[烛光生存狂]-1944年西线德军装甲旅

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Introduction

The destruction of Army Group Centre in June 1944 and the collapse of the Western Front following the Allied invasion of France in the same month caused a major drain of German manpower and material. Within two months dozens of divisions were wiped from German Order of Battle by the sweeping Russian offensives in Byelorussia and Ukraine, or bled white in the war of attrition in the Normandy countryside. During the summer of 1944 the German army was beaten both in Russia and in Western Europe and fell back in full retreat.

The German army reserves could not cope with the dreadful losses and ad hoc measures had to be taken in order to stabilise the situation. A new kind of units saw their birth that summer: infantry divisions were raised as so-called "Volksgrenadier-divisions" and new tank forces were created in the form of "Panzer-Brigades".

The appearance of Panzer-Brigades was no novelty within the German armed forces. From the beginning of the war in 1939 Panzer-Brigades were present and operational in the German Order of Battle until at least the summer of 1943. Apart from the official Order of Battle, German tank forces often operated in ad hoc formations, especially after the reverse of fortunes on the battlefield required makeshift units to tackle mounting crisis situations.

One of the most successful battlegroups, so-called "Kampfgruppen", was "schweres Panzer Regiment Bäke", called after the commander dr. Franz Bäke. This unit operated in Ukraine during the beginning of 1944 and managed to knock out hundreds of Russian tanks with the permanent loss of only five tanks. The success of Bäke undoubtedly inspired Hitler to create strong and well-equipped regimental sized tank units. Unsurprisingly he was one of the first commanders assigned to the Panzer-Brigades.

The philosophy behind these brigades was that smaller but stronger tank units could manoeuvre and counteract swifter than cumbersome tank divisions, which can be easily detected by enemy intelligence. Nevertheless when Hitler ordered the creation of the Panzer-Brigades in July 1944, they were rather born out of necessity than a new defence doctrine of the German armed forces.

Although the Panzer-Brigades were originally created for the severe situation on the Eastern Front - the Russians were standing before the gates of Warsaw and even threatened the German homeland in Prussia – many of them ultimately were deployed in the West. The quick advance of the Patton to Lorraine after the fall of Paris on the 25th of August forced the Germans to send reinforcements to the West to block him. This situation repeated itself after Montgomery's offensive towards Arnhem during September 1944.

Both Patton's advance in Lorraine and Monty's attack in Holland encountered resistance and counterattacks by Panzer-Brigades. In this article I wish to analyse the formation, deployment and operational performance of the Panzer-Brigades on the Western Front. The purpose of this analysis is to look how much influence Panzer-Brigades had on the battlefield, especially in the regular counterattacks during September 1944, which were undertaken to stop the Allied advance into Germany.

Formation

The creation of Panzer-Brigades happened in the aftermath of the onslaught of Army Group Centre in June 1944. Their formation was ordered on July 24th 1944 and ten brigades were planned. Hitler issued this order personally and against the advice of Heinz Guderian, inspector of the German tank forces. According to Guderian the creation of Panzer-Brigades would hinder the replacement of losses at the front and above all the necessary refitting of the worn out Panzer-Divisions. The priority of men and equipment given to the Panzer-Brigades actually led in the long term to the weakening of the Panzer-Divisions – half the tank production of Panthers in August went to the Panzer-Brigades. The report "Refitting of tank forces in the West" late November 1944 clearly shows that the organic second battalion of the Panzer-Division's tank regiment often had to be replaced by an assault gun battalion to give the Division the full complement of tanks. This was due of the lack of valuable medium tanks, previously allocated to the Panzer-Brigades and lost in the battles fought by those brigades in autumn 1944.

Although German tank production reached a wartime peak during the summer 1944 the shortage of trained crew delayed the formation of the new units. This caused the formation of two kinds of Panzer-Brigades. The first wave, numbered 101 to 110, consisted of one tank battalion and one battalion of mobile infantry. The actual tank strength was 36 Mark V Panther medium tanks, 11 Panzer IV/70 tank destroyers and Flakpanzer anti aircraft tanks in support. The infantry was fully motorised and equipped with armoured carriers.

The second generation, numbered 111-113, had two battalions of tanks and one mobile infantry battalion. This led to an establishment of approximately 90 medium tanks and 10 assault guns, making the Panzer-Brigade appear strong, equalling an average German Panzer-Division in tank strength. But as a brigade it lacked the necessary supporting combat units, like artillery and engineers, which made the Panzer-Division into a lethal combination of weapons. It seems that with the creation of the Panzer-Brigade the Germans forgot all lessons about combined weapons and relied completely on their superior tanks.

The Panzer-Brigade was almost exclusively a Heer project, which was a rarity in a time when almost all branches of the armed forces were deploying tank forces and frontline units were raised in every branch with available manpower. There is for example only one account of a formation of a Waffen-SS Panzer-Brigade, although in 1944 they made up almost a quarter of the German tankforces. Another exceptional unit was Panzer-Brigade 150 under the command of SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny, which was actually more a special operations unit than a battle formation. This unit therefore falls out of the context of this article.

Panzer-Brigades were raised around cores of veterans from the shattered divisions, which had been destroyed during the Russian offensive in June 1944. The commanders were of "eastern stock" which would have its consequences fighting in the West. Nevertheless the majority of the troops were drafted from reserve and tank training battalions and therefore inexperienced. A typical example of a Panzer-Brigade build up is the formation of Panzer-Brigade 105. It was formed around the approximately 950 survivors of the smashed Panzer-Grenadier-Division 18. The tank battalion was mainly made up from tank training units, who were send to a special training course for the Panther tank. The brigade received circa 50 Panther, 11 Panzer IV/70 and approximately 100 armoured personal carriers. On September 1st the brigade was hurriedly send to Belgium after just one month of training.

On paper a Panzer-Brigade was a strong and mobile unit fitting the purpose of a quick counterstrike force. Nevertheless the Panzer-Brigade had some organic deficiencies which could cause problems in operational circumstances. First of all the Panzer-Brigade had no organic reconnaissance unit, which is vital to locate the enemy before attacking. Secondly the Panzer-Brigade was lacking maintenance equipment, especially recovery vehicles. This made losses hard to sustain and it also troubled patching up damaged vehicles, because workshops heavily depended on usable parts from vehicles recovered from the battlefield.

Apart from the organic constitution the organisation of a Panzer-Brigade left much to be desired. The Panzer-Brigades were hurriedly formed, which took its toll from the basic training of the men, but above all from the training as a cohesive unit. Sometim

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