Bolt action: Historically Normandy 1944 project
German Heer squad organization part 3
Continuing on organisation of the german squad, we now move on to the bulk of the german squad, the rifleman. As I have said before the german squad consisted of 10 men. One SQL, one ASL, three man MG team and 5 rifleman. The five rifleman consisted of schützens (privates) and oberschützens (private first class).
The standard rifleman was equipped with a rifle and granades. But later in the war panzerfaust was a common sight in the german squad, because of the heavier tanks that the war evolved. From my own experience a infantry squad normally carry 1-2 single-shot antitank weapon in the squad.
The german rifleman was normally equipped with a Karabiner 98k known as K98k. It is was a bolt-action rifle chambered for 5-round stripper clip 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge that was adopted on 21 June 1935 as the standard service rifle by the German army. It was the standard rifle throughout the war. More then 14 milion was produced.
Sometimes you would also see Gewehr 43 being used in the squad later in the war. This was the german equivalent of the US M1 model. Gewehr 43 was a 10-round magazin semi-automatic rifle that was suppost to replace the K98k at some point. But Gewehr 43 was “only” produced in the hundreds of thousands not in the milions like the K98k.
We have now gone over the build-up of the german squad. I will talk about some german infantry tactic next time.
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