of 3 StuGs. This was probably downgraded to 10 StuGs the following year.
I doubt that it was organic, but rather attached. My best lead is the 228. StuG.Abt., which according to Franz Kurowski (http://books.google.com/books?id=gLjglRX...&ct=result - page 38) was attached to 6.Pz.Div during Wittergewitter.
It is probable that the organisation above was that used by the formation, however it is possible that the divisional panzerjaeger formation possessed some StuGs, though it more likely to have been using Marders.

[Richrd]

I don't think there ever was a StuG battalion (or Brigade) that had 45 vehicles. I just saw a thread in the axis history forum yesterday by the great Ron Klages, where he listed every StuG batt on the eastern front with their strengths for sometime in early 43. I think 31 was about tops. I have the book by Raus. I'll check it first.
Don't forget to include the camels.

[Richrd]

Okee dokee. K.St.N.446a dated november 42 authorised batteries w/10 guns (3 per battalion) Another K.St.N. (Dec 42) Authorised one for the battalion commander, although many already had one. 31. In Feb 44 the 14 gun batterie was established. The particular battalion in question I'll find. I wasn't aware of one.

[von Nev]

Thanks for the help all.

Raus clearly says that the assault gun unit had over 40 vehicles with a quote from pg 182 where he says, " . . . the 150 tanks of Panzer Regiment 11 surged out of the village at the same moment that Major Koch's forty-two Stg III assault guns hit them in the rear." He also eluded to that the unit was at full strength. This is what was confusing to me since my research does not indicate that the Stug battalions were over around 30 vehicles.

Regarding whether it was the 228th Assault Gun battalion I still can't confirm that. Wein mentioned that Franz Kurowski believes it was the 228th, but I have Franz Kurowski's book "Sturmgeschutze Vor!" (Assault Guns to the Front) and the 228th isn't in the whole book even though the book claims that it lists all the assault gun battalions in the Wehrmacht. Strange.

I'll keep looking . . .

Marty

P.S. I am going to put the camels in the game. Anybody have a good image of a camel cavalry unit?? ;)

For those that don't know what we are talking about, the 4th Cavalry Corps unbelievably had units where camels were the mount of preference. These camel units were running over the snowy steppes southeast of Stalingrad in December 1942!! Raus's kampfgruppes said that they were incredibly mobile and in one instance they barely escaped the rampaging panzers of the 6th Panzer division by fording the Aksay River.

[von Waldenburg]

Speaking from memory, I might be wrong, but from Raus' memories as well, the Stug bn came with the campaign underway (and was not an integral part of 6th Pz Div at least during the relief effort), the 6th Pz had around 150 panzers when it came from France right after Stalingrad was encircled.

[Richrd]

228 StuG abt is in Kurowski's book. It's in the back "Also there was...' section. A couple of othere sources also mention the 228th being involved in the attempt to relieve Stalingrad. Plus the 228th was attached to the 6th Pz often during the first half of 43. The 228th was only formed in Nov-Dec 42. So it would be but a babe. Also 6th Pz only had about 24 PzIV with the long 75. Forty, or even twenty, StuGs with the same gun would have been a huge multiplier. Lastly, Raus may have been a fine panzer commmander, but he writes like a doctor. I was plodding through it, and I'm extremely grateful you gave a page number.

[Richrd]

Beever says: 'It had been refitted in Brittany and was fully up to strength, with 160 long barrelled pzIVs and forty assault guns" This is all false. 6th Panzer had 21 PzII, 73 PzIII(lang), 32 PzIII (75 Kurz), 24 PzIV (lang), and 9 befehlPanzer. Plus a PzJgr Battalion with one company of Marders. He also says, on the same page, about the Tiger Tanks: 'The very first battalion to be formed had been rushed to the Ostfront and added to Kirchner's (57th Pz Kps) force'. This too is untrue. The first battalion had been sent to Leningrad. The one sent to southern Russia was the 503rd s.Pz.Abt. It entered action along the Manytsch river in January 43 when the Russians were driving on Rostov. Sorry to sound like an OOB geek but Beever, who sounds like his source was Raus, is not a credible source. That still leaves the 228th StuG Batt. I'm mystified.

[Wien1938]

While it is true in the nominal sense, that 503.sPzAbt was not the first such battalion to be formed, it was the first such battalion reach a complete TOE.
So in the real sense that it was the first sPzAbt (in a completed sense) to be dispatched to the front. Also 2.Kom/502.sPzAbt was operating alongside 503.sPzAbt under Army Group Don and either on the 10th or 22nd of Feb was redesignated as 3.Kom/503.sPzAbt. My guess is that this was the point at which the sPzAbt stopped using the Pz.III alongside the Tiger.
So until just before Kursk, 503.sPzAbt was the only complete sPzAbt operating as a sPzAbt, rather than individual companies.
The first operational Tigers had been sent to the Leningrad front but not as even a complete company.
The source for the above is primarily http://www.alanhamby.com/unithist.shtml
I would say that this rescues Beevor as a credible authority. Also the Germans did throw newly formed units into battle and Manstein and Guderian both directed criticism at Hitler and the OKW/OKH for this policy as it lead to unnecessarily high losses amongst fresh units. In anycase, the battalion would have had a sharp learning experience!

[Volcano Man]

Actually, I was looking up something similar and couldn't figure out the exact designation of this phantom StuG unit, or even if there really was one. Depending on what further information you are able to find out -- it looks like if StuG.Abt.228 was at Stalingrad then it appears (from what I have read and some educated guesses) that it would have been a LVII.PzK corps level asset, probably used where needed between the 6th (and 23rd?) Panzer Divisions.

Looking in the Kursk '43 OOB, the unit is present with StuG IIIg vehicles in the III.PzK as a corps level asset with three understrength companies and B quality. If you determine that it is indeed the unit that should have been at Stalingrad then I would love to know for the _Alt scenarios. Care must be taken to not "see what we want to see" to add a new unit to help out the Germans, of course. The easy thing here would be that all you would need to do is copy and past this unit from K43 to S42 (December) OOB at 13 vehicles, probably C quality to represent their inexperience. It would be safe to assume that they were equipped with the ausf F because, if I am not mistaken, the ausf G was not in service until '43, but I could be wrong about that.