German Motorcycles and their Units

[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...

[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!

[Shan]

I just wanna tell you what I've done so far: I created my personal Kradschuetzen company along the lines of the great website provided by the other guys. In '39, for example, the company has 3 platoons each with 3 6-men sections , I classed those as light infantry. They have K-98k, LMG-34, hand grenades and pistol, unit size 1. Each such section has its own MC transport, classed as Motorcycle. Size=1, 3men, 6 men carrying capacity, amament: K-98k, pistol. The 4th section of each platoon is a light 5cm grenade launcher troop (3men, already exists).

Then, the company has a 4th platoon with 2x MMG-34 half-sections, those already exist, an 2x MC transports.

During the course of the war, weapons change of course (MPi-40 instead of pistoly, MG-42s, ...), and TO&E as well, but not significantly.

I used unit class= light infantry for my Kradschuetzen - later in the war the Luftwaffe units use the same class as well but I dont see a problem with that, you just have to take care what you buy. Also, I created a dedicated 'Kradmelder' who cannot dismount from his bike, this being a 2-men unit IIRC, but basically the 3-men MC transports can do the same job.

I am now using such a company in my North Africa-based long campaign, and it fights quite well!
Losses are of course there due to the nature of their mission, but the 6-men sections are doing well, and their bikes often recovered them out of trouble... only the 5cm grenade launchers are quite useless, I normally use them for direct fire thoguh and then they're not too bad. Overall, I'm quite happy with the results, they were better than expected. I'll also do something similar for the Fuesilierkompanie (bicycle infantry), should work accordingly.

Regards,

Shan

I am now using such a formation

[PanzerBob]

Good day all.

After our discussions, and some trial and error I've decided to keep my single MC sidecar Unit, with various arms as per time period, amended to reflect less men (3)plus a size of 0. I decided not to use the Scout/MC transport combo,(I tried it) while even more versatile than a MC unit, I found with the KG sizes I command the MC unit was a little more practical. Of course, 30 battles latter may prove me wrong.

As for formations, I've gone with two creations based on what DIV might pass down to a KG for their use. I've formed a PzKrad Aufkl Gp:

3 x MC/sidecars
2 x MG armed Kubelwagen w 4 men

Plus a PzKrad Spah Gp:

3 x MC/sidecars
1 x (le)Panzerspahwagen
1 x (sw)Panzerspahwagen

One of each will be Recce for the KG on my new campaign. I'm going to try and keep a running AAR on this campaign.

Cheers, Bob

[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.

[DRG]

Shan said:
<snip> I compared some MC units of various OOBs - German MC sections are AFAIK the only ones having size 2 -

I just now got around to this item on my "to-do" list so I apologize up front for not dealing with this when it was posted

Shan..... you really didn't check very many OOB's when you wrote this did you ? Did you check the MC units in the Slovak Republic OOB ? Canada ? Czechoslovakia ? Hungary ? All have size 2 MC units. How about Sweden or Bulgaria or Manchukuo ? All have size two MC units as do France, Vichy France, Japan, the POL Motorcycle in the Norwegian OOB, Yugoslavia, Belgium, Romania and Netherlands.

So......Germany is hardy "the only ones having size 2" MC units is it ? Half the nations in the game have MC units that are size 2

The general rule of thumb used was if over 10 men the size would be 2 and under that 1. There were some exceptions and those are being looked at but there are nearly 4 dozen MC units in the game right now with size 2

It's fine to debate the merits of changing this. That's what the forum is for. The concept of breaking the MC units down to carry units that can dismount to fight is interesting and this game is made to be adapted and modified but would it be TOO MUCH to ask before making sweeping statements like " German MC sections are AFAIK the only ones having size 2" that at a BIT more effort be put into checking the other OOB's first?


Don

[blitzkreig]

DRG - thanks for your feedback on this subject. Sweeping generalisations apart is there a realisitc possibility of changing the way mc units work in the game? I can see that any alteration to having dismountable mc units would then also have consquneces on push bike and cavalry units and would note doubt require much work on your part, worht the effort I ask?

If the concept is of interest to you is there any kind of referance material or evidence we can hep you with?

As an aside to any one else reading this does anyone have any infomation on how nations other than Germany used thier MC units?

Regards