I have a few questions: 1. Were the original cadre composed out of chosen elite troops like the Parachute units or were they a mix out of France 1940 veterans and "new blood"? 2. Were the replacements experienced troops or newly trained, chosen men? 3. Were they mostly conscripts, volunteers, or professional soldiers? Were they from a certain area in Germany or were they from all over?
The 15th Pz Div is an old division and participated in the invasion of France. The 21st Pz Div started out as an ad hoc group sent to help il Duce when his forces were collapsing. Originally named the 5th Light Division.
The 21st Panzer division was made out of elements from 3rd Panzer, but where were the rest of the men from? I am asking this, because I know that the Africa theater had a "quality preference" due to the shipping requirements. German tanks sent to this theater had higher quality armor than the norm. I also looked at pictures of Afrika korps troops and they strike me as being usually big individuals. I am wondering if they were chosen men (or veterans) taken from other formations or if they were a group of first-class newly trained recruits.
Where did you get that info from about the armor quality? Have never heard anything like before. Be interested to learn more if its true.
Speaking of the 15th Panzer Division. I just recently picked up three photos taken during some sort of ceremony held in the fueld. It's division Commander is seen in at least one of these pics (can't think of his name off hand?) but you can easily see the color fading difference of the Vets vs the newbies. Some of their uniforms are almost sun-bleached white from eposure to the sun. To see these posted-you might have to beg Skipper to post them for me ;-)) when our dear Guvnuh can spare the time ;-)) Im sure im wrong on the Dic COs name but for some reason? Siegfried Westphals name comes to mind?????
Wolfy, I am not very sure if Afrika Korps had higher priority in armor over the forces committed for Barbarossa . Rommel's assignment was to be the fire brigade commander to save Musolini from complete collapse in North Africa instead of leading the charge into Egypt. He was rather poorly armed. His first batches of panzers were a mixed bag of Pz IIs, IIIs and a little IVs; the bulk of his IIIs were armed with the 37-mm. gun, a weapon the whole Wehrmacht knew to be obsolescent. Only a minority of his tanks, the Pz III with 50-mm. and Pz IV with 75-mm. gun, had any value in tank versus tank fighting. The number in infantry was also paltry; it is unlikely that Hitler would divert the best of the Wehrmacht from his strategic Schwerepunkt, ie Russia.
I read in one of the Osprey guides that tanks and armored cars, etc. that were sent to North Africa received an expensive and labor intensive special "face-hardening" treatment. It , if my memory serves me right, increased the protective value by 5-10%.
I assumed that the Germans would send higher quality forces to North Africa due to shipping expense. That mix is standard I think for early war Panzer divisions.
5th light/21 Panzer was formed in Wehrkreis III in February 1941 from units of 3rd Panzer and Sperrverband Libyen I know very little of this unit but I think it was the original force meant to be sent to Libia and was made of people with desert experience. 5th light had a very unusual TOE with 2 motorized MG batallions instead of the panzergrenadier regiments. 15th Panzer was created in Wehrkreis XII in Nevember 1940 so could not have taken part in the Frengh campaign, it's 8th panzer regiment did take part but the core of the troops came from 33 infantry division. The Wehrkreis (Military district) are important as I believe they were the source of replacements. Afrika/90th light was also Wehrkreis III but was really created in the field from assorted units including one of the grenadier regiments of 15th panzer and a unit made up of German ex foreign legionnaires. The 1941/42 Afrika Korps on the whole was probably slightly weaker than a single panzer korps as employed in Barbarossa. As to equipment I see no pattern that gave the Afrika Korps either better or worse equipment, they usually got what was available and there was no attempt to keep this relatively small unit equipped with only German origin equipment to simplify logistics as the various Lorraine chassis SPG and Soviet origin 76mm PAK clearly prove. BTW don't short sell the 37mm armed Pz III in 1941, against the early cruisers with the 40mm 2lb the Pz IIIe probably had the advantage ad even the Pz II could probably be useful. The tough skinned Matildas were were in the Infantry tank brigades and more likely to be used to attack defensive positions with 88s than to engage in mobile warfare with the panzers.
So for 5th Light, their infantry regiments were smaller? What was the difference in arms between a MG battalion and a rifle battalion? It's strange that they would send a single Korps against 20 or so British divisions and not give them lavish weaponry.
Sort yourself out Wolfy. There never was 20 british and commonwealth forces in the theatre. And at the arrival of the DAK there was very few, since most were scattered (greece and somaliland) There was nothing particular about the DAK that I know of. They were mobile German forces.
The average 1941/42 panzer division had two panzergrenadier regiments with two batallions each, the 5th light had just 2 MG batallions that probably had a higher percentage of MGs than a standard PzGren batallion but there were just two of them. After the reorganization the two panzer divisions both had a single grenadier regiment (I think with 2 batallions) while the spare troops were used to create Afrika/90th light. The Afrika Korps was nearly fully motorized, an exception by German standards, so in that respect they had better equipment, but not compared to panzer units. Rommel had a number of Pz IVg at El Alamein (according to my latest readings the PzIVf2 was renamed G in June 1942 and was not a different model), the 8th Panzer division at Velikie Luky in the winter of 1942 had to make do with one batallion of Pz38(t) so the Afrika Korps units were better off than some divisions on the eastern front though most units earmarked for case blau were reinforced to 3 panzer batallions of Pz III & IV and had the 2 PzGren regiments. So IMO "average" is the right definition. AFAIK the number of divisions they faced was closer to 10 than 20 until late 1942 by which time the Afrika Korps had been reinforced by the 164 infantry and Ramke parachute brigade. As the Allies rotated divisions quite a lot comparisons are difficult.
My mistake, faulty source. The source also claims that Rommel and his Italian group tied down half of the entire British Army for two years. OT, but "Italian 25 Infantry Division Bologna" I chuckled at the name I find it amazing that the Italian units were mostly unmotorized- how on earth did they manage to have any combat value in the desert?
How did Rommel use these immobile Italian formations? Their weaponry was inadequate and probably not even capable of stopping a serious British tank assault. Did he mainly use them as light infantry in the assault and supporting duties?
I am not knocking the 37-mm. gun armed Pz IIIs at all. They would be more than adequate to duel British cruiser tanks with the 2 pdr. gun, but this prove that Rommel's troops were no better or wrose than what one would expect from regular German field divisions. As for the Italians, Rommel thought the Ariete and Trieste Divisions very good until morale in Italian ranks broke down completely at 1943. Rommel reckoned them to be motivated, skillful soldiers slowed by inept senior leadership and lousy equipment, but those nominally "armored" Italian divisions provided the extra punch and sorely needed infantry strength for Rommel's panzer divisions. You can see how important the Italian troops were to Rommel in the Battle of Gazala, where the Trieste and Ariete provided the pivot to his flanking manueover on the British left. His earlier and famous victory at Halfaya Pass was made possible not just by the 88-mm. Flaks but also the Italian 47-mm.antitank gun crews shielding the Germans. Axis Forces in N. Africa could not have survived so long without them. By the Battle of El Alamein however it dawned on the Italians how truly desperate their situation was and they became more and more fragile; by Torch Rommel had to stagger German formations between Italian ones to prevent them from melting before the Allied onslaught. According to Dennis Showalter's Patton and Rommel it was a myth that Rommel's troops had special desert training or extraordinary in anyway from average Wehrmacht troops; they were prefunctorily screened by a medical staff to determine they were physically fit for desert warfare but little more.
