Part 3
It should be mentioned that some of these Bns ended up as part of a Kampfgruppe, and that some of these March Bns carried names, usually the names of their commanders.
The layout of the "real" March Bns, the unit type listed under "c)" in the previous post, was even outlined in the KStN, so it wasn't just a random pool of men thrown to the fronts.
The KStN layout of a March-Bn (1944) for "Infantry" and "Panzertroops":
http://www.wwiidaybyday.com/kstn/kstn23011mai44.htm
The contingent ratios were fixed, but only indicated using percentages, which then had to be met, but the total troop size was still subject to the individual (march/establisment) order:
Example:
Infantry, Jäger or Mountain Division:
92% infantry men:
55% LMG gunners, 12 % HMG crews, 6% Großer Werfer (mortar) crews, 3% Pak crews, 3% IG crews, 4% engineers, 4% radio and telephone operators, 1% drivers for Krad, passenger cars and trucks, 1% horsemen or mule guides (don't know how to translate that position, lol), 3% coach/carriage drivers (horse-drawn vehicles), the rest (9% ?) riflemen.
8% artillery men:
1.5% light artillery gunners, 1% heavy artillery gunners, 2.5% radio and tel. operators, 1.5% carriage drivers, 0.5% drivers (cars or trucks), 1% AVT men and calculators.
(not sure what AVT means, and if "calculators" refers to an electromechanic calculator, a slipstick or to the actual person responsible for computing artillery trajectories, distances + creating artillery target grids).
As you can see, the German tendency to determine/specify each and everything even materialized here, as they indicated fixed percentage guidance levels.
In practice, the actual strength and the actual number of Coys of a such March Bn was subject to a specific order, in each case (for each individual Bn). For the actual march, the troops of each service branch were supposed to be combined in their own Coys or platoons (depending on percentage and branch), means all artillery men were combined (platoons), all AT guys formed their own unit (platoons probably) and the regular Inf troops were combined to company-sized units. The branches with smaller percentages, engineers and signal guys formed their respective platoons, too.
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Back to the original fixed FE bns that were tied to their parent Divisions in the field:
The arrival of recruits in these FE's must have been a pretty fluid process, as well as the actual replenishment of their parent Divisions.
Over the years, various researchers (eg. in the Forum of the Wehrmacht, but also other places), who own copies of the original film rolls from the NARA with subordination/attachment orders and field post numbers, managed to track the composition and whereabouts of those FE's, to some extent.
The analysis of the field post (military postal services) numbers (kinda like ZIP codes) helped to track some of those infos, as a lot of the actual assignment orders/papers are lost, so the field post numbers provide an idea about the extensive shuffling and also rough hints about a replacement rgt's or Bn's layout, where docs are missing.
"Quick"
example:
FE Bn 60 (later renamed to FE bn 102) was part of field repl. Bn 9, which was the replacement unit of the 9th Panzer-Division in 1940/1941. In 1942, all field post ZIP entries for its individual
FE Coys were deleted, except for one. So, in theory, all the other FE coys were either used up to replenish the 9th Pz.Div, or they were borrowed by other Divisions (rather the former, imho). The same year its 1st Coy (the remaining one?) was renamed to "Fahrkolonne" (hm... "driving column"?) "of the divisional supply train 60".
It looks like that FE coy was repurposed to bolster the divisional supply train and that a higher number of men were trained to drive vehicles. If so, then that's not surprising, as the 9th PzDiv participated in the Operation "Wirbelwind" (Aug. 1942), where it suffered heavy losses, so it def. lacked personnel.
In 1943 the 2nd and 3rd coy ZIPs were deleted, but the ZIPs for the FE staff and the 1st FE Coy were still listed. In 1944 a full FE Bn was listed, with ZIPs for
5 coys, 1 HQ and one supply coy.
I wonder how the US Army rated this regime. I am convinced that the overview in the German military district/the frontline unit was easy (to maintain), but it must have created a lot of admin. work at the
OKH level (to track troop levels).
Jim's statement way above appears to be partly incorrect, to be honest:
... or a company may get five men to replace some of the dozen lost in a battle over that timeframe, but by the time that was all accomplished and factored into combat capability it wouldn't make much relative difference, particularly if the replenishment rate was essentially the same for each side in a combat.
In general, an FE unit could very well replenish a given Division's unit or even an entire Bn on-the-fly, after major losses had been suffered. Such replacements could be inserted into the frontline as a whole or used to replenish the ranks of the subunits of the diff. regiments (attached to the division). Afaik, the division's CO could then either opt for bolstering/replacing particular (depleted) units, say the 1st Rgt's 1st Bn, or order to spread the men evenly. I am not sure if and what particular rules existed.
Since the FE's resided in the rear area of the front, even entire contingents (depending on amount of men held in the FE's) could be either inserted or used as replenishment within hrs, probably 6-24 hrs, depending on distance, transport situation, security etc.
"Inserted" has 2 meanings here:
a) they were thrown to the front as a whole and used like regular units, which means that they then kept their "Feld-Ersatz" designation and were newly attached to the Div. or Rgt. in charge of the frontline sector, or
b) they completely replaced depleted/destroyed platoons/coys/bns in the organic parent division.
Additionally, they also kept the regular (slow/steady) stream of replacements to the parent division going which Jim was referring to, means 5 men here, and 7 men there, a mortar crew or a radio operator there, ofc, when the sector was calm.
.... replenishment rate was essentially the same for each side in combat.
That part is incorrect.
Example 1: everything regarding FE's I typed above, and ...
Example 2:
The Russian replacement regime in Stalingrad + other places.
In Stalingrad, prior to the encirclement of the German 6th Army in Stalingrad, they rushed in all kind of troops to throw them across the river. The battles were so fierce, especially around a particular small hill where the German attack waves (up to Bn size, afaik) were often completely wiped out (they kinda wiped out themselves, by carrying out mindless onsloughts), while on the Russian side - in the fox holes and trenches on the hill - often just 1 (!) or another Russian soldier was left to occupy the hill at the end of the day, according to German + Russian vets, + this looped for days (weeks?). While the Germans used up their FE's + had to bring in add. units from other sectors, the Russians had to scrape together units from other fronts, put them on trains and try to rush them to the Eastern bank of the river. That was quite a task, since the Russians suffered of a serious lack of motor transport at the time (I think the US trucks were delivered in late 1942/early 1943).
In short: replacements for these Russian Bns - holding out on the Western bank - arrived daily ! (usually at night)
If I am not mistaken, the Russians had to lay a dedicated (new) railroad line to some area behind the right river bank, in order to meet the replacement demands.
German historians stressed that the Germans neglected the Recon in that area. They did not send recon planes to areas east of Stalingrad, so they had no clue how the Russians managed to get the replacements to Stalingrad, + they never discovered (accord. to German historians) the scope of the Russian railroad project + conseq. build-up of forces (for the pincer operation). Had they reconnoitered the Hinterland of the right bank, their bombers could have severely screwed up the replacem. efforts.
1 reason could have been the fact that the Russians put up strong AA screens on the right bank, eventually, but I fail to comprehend this omission. The Germans never performed serious attempts to screen the Hinterland, many CO's thought the Russians were done in that sector.
With each day, the Russians pumped more troops into Stalingrad. Losses mounted + hit levels that were almost 4 x higher than the total German casualties (wounded/KIA). Eventually, the Russians resorted to pumping a high number of raw recruits into the Westbank on a daily basis, in order to keep that bridgehead and to obscure the preparation for the offensive. The Russians maintained such a (kind of ruthless) regime in other theaters, where they brought up reserves from the rear. Sometimes Army commanders used up all their reserves (reg. units), where then recruits had to be brought in immediately. Not after a battle was over + not to replace 5 guys here, and 10 guys there, as Jim suggests, and already after the very first few days of a battle.
Only in 1945, dur. the Oder offensive, the central Russian Front (tasked with crossing the Oder), had run out of reserves, after heavy losses (trying to seize the Seelow heights). Rear area units had to be scraped together to maintain the offensive.
During 1942-1944, the Germans had to insert regul. (borrowed) units increasingly, as well, and - with the Russian attack waves in 1942 + 1943 - the Germans could often hold say a certain perimeter that was held by a Bn, but needed to replace that entire Bn at the end of the day, as each of its Coys had just a few men left.
That's where the FE's kicked in (+ borrowed units, ofc).