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Okay, just had a great game of Darkstar with @damon and now I have to start prep for the Valor & Victory Falklands with @elessar2590 . But between I can get to some replies:
Unfortunately like your self I can only conform the 1st Cavalry Brigade as part of 3rd Corps, Army Group North. – Yeah, that’s what I’m seeing in my sources, aside from the smaller component units I mentioned.
I did come across some supporting evidence for your idea that the German cavalry had been broken into small packets. – Awesome! Although all honesty it’s not really my “idea.” 😀 It’s documentation I found in historical and primary German sources (Infanterie-Reiterzug KStN 181 dated 01.10.1937).
Interesting anecdote about Rundstedt’s flank. He had no cavalry divisions or brigades that I can find. So unless there was a move to take 1st Cav Brigade from AGN /3A’s operational reserve and transfer it to AGS (hence Hitler’s interference… totally guessing here) … he might have considered stripping his cavalry reconnaissance companies of his infantry divisions and forming a flank security force. I do see SS LAH (the 1st SS you mention) Mot. Div in AGS’ OOB (specifically XIII AK, Eighth Army).
Also I came across a mention that a number of Light Divisions were equipped with Pz-35Ts. Although starting to shown its age it was still a formidable tank in the Polish Campaign. – I agree and I agree. 😀 Yes, some Light Divisions were equipped partially with PzKpf-35(t). And yes, they were still respectable assets, given the opposition typically faced and the general shortfall of German armor to fill the “official” Panzer division establishments.
Specifically I’m looking at the:
- 1st Light Division (65th and 11th Panzer Regiments)
- 3rd Light Division (67th Panzer Regiment)
2nd and 4th Light divisions were equipped with a mix of PzKpfw Is and IIs. I should note that even 11th, 65th, and 67th Panzer Regiments were not completely PzKpfw-35(t), but definitely a sizable portion.
@yavasa – what I’m able to find re: 5th Cavalry Regiment: Yes, the men were there. But the unit seems to have been broken up and used to raise other units assigned to other divisions. Hence it doesn’t come up in first searches:
via Feldgrau.net:
Between 26 July and 26 August 1939, the regiment was dissolved upon the general mobilization of the German Army, being used to raise :
– 12th Recon Battalion (1 bicycle recon & 1 mounted recon company) (12th Infantry Division)
– 32nd Recon Battalion (1 bicycle recon & 1 mounted recon company)
– the horse recon company of the 175th Recon Battalion (75th Infantry Division).Source: Tessin – “Deutsche Verbände und Truppen, 1919 – 1939”
Biblio, Osnabrück, 1974.Re: the Cavalry company (i.e., squadron) attached to Infantry divisions: According to my books it was a “dywizjon” which would be translated to a battalion but I think a squadron could also be correct) compromised of 162 men and 133 horses. Yeah, that sounds like a company, which matches the 3-platoon organization I see in my sources. Usually in ground cavalry or tanks, squadron = company (162 men sounds almost perfect). That said, sometimes in air cav or air units, squadron is more analogous to a battalion, but that’s way off topic here. 😀
I can see the schützen regiments you’re talking about in the light divisions, and can confirm the numbers you list and their “motorized” makeup … I’ve just never heard them called “kavallerie” before. Strange.
*2nd Light Division below as example:
Glad you liked the video. 😀
@jamesevans140 – Not sure if you meant your “disclaimer” as a joke. Sometimes inflection or and tone doesn’t come across right over internet text. So for now I’m going to assume you were being humorous. 😀
Yeah, we’ve been taking it easy with the Stukas. Even when you pile them on (France, Barbarossa, etc), they often don’t come across as the wunderwaffe most seem to expect. Definitely never against tanks. I usually use them against artillery, when they’re 20 H comes in very handy. They also make a mess of “weaker” infantry like Polish KOP or French conscripts … basically because these units have a 5 DF so that 20 divides into a nice 4:1. Any infantry with a DF of 6 (i.e., they’re trained to actually take cover) drops to a 3:1, which is a big drop in this system.
Tanks are nice at occupying ground in the immediate aftermath of a given assault, assuming that ground is rather small, and assuming there is no large body of enemy infantry nearby under cover for close assault counter-attack. Often, the first enemy reaction to losing key ground to tanks is to hit back immediately with whatever can reach … that means artillery, which tanks are very good at resisting. However, “key ground” is often an objective, which is often a town or village, exactly what tanks are terrible at.
Here at Naprawa what I’m doing is shoving PzKpfw IIIs up against the objective, where that welded armor gives them reasonable survivability against the inevitable point-blank fire … long enough to call in that 10.5 cm fire mission. The tanks are killing with their radios, not their little 3.7 cms.
Gotta be honest, I agree with you on the audio. My bane. But I wasn’t re-converting the completed audio track (music, SFX) into a separate .mp3 which I could then re-paste onto a silenced video and then RE-render the whole video, probably losing some of the resolution in the process. That’s three hours of work I just didn’t feel like doing, to be honest.
Very interesting @yavasa – I’ve unpacked my copy of Riders of the Apocalypse (David R. Dorondo) – chronicling German cavalry 1870-1945. With such a broad sweep of history, the information is a little high-level. I’m finding more confirmation of 1. Kavalleriebrigade being the only high-level operational cavalry formation, with cavalry companies being part of each infantry division’s reconnaissance battalion.
The “Kavallerie” regiments in the light divisions, and this is just speculation, might be a holdover from the years Hans von Seeckt ran the Reichswehr (1920-26). Largely responsible for the “organizational DNA” of the Reichswehr that would echo forward into the early WW2 Wehrmacht, among his influences was the creation of the Light Division, which back in 1919 retained a strong cavalry element.
Further clouding (?) the issue seems to be the conversion of “Reiter” regiments to “Kavallerie” regiments, some to aufklärungsabteilung reconnaissance forces, and others to outright panzer formations. The conversion does not seem to be 1-1, so it gets very confusing, I’m not even going to try to untangle it.
I’ve pummeled around the web hitting links and ran across in the Military History Research Center (MGFA) of the Bundeswehr:
In the course of the establishment of light divisions from autumn 1937 a number of cavalry regiments were set up. These regiments were formed, along with the Kradschützen-Abteilungen (motorcycles), the infantry component of the Light divisions and were among the mobile troops. They consisted of two Kavallerie Schützen Abteilungen (battalions) of three squadrons (cavalry companies), a heavy squadron with three 3.7-cm-PaK 36, two light infantry guns 18 (7.5 cm IGs) and six heavy (later middle ) grenade launchers 34 (8.0 cm mortars).
With the transformation of the Light Divisions into Panzer Divisions in late 1939 / early 1940, the cavalry regiments were converted into Rifle Regiments , which were later renamed Panzergrenadier regiments.
The tricky part is it says they were converted to rifle regiments in late 39 / early 40 – not very precise.
I would submit that it’s possible for a unit to be named “cavalry” but in fact already be motorized (truck) infantry. This could be for all kinds of reasons, from stubborn military tradition, administration, uniforms, decorations, pay, etc. The German officer corps was strictly divided into different “branches” like artillery, infantry, later panzertruppe, etc … It may may have just taken a while to transfer all the officers rating from the cavalry branch to the infantry or “schnelletruppe” (mobile troops) branch?
Of course, these are NOT FACTS, just ideas, just spit balling to see why we’re both finding sources that say some of these light divisions had cavalry regiments in them that were not “cavalry” in the physical sense. Even that “Lexicon source” is not clear what these units were actually made of. I wish they would actually include information on what was in the unit’s ToE (table of organization and equipment) rather than naming the town where every barracks was located. 😐 Yes! the training barracks were at Ohrdruf! Now were there horses or Open Blitzs parked out front!?! 🙂
One thing I do find interesting is the fact that rather than drawing down after Poland, German cavalry EXPANDS … and significantly, going forward. As I’m sure you guys know, this is particularly true is Russia, where we see not only cavalry divisions, but SS cavalry divisions, and even a cavalry corps.
Part 03 and the conclusion of our Panzer Leader Poland: 1939 game. Admittedly I had to re-upload this … more sound issues … hopefully resolved.
So this closes out the Panzer Leader games for 1939 Poland right now, unless we have any further requests during our usual weekend wargames. 😀
Thanks, @jamesevans140 – I completely agree that the games that come down to the wire are always the best ones and most memorable. Not always an easy feat in terms of scenario design, where the historical armies are often so mismatched.
Risky move on using the armoured cars and some Pz-IIs to take that objective on the upper right flank (Hex 1016???) – Absolutely. Hardly the best tools for the job when it comes to clearing wooded hilltops. But I was counting on the radios and communication with indirect artillery. Here I was hoping to use armored cars and PzIIs in their traditional “recon role” – rush out ahead, find the enemy, call in the firepower. Then, shifting to more of a 19th Century cavalry role … take and hold the high ground and hopefully last until the main body arrives.
When it comes to games like this where I design the map and scenario, I’m always reviewing the game on two wavelengths … how I did as a player (certainly not the best, I win and lose in pretty much equal measure) and much more importantly, how I did as a scenario designer. I always say I’d rather lose a game by one point than win by 10 points. Of course, winning by one point is probably the best outcome. 😀
I love armoured cars, ACs. – I know what your mean. Germans, of course, but also British in the Desert and even Americans with their M8s and later M20s. I love ducking way behind what the opponent thought was the main line of contact and hiding armored cars in woods, spotting targets like artillery or command units for artillery or air strikes.
From memory this was [yavasa’s] first time with Panzer Leader. – This series of three games, yes. Game 01 he won with the Poles, but this was more of a playtest and I didn’t give the Germans nearly enough support for a German assault. Game 02 he had the Germans and took a legitimate 4-3 win in a meeting engagement. Game 03, as we see, he game within two or three die rolls on the very last turn of the game of scoring three wins in a row and scoring another upset with the Polish. His schützen assault on my hilltop on Turn 4 of Game Two was truly … and I’m not just saying this to be nice … well done. I know people who have been playing Panzer Leader for ten years and don’t coordinate recon, infantry, and artillery units that well (and of course rolling four 1s in a roll doesn’t hurt!)
You get a victory award for pushing an old hand like @oriskany to the wires. – Agree 100%. Hell, anyone who plays a Panzer Leader family game … on camera, no less, win or lose, is a gaming badass my my book. This would include @brucelae , @damon , @rasmus and @stvitusdancern .
As for the amount of German smoking wrecks @oriskany your not that far off the historical mark. – Yeah, a lot of those are armored cars and halftracks (the older SdKfz 8s, 9s and 10s). I think there’s one platoon of actual PzKpfw IIs burning in there somewhere.
Most of your lost tanks will not be wrecks with less than 28% being total right offs after the battle. – Absolutely. As with a lot of unit-based games, in Panzer Leader a “wrecked” platoon of any sort indicates “combat ineffective” – out of the 3-6 vehicles in the platoon (depending on OOB/ToE), some will be destroyed outright, others damaged, some damaged to the point of write-offs, some panicked / confused crews, etc. Infantry platoons of 40 “eliminated” I usually imagine 8-10 KIA, 15-20 WIA to one degree or another.
I would like to see you guys do a series on the Russian invasion of Poland. – This would be interesting. I have the Barbarossa / Finland Soviet counters that could more or less fill the role.
@jamesevans140 and @avernos – regarding the Soviet invasion on Poland and how even modern Russians, Belorussians, and Ukrainians may see it as “legitimate” …
Obviously I agree that the Soviets invaded Poland on 17 September. It seems crazy that some people like to proclaim it “never happened.” Even when we invaded France in 1944, no matter how legitimate of a “liberation” it was, we still call it an invasion and acknowledge it happened. 🙁
Now to play’s devil’s advocate a little (and I love doing this vis-a-vis the Russians, I’ve read too much Richard Overy and David Glantz so I admit I have a pretty lenient view on the Soviets during World War II) …
I feel this draws back to Versailles (as so much does). In 1919-1920, the political state in what was becoming the Soviet Union was obviously chaos. I don’t think they had a stable government (Russian Civil War still ongoing), much less a seat at Versailles or a “pen on the table” when those clowns were doodling new borders all across Europe. The Second Polish Republic was more or less spawned out of nowhere, taking a slice out of what used to be the German and Russian Empires. So I don’t think the new Soviet Union would have ever seen the borders of Poland as “legitimate.”
Hence we see the almost immediate start of the Russo-Polish War of 1920. Ironically, von Ribbontrop offered the Soviets in 1939 what the British and French denied then in 1919, probably one reason Molotov agreed to the deal despite ideological differences (well, that and postponing a war I think both Berlin and Moscow already saw as inevitable).
Even after Germany invades with Barbarossa, the very first meeting of Molotov and Churchill (October 1941 in London, I think), virtually the first thing Molotov asks for British recognition of the legitimacy of the “Curzon Line” – the re-establishment of which would remain a major focus of Soviet foreign policy all the way through Yalta in February of 45.
In summary, the Soviets never felt their border between Poland was drawn legitimately in 1919, and never recognized it. From their view, they were re-taking what had been stolen from them by London and Paris in the Versailles Treaty. This might explain some of what we hear out of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine to this day. I’m not saying I completely agree, just offering where some of it might come from.
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