Kasserine Pass Forces - Feb 20, '43

I am doing a research project for game scenario that will focus on the battle at Kasserine Pass on Feb 20, 1943. I know the battle is longer than that, but that is the day of the scenario. Looking for a list of equipement used for both the U.S and German forces. Just artillery, anti-aircraft, vehicles and armored vehicles and aircraft is mainly what I'm interested in.

Anyway, if anyone has any good books, websites or if you just have a list. I would appreciate it very much.

Thanks in advance

 

Not quite sure what to suggest, Cochise - one of the best books about the battle is Martin Blumenson's 'Kasserine Pass' ( Houghton Mifflin, 1967 ) but this doesn't contain any listings as such....

 

Hey, thanks, I have several books on N.Africa, but they're generalists and we're going for accuracy. I'll check it out, thanks! I'm having a hard time pinning the aircraft down.

 

Welcome aboard, cochise!

I would suggest you Erwan Bergott's "Afrika Korps", though not very detailed it does speak of equippment. I'll bring that info to-morrow.

 

How detailed do you want this?

 

How detailed? Well that's a promising question! lol. As detailed as I can get it, but I'm really concerned (at this point) with the major pieces of equipment, what it was, and an idea of their numbers for the U.S. and Germans.

Artillery
SP Guns
Tanks
Anti-Aircraft
APC's
Aircraft

It's tough with the Germans, because there were many kampfgruppen involved.

I haven't put my hands on the book mentioned earlier, but I've gone over about 3 others and haven't had too much luck yet.

A couple of pieces of equipment that I don't think were there, but want to make sure, (I believe production started in '44) were the M16 Half-Track with Quad .50 cals and the Hummel 150 SP gun.

Anyway, anything would be great. I'm going to "the big" library this weekend and I hope I'll have more luck.

Thanks in advance!

PS. Thanks for the welcome! Glad to be here, hope I can contribute.

[ 05. December 2003, 01:05 AM: Message edited by: Cochise ]

 

If you want to be realistic you need to include 2 generals, One to lead the assault, and the other refusing to let him have a dozen tigers pretending to repair them Perhaps a mortal combat bonus round, Rommel Vs Von Arnim ... FIGHT!!!

ok stupidity over.

 

Hehehee,

That's actually pretty good and unfortunately for Rommel true. I've got a few books I'm going thru and as soon as I have some guesstimations, I'll post'em and you guys can give me your thoughts.

 

Well, Cochise, there is a problem here. Simple numbers of the equipment involved do not show any of the organization of the units. Doing this written out would be tediously long. Using orgainzation charts is a problem as I haven't found a way to post them online to this board. On a micro scale for example, a US armored infantry platoon at Kasserine had 5 M-3 half-tracks, 2 .50 machineguns, 5 .30 machineguns, 2 60mm mortars and, one 37mm antitank gun. Describing an entire armored division would be long indeed.

 

One thing to remember is that a lot of war is organised chaos. In Tunisia a lot of units were scattered into little pockets of really small groups in an inhospitable landscape. So trying to achieve a tidy picture of what was going on may give a false impression of what actually happened (which, in broad terms, we know). One thing is for certain, the tanks were not deployed as shown in Patton - Lust for Glory, far too close together!

One error historians of a battle often make is tunnel vision - they focus on the battle itself, and discount what is happening on either side of each combatant's forces. So to understand Kasserine Pass, you should understand what was happening to the north and south also. Sometimes a withdrawal may appear to be due to forces ahead but may to some extent be due to forces on the left and right withdrawing leaving you in a dangerous salient in which it would be foolish to remain. Also consider how far back were the respective corps and divisional command positions and how much the respective commanders came forward (or not) to understand the respective terrain. My great-uncle (different surname) was a British major-general divisional commander in this theatre, but (obviously) not involved in the German-US confrontation at Kasserine. I'm not sure how amenable this particular battle is to game playing.

 

This is one hell of a necropost...

 

Thanks for this input, I hope some of those who started the thread are still alive after all those years

 

As a solid reference for positioning your units, I recommend to procure the applicable book from this series, ensuring that is has the full-color map section attached.
U.S. Army in World War II Series - U.S. Army Center of Military History

"The modern organization of the Army's historical efforts dates from the creation of the General Staff historical branch in July 1943 and the subsequent gathering of a large team of historians, translators, editors, and cartographers to record the official history of World War II. This team began publication of the United States Army in World War II series (the well-known "green books"), which numbers 79 volumes."

 

On a side note, i just finished reading Martin Blumenson's book last week, it was quite enjoyable and informative......best of all was the fact i got it for 3euro in a second hand book shop!

 

The "Green Books" can also be found online at HyperWar.

For the Kasserine Pass, you would want to check out the "green book" titled, Northwest Africa: Seizing the Initiative In the West by George F. Howe.

 

Lo and behold! Until I search them out for this thread, I hadn't known the "Green Books" had become available for downloading...
~20 minutes each, but worth every second of it...

Thank you

(How long until someone scans and uploads ALL the "Ballantine's Illustrated History"? Or, have they already done so?)

 

I take it you have not noticed OpanaPointer's signature line before. You may wish to thank him for your newly acquired downloads.

As for Ballantine's being similarly available, my guess is that there might be copyright problems there. However, I'll leave that for others more knowledgeable than I.