German Motorcycles and their Units

[Shan]

I have to correct myself again... the AGDZ was an 8x8 heavy recon vehicle, also taken over from Austria in '38 and mostly used against Partisans; similar in configuration to the german 8-wheel recon vehicle, but quite old-fashioned-looking. - check those very good pics of ADGZ in use with SS, on a polish website: http://wilk.wpk.p.lodz.pl/~whatfor/panzerwagen_adgz.htm

The other vehicle with the track/wheel changeable confiuration was called Saurer-RR7 and can be seen here: http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/austria/rr7.jpg

wiki info: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saurer_RR-7 - it says it was sued as a armored observation vehicle and not more than some 140 were produced in total, 12 ordered originally by Austria and the rest by the Wehrmacht.

[Marek_Tucan]

Good post, but a thread apart, Shan

[PanzerBob]

Good day,

Narwan,thanks for pointing me towards the Italian MC units, this does solve one problem with amending the German MC units. The motorcycle(light infantry) & motorcycle (heavy infantry)classes should help making them being more accurate. I'm working on a solution within the programmes parameters.

Shan, thanks for your side note, the figures and info you relayed to us, caused me to do so more research on the Kradschützen (not finsihed yet) amongst other things, I did confirm the carnage the Kradschützen endured in action and the 50% casualities, is not out of line. This figures in the game as well, at least in most of my battles. These stats still ring true with the 2 battles my new single MC have been though, however, my units have been able to carry out their assignments better, being split up. I see why, where possible, the Wehrmacht began replacing MC Recce Units with Armoured Cars. MC's did aerve in the Recce role unit the end of the war with many units. I can well imagine a lot of FNG's were riding point in action. All this has also confirmed that "Recce by Death" was not just routine that keeps raising it's ugly head on the game board.

All this confirms yet again, how awesome this game real is!!!

Cheers, Bob

[blitzkreig]

Some intersting stuff fellas

Panzerbob,

I for one would be interested in hearing how you get on. I've only recently rediscovered Steel Panthers having played it years ago. My mod skills are zero as a result!

PatG made me smile on the Russian MC thread! Your right Steel Panthers ain't car wars, lol!

Still my interest in this is simply because I like playing with mechanised German units. The krad units are their main recon units espically early war. I like to follow the German doctrine of using agressive recce to "fight for info".

I agree with chuck that in an ideal world the MC units and cavalry would be dismountable. This would more than likely be a major headache for Don and the other designers though! The game is great as it is after all.

Would it be posible to re-exam the Krad units weapons slots though? There is link given by serveral guys to Kstn info at:

www.wwiidaybyday.com

Increasing Krad unit firepower and the units in the formations close to real life would be a bonus for me! To much of a headache though? Anyone any thoughts? Worth the bother?

[Shan]

Hi again!

Yeah this game is great... in the meantime I compared some MC units of various OOBs - German MC sections are AFAIK the only ones having size 2 - they have 12 men and carry a lot of weapons... but in some other OOBs you will also find large squads, all at size 1, so the first thing I'd do is change the existing Kradschuetzen to size 1.

I'm now experimenting with my MC transports and trying to find a good company TO&E - I use Scouts, created 6-men light infantry squads and got LMGs as well, while the MC transports are only armed with a SMG. The company has 2 directly attached MC scouts (3 men, size 1, SMG + grenades), 3 platoons including a heavy platoon with an attached FO, A/T rifles, a sniper and a light A/T gun and so on - good for the initial German campaigns...

I'll need to find out more about actual Kradschuetzen TO&Es, however, to reconfirm this, but basically I think I'm not too far off. Such a unit may quickly secure a bridge and fight off an enemy counterattack until relieved, as it happened many times in RL - which is almost impossible with the existing, non-dismounting MCs.

Panzerbob,

The armored cars always existed parallel with the Kradschuetzen, the latter being the fast-moving infantry support for the former... if I find a good TO&E I'll post it. Later in the war, esp. in Russia, the MCs got bogged down in the russian mud and were worse-affected by the road conditions than all other types of vehicles, thats why this form of transport was abandoned... one of the reason why Germany had so many MCs and didn't give the recon units appropriate transports such as - at least - 4x4 unarmored vehicles, better half-track APCs as was done later, was just that the industry counln't cope with the requirements - look at the enormous losses of MCs in Poland, where roads were pretty bad as well - already in '39 it was obvious that MCs would never survive the russian mud seasons in spring and fall...

A related issue: I checked particularly on recon units in the german OOB and foudn that the 6x6 and 8x8 SdKfz231 currently are rated at size 2, while the successor, the 234, got size 3 - in fact the older Spaehwagen was so high and technically complicated - even without frame antennas it was 2.4m high, the versions with frame antennas 2.9m!
Thats why a new design was introduced - looking very similar but the '234 is 20cm lower that the basic 8x8 '231 (and has no more frame antennas - the '234 had better long range radios where such an antenna was unnecessary).

Basically, both versions are quite huge (6m long...) and should have size 3 or even 4, I'd say. (size 2 is also the size of a Kuebelwagen or Jeep... ;-))

[blitzkreig]

Shan,

Have a look at the above link. Go into the OOB section, then the KsTN section. KsTN are the offical German TOE for WW2. If you check the Panzertruppen section there's info on the TOE of MC units among many others.

It can be found under the kraftradeschutzen Kompanie for the early war mech infanrty type units mounted on bikes and in the Panzer-AufklarungsKompanie formations. Ie the recce coys of the recce btl. All in German though, but still useful!

Getting info on armoured car TOE, well good luck! as with most German units every foramtion seems to be diferent!

Though normally there were one or if very lucky 2 coys per reecce btl. Armoured cars were actually quite scarce in Pz Divisions even the SS late war elite units.

You can find info on the Sdfz 250 coys that replace the Krad coys on the site as well. Though the support or heavy coys of the recce units aren't in yet. Again these varied widely but typically had a anti-tank plt, inf gun plt and engineer/pionner plt.

A realism point though. Win Steel Panthers works on a core of 200 units, a reinforeced btl sized foramtion or kampfgruppen in German terms. The amount of recce assets the Div could or would assign them would be a fairly small part of the Kampfgruppe, espically late war. More than likley a Aufklarungs Gruppe or a recce group built from various units with the recce btl. Early war krad companies were availbable in greater numbers though from the Kraftradeschutzen btls and the Krad kompanie in each Schutzen or mot inf btl.

Good hunting!

[Shan]

You mean this one, posted by Popski - http://chrito.users1.50megs.com/kstn/kstnpanzermain.htm - yeah, my dreams come true... I am already adapting my Kradschuetzen according to this...

[chuckfourth]

Hi Shan,
Motorcycle size has been a hobbyhorse of mine for a while. As you mention these units fight dismounted but cant do this effectively in-game because at size 2 the opponents infantry just chews them up.
Also I have yet to fathom why bicycle units are size 2, they were popular during the war, most german infantry divisions recce battalions were bicycle mounted, theres a KTSN for bicycle mounted panzer grenadiers, In Holland there was at least one completely bicycle mounted division. The British, Canadians and Japanese also made use of them.
Same problem, once "dismounted" bicycle infantry cant effectively fight the opponents infantry because they are size 2.
In previous incanations of the game bicycle infantry has been size 1 and bicycle mounted HMG's have even been modeled as size 0.
Also I think that in-game the height of the vehicle seems more important than length or width. Probably because the range is the big problem with hitting the target and the higher it is the more likely you are to hit it.
Best Regards Chuck.

[PanzerBob]

Well, Gentlemen,

More ideas, and a great Orbat resource, (I'm surprised I've never run into this one, the German probally threw me off the scent.) I think between us we should be able to come up a workable Aufklarungs Gruppe for attachment to our KG's.

http://www.fireandfury.com/extra/ordersofbattle.shtml

http://www.fireandfury.com/faq/faqGermans.shtml

These two references, may help as well especially with the Kraftrad/Panzerspahwagen combo question, and I beleive Ian had some German Org. questions these may help with. Combined with the German Lang. OOB and the above Refs, just a quick look clarified how the Kradschuetzen, were idealy formed, My refs aren't always as detailed as needed to cobble to together our units.

I like the idea you have for dismountable Kraftrad truppen, please send sitreps on how they work.

My Boys have finished their second battle, advancing on Cannuks in Normandy. They did well, but at a heavy toll. They saved many of my Panzers from PIAT ambushes. I've always have problems with those Canuk PIAT teams, shades of Smokey Smith I surpose. All that being said, my concept is bearing some positve results. However, we shall see. My plan is the try Shan's idea when I load my CD version when it arrives. Then I shall begin testing in earnst.

Cheers, Bob

The Boys catchin a few Z's before their next battle.

[blitzkreig]

Panzerbob,

Interesting links, though the TOE is not bang on for some units and not as relaible as going by KsTN charts (though actually field units always varied quite widley of course) It answered my question about who operated the flamethrower tanks though so cheers!

Having done some more digging around in various books I'd argue that the German oob (oob16) may need some tweaking for the German recce units to be historically a bit more accurate, ie weapons/vehilces and troop numbers/type but hey thats what modhack's for I guess.

I have been trying out scout/kublewagon combinations late war. As the kubelwagon companies had thier own KsTN and were quite widely used. In game terms it lets you sneak about a bit more as they are faster than the sdkfz 250 so you can move in fast then dismount and obseerve an area. Not much combat value though!