This may need clarification. This was one of my accidental finds that included WAST-office info posted in the Wehrmacht-Forum, where a forum member tried to find some info about his relative, it was off-topic and explained in a diff. thread, which I couldn't find.Soldier X, Start of deployment (in the army) 09/23/1943
March Coy (from) Grenadier-Ersatz-Bataillon 222
garrison: Seestadt WISMAR
Arrival (registered as arrived at): Landesschützenbataillon 263
Departure: Assigned to march bataillon II/75/25
..
As I see it, the soldier received boot camp training in the replacement Bn 222's base in Wismar, Germany. Garrison refers to the Replacement Bn's base/quarters in Wismar (coastal town right at the Baltic Sea)
In Wismar he was put in a march Coy that was ordered to replenish a nearby rifle Bn.
Actually, the Coy just had to march 8-10 km, as the Bn was stationed just south of Wismar, at Lake Schwerin.
He was then registered as "arrived" in the Landesschützen-Bataillon 263. That Landesschützen Bn was part of the "Ersatzheer" ("Replacement Army").
The soldier must have been somewhat older (see below), since he was not sent to a combat unit.
The Ersatzheer was the entity (and Supreme HQ) that was tasked with conscription, recruitment, training + replacement of troops and with testing new military equipment.
It was based within Germany, had command and administration units, training units (the Ersatz-Bns) and guard troops. Guard troops could guard government facilties, ministries (if based in Berlin), Wehrmacht barracks + training compounds, etc, if needed. While it wasn't a full-fledged "Army", it had authority to use its troops (in training or in deployment within Germany), as well as the guard contingents, in emergency situations. Some of its elements were used to guard Wehrmacht POW camps.
The Ersatzheer was also tasked (secret plan called "Valkyrie") with occupying/protecting government offices and blocking roads in case there would be uprisings or even a coup. The officers around Stauffenberg, who tried to assassinate Hitler, activated that plan and ordered a Bn of the Ersatzheer to arrest Goebbels, to capture the national radio station and occupy a number of Wehrmacht HQs, including the Supreme HQ of the Ersatzheer, along with the arrest of its commander. Basically, they used the plan meant to protect the Nazi government against the Nazis, and even managed to alter it (with Hitler's signature) in a tricky way, so that it became easier to activate Valkyrie, and that parts of the planning authority were moved to the involved officers.
EDIT: Several German inf regiments were named "Landesschützen-Regimenter". The majority of their personnel consisted of men from Landwehr and Landsturm (see below).
These units were part of the so-called "bodenständige" Einheiten pool, which meant their ordered structure did not allow them to have organic transport vehicles. They depended on the superior unit/structure if transport of troops and equipment/weapons was needed. Basically, they couldn't even transport ammunition or light/heavier weapons, without external help.
While it was still possible that the Bn CO had a passenger car, a Krad, a messenger, a bike or a horse at his disposal, such units were deployed (tactically) over a long(er) time in a particular town/village/place, respectively used within relatively small areas/perimeters, only.
In the main, such Landesschützen units were used for occupational duties or to provide security in the Homeland. When on occupation duty, they were subordinated to the Commander of the Army's rear area ("Kommandeur des rückwärtigen Armeegebiets", or short "Korück"), who was directly subordinated to the respective Army Ober Command (AOK), whose rear area his units had to secure/"pacify".
A number of regular Infantry-Divisions carried the "bodenständig" designation, which was put right behind the unit designation, as well. Example: Inf Division XYZ "bo". It was ordered not to use the additional "bo" designation anymore, on May 23, 1943, but the units still existed. In order to identify such units for game research, the unit history (the name history) has to be checked/researched.
"Landwehr" and "Landsturm":
During the buildup of the Wehrmacht (1930s), Landwehr (transl.: Land Defense, ages of 35-45) and Landsturm (Land storm/assault, ages over 45) recruits were projected to be assigned to Landwehr and Landsturm Divisions for the 9th wave (conscription in Febr. 1940). The idea was dropped and these older men sent to the Landesschützen-Regiments and a number of Infantry divisions, instead.
The Landesschützen Regiments mainly consisted of these 2 groups of older soldiers, but probably had a number of younger soldiers that were only conditionally fit for service, so they were moved to units that weren't sent to the frontlines.
While the Landesschützen regiments and Bns had the same structure as regular Inf units of the Wehrmacht, they had the lowest priority if it came to equipment and personnel. Some of the units didn't even have a sufficient amount of uniforms.
The weaponry consisted mainly of captured weapons, which made ammunition supply difficult and which turned out to be a serious problem when such unit was committed (partisans or frontline) as a whole, as the regular ammo supply channels had a hard time to come up with ammo for foreign weaponry. While the SS built their own factories to meet the demand for their large pool of captured weapons (employed in quite a few SS divisions), eventually, and while the Wehrmacht ordered to produce ammunition for the Russian 76-mm AT guns that were captured in 1941/42 (several thousand, iirc), ammo production/assignment for captured weapons of such low priority units (like the LSB), was neglected. Such captured weapons issued to LSBs could also be outdated weapons from the inter-war period or even from the WW I era (eg. machine guns).
Most of the Landesschützen units were organized and deployed as Bns (short: "LSB"), so the Bn structure was the dominating unit level/layout, not the regiment structure, even though regimental HQs might have existed, and LSB were the bodies that were subordinated to the AOKs for occup. duties, imho.
Their equipment level/quality was poor/inadequate and their older/wiser personnel probably not too eager to die.
Back to the soldier:
The Landesschützen-Bn resided in Bad Kleinen, near Wismar, right at Lake Schwerin, from 1941-1945, as part of the Ersatzheer. It was directly subordinated to the "commander of the prisoners of war" of the military district no. 2 in 1941, so I would imagine that the unit either guarded POWs (on a camp compound or during forced labor outside the compound), or that it was deployed as security contingent (for escapes or uprisings in the district's camp/s).
My bet would be on the former, as some other LSBs assumed guard duties in pow camps, their soldiers occupied watchtowers, patrolled the area, and provided aides and NCOs for the camp command(er) post.
His departure (from the LSB) log entry neither contains a destination unit, nor a date/year, which is rather odd. It's possible that documents were lost, or that the info was omitted by the units/echelons involved. It's also possible that the Forum member omitted the destination number by accident. My guess would be that the OKH sifted through Homeland units (a process that continued until the end of the war) and that then a vital amount of troops was taken away from that LS Bn and sent to a frontline unit, as a result.
It's possible that the soldier's march Bn was then used as part of a Kampfgruppe or forced to act like an independent unit, and then wiped out, or wiped out when it was inserted on the frontline. It's also possible that the unit got hit and/or strafed by tactical bombers/fighters. I tend to think that it never reached its destination unit.
Since the troops of such march Bns usually just carried their personal (small) arms, the combat value during transfers was very low, since they didn't bring heavy weapons (usually). I wouldn't completely rule out that some march orders specified to bring a number of additional light weapons, say LMGs and say small/light 50-mm mortars, but - in general - the rules (KStN) ordered that the staff and officers and a number of NCOs would receive bikes, but there was no such fixed layout for the grunts, so they had to walk and additional equipment was not an option, in most cases, as they had no means (no horse-drawn carriages, no trucks) to transport ammunition or weapons, unless issuance was explicitly ordered (rare, afaik).
When German riflemen went to combat, experienced men would often use their (larger) bread bags to carry additional ammunition to the frontline.
So it's possible that a number of troops carried more than the personal ammo outfit (30-60 rounds for their carbines), but if you have to walk say a distance of 100-200 km (or even more), carrying water, blanket/sleeping bag, helmet and rifle, you might get tempted to dump (some or all of the) the extra ammo.
Whatsoever, it's obvious that the men of such march bns needed to be supplied at the destination, within say the first 30-60 minutes, and issued heavy weapons, in order to have any combat value.
EDIT 2: I just read that march bns were also used for moving troops to the rear, means moving them away from the front in an orderly fashion and to (I guess) be redirected to other units. I imagine that this was used to reassign remnants or functional parts of otherwise depleted units to other units (to replenish them, or to use the march personnel to rebuild the unit in Germany/other places.
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