Mechanization Capabilities of the German Wehrmacht

In 1944 there were 4 Panzer Grenadier battalions. Only the first battalion had half tracks. The rest were all in trucks. The Panzer Pioneer battalion was supposed to have the first company in half tracks. Most but not all Divisions were like this.
In Normandy Panzer Lehr had a staggering 5 battalions in half tracks (all the Grenadiers and the Engineers as well). This gave a total of 693 SPW's, 2nd Panzer had the first battalion of each Regiment in SPW's and had 476. Das Reich was short and had only 249 on 1/6/44 and Leibtandarte had only 260 when it went into combat. 116th had 252 so certainly for Normandy the average was around 260 but some could be massively higher. Any Panzer Grenadiers not in half tracks were in trucks.

On trucks by 44 there were massive shortages in the Panzer Divisions too. Das Reich was short of 1800 trucks in May and it should have had 4000, Leibstandarte was 2000 short in June.

In the Infantry Divisions the horse was king, there were never enough vehicles and in Normandy some Infantry Divisions did not have enough transport (trucks, H/T's or Horses) to move all of there artillery at one time which was disasterous.

 

Theoretical(!!) number of motor transport vehicles (source :the Russian front)
1939 ID:1009
1944 ID:617
LWFD :543
1945 ID:385
VGD :426
1939 MtnD :1140
2nd and 3th MtD in 1939:871
Light Division :1000
FJD:2141
PGD 1941:2800
PGD 1944:2748
PzD 1941:2900
PzD 1944:2427
PzD 1945:2171
SSPzD :2329

 

It varied during the war; for the 1942-43 period it was 87 SdKfz 251s of all types for the Armd Bn Gren Bn alone and 37 SdKfz 250s for the Recce Bn. The Pio Bn only added around SdKfz 11 251s at this time, 3 ambulances with the Pz Regt and in the Pz Arty Regt 13 OP halftracks.

The numbers surge when you get to late 1943 and the first major reorganisation for a while kicks in; Pz Regt 10, Armd Pz Gren Regt 125, Armd Pz Recce 114 (250s)+ 28 (251s), Pz Pio 35, and Pz Arty Regt 14. The Pz Sigs Bn also had a fair few, but I don't have their figures.

 

There's also quite a bit of difference between trucks 2.5 tons vs 10 tons payload for instance or all wheel drive vs 2 wheel drive. Anyone have an idea what the average payload capacity of the German trucks was?

 

Here is a link to the trucks used in WW2 by all sides, and broken down by nation. While it doesn't break them down on that page by carry capacity, the load weights can be found by a little more searching. The German auto-park had only a few of the larger carry capacity type, and even fewer of the multi-axle drive type. There were some, but no where near the UK/Commonwealth/USA contribution.

Goto:

Oldtimer gallery. Trucks. 1932-1945 (USSR makes till 1967).

 

The following COULD be an indication:
German truck production:
1940
1)up to and including 1.5 ton :6,912
2) 3 ton:50,345
3)4,5 ton and up:6,O39
1941:
1)9,504
2)43,800
3)9,095
1942
1)14,436
2)51,804
3)11,052
4)(=Caterpillar truck) 1,452
5)(=3 ton mule):1,635)
1943:
1)21,666
2)48,477
3)11,567
4)14,010
5)12,771
6(=5 ton mule):594
Toal:
1)52,518
2)194,426
3)38,637
4)15,462
5)14,408
6) 594
Number 2 (the 3 ton truck) was the most produced .

 

Ohh....haha. I was wondering why such an obvious question was thrown my way! I should've known.
Actually, I really don't know how many were taken immediately after the armistace. That's anyone's guess! I'm sure it was a hefty number. Perhaps somebody here would know that information?

 

FRom the french site :Maquetland.com/v2/index.php?page=vision&id=466 (but,it is in French !)
The French forces had in 1940 a total of 41000 trucks(16 types),the biggest being the Citroen 23 with 12.500,and 7,370 automobiles .
During the occupation,all firms produced for the Germans :
Citroen :25000 trucks
Peugeot :25000 trucks and 15.000 automobiles
Renault :28.000 trucks

 

I forgot:the same French source says that the French ordered at least 7500 US truck,but,no figure is given of the number that arrived before 25 june 1940
GMC:4000
Studebaker:2000
Dodge :1500
Mack ?
White ?
The French ordered also 1100 Italian trucks,but ,I doubt that even few would have arrived before the Italian DOW.

 

Thanks, gentlemen. I'm a little curious about Armd Pz Gren Regt 125 - was that meant to be battalion? For a regiment - two battalions - it's not much of a surge from 87/battalion in 1942.

 

What dates are you looking at for 125 Pz Gren? If it's in Europe, late 1943 onwards they were equipped with substitute French halftracks, and didn't really conform to the normal org for such a unit. Plenty of discussion on them across the net and various forums, but not a unit I've ever delved in to (too darn confusing!).

 

For further information on captured vehicles used by Germany try to find a copy of "Hitler's Great Panzer heist", by Anthony Jones Tucker. It cronicals Germanys thirst for using captured foriegn equiptment during the war. It goes into depth and explains the why, when, where and who. At least 1/3 of the book is appendexes stating the statistics and even which German Divisions were equipt with what captured vehicle.

J_S