StuG 38(t)?

The share that was diverted to assault gun production was the original 36 Ausf A produced by Daimler-Benz January-June 1940 that so well proved the proof of concept, and then the 256 Ausf B produced by Alkett through June 1941. Those supplied the roughly 250 delivered to the eleven battalions and five batteries deployed for BARBAROSSA, most of them attached to Armee-Korps for support of Infanterie-Divisions. In the same time period, 340 Pz 38(t) were produced and issued.

As deployed for MARITA, 8. Panzer-Division had 125 Pz 38(t) and lost 7. For BARBAROSSA it had 118, indicating how short availability of those were as replacements. 7. Panzer-Division had 167 Pz 38(t) for BARBAROSSA, 12 Panzer 109, 19 Panzer 110, and 20 Panzer 121. In addition, 6. Panzer had 155 Pz 35(t). Replacing all of those with Panzer III would have required 787 Panzer III, which simply did not exist.

At best, eliminating StuG production at Alkett would have enough Panzer III to outfit two of those six divisions at the cost of eliminating all armored support for the Armee-Korps, which was critical to the success of the German infantry.

Well, yes, but then where do the StuG come from? The Pz 38(t) chassis was not considered acceptable as a StuG and the only reason it became a late-war Jagdpanzer was because the assembly line could not be usefully employed in producing much of anything else. It was an extemporaneous design that had numerous flaws that would have been totally unacceptable in 1941 during the run up to BARBAROSSA.

At the outset of BARBAROSSA, 1., 2., 4., 5., 9., 10., 11., 13., 14., 15., 16., and 5. le-Afrika all had a two-battalion Panzer-Regiment, All had Panzer III as a leichte Panzer. 3., 6., 7., 8., 12., 17., 18., 19., and 20. had a three-battalion Panzer-Regiment. Of those, 3., 17., and 18. had Panzer III and the rest Czech tanks. It was not because they had the "proper type" that it was considered "acceptable" to have Panzer III. It was rather because of the vagaries of the organizational development of the Panzerwaffe based upon experience in 1939-1940.

The objective organization of the Panzer-Regiment was always two battalions. However, in the run up to war, the Germans had organized also organized Panzer-Abteilungen for the leichte-Panzer Division, partly to assuage the Kavallarie lobby in the Heer. They had also organized, or intended to organize, a number of Panzer-Regimenter (some as single Panzer-Abteilungen) as Heerestruppen (PzRegt 7, 8, I/10, 11, 15, and I/25) for infantry support. There was also a "school" unit, the Panzer-Lehr Abteilung. By the outbreak of war it had been resolved to convert those 1.-4. leichte-Panzer Division to 6.-9. Panzer-Division, partly by using the separate Abteilungen organized for them (33., 65., 66., and 67) and also by using the Heerestruppen. So 6., 7., and 8. got Panzer-Regiment 10., 11., and 25., plus Panzer-Abteilung 65., 66., and 67. as attachments. Further doubling the Panzerwaffe in late 1941 complicated matters even further.

3. Panzer-Division shed Panzer-Regiment-5, but gained I/Panzer-Regiment 28 (a Tauchpanzer unit) as its III/Panzer-Regiment 6 when 18.Panzer-Division retained Panzer-Regiment 18 with with its two Abteilungen and II/Panzer-Regiment 28 as its III Abteilung, all also Tauchpanzer units. All were Panzer III units.

17. Panzer-Division organized Panzer-Regiment 39 from two existing Panzer-Ersatz-Abteilungen and then gained Panzer-Lehr-Abteilung as its III. Abteilung. All were Panzer III units.

12., 19, and 20. Panzer-Division organized completely new Panzer-Regimenter, 29., 27. and 21. respectively, from Panzer-Ersatz-Abteilungen. They were organized as three-battalion regiments simply because they had the trained manpower and their were enough of the Czech 38(t) to issue them. At this time the Germans had more trained Panzertruppen than they did tanks for them to man.

Note too at this time the Abteilung nominally had four Kompanien, one schwere and three leichte, but most only had sufficient tanks available to actually organize three, one schwere and two leichte. As of BARBAROSSA, only 4., 7., 10., and after they were refitted in September, 2. and 5. Panzer-Division had three leichte Kompanien in each Abteilung.

And the other questions remain too. Under German doctrine what provided the armor support for the Armee-Korps and Infanterie-Division? What happens when they require detachments from the Panzerwaffe to generate offensive power? What happens to the Panzerwaffe when they begin to dilute their offensive power to support the infantry? These were questions that were doctrinally resolved by the Germans prior to BARBAROSSA in favor of the dual production of the leichte Panzer III and the StuG III.

 

Duplicate

Has anyone else had as many problems getting the site to load and post replies as I have? I generally have to wait for minutes and then have to try to check to see if the reply actually posted. And now, it will appear that it did not post when in fact it did. Very frustrating and time-wasting.

 

Yeah, the problem seems to be that anymore the host's resources apparently are approaching zilch 24-7 365. It got somewhat better for a short while, but is now back to cycling. And I cannot access the site on my phone anymore at all, unless I am connected to a 5G network.