Panzer Division Z

[Athina Dollison]

APanzer division was one of the armored (tank) divisions in the army of Nazi Germany during World War II. Panzer divisions were the key element of German success in the blitzkrieg operations of the early years of World War II. Later the Waffen-SS formed its own panzer divisions, and the Luftwaffe fielded an elite panzer division: the Hermann Gring Division.

The World War II German equivalent of a mechanized infantry division is Panzergrenadierdivision ('armored infantry division'). This is similar to a panzer division, but with a higher proportion of infantry and assault guns and fewer tanks.

Heinz Guderian first proposed the formation of panzer units larger than a regiment, but the inspector of motorized troops, Otto von Stuelpnagel, rejected the proposal.[2] After his replacement by Oswald Lutz, Guderian's mentor, the idea gained more support in the Wehrmacht, and after 1933 was also supported by Adolf Hitler. The first three panzer divisions were formed on 15 October 1935.[3] The 1st Panzerdivision was formed in Weimar and commanded by Maximilian von Weichs, the 2nd Panzerdivision was formed in Wrzburg and commanded by Guderian, and the 3rd Panzerdivision was formed in Berlin and commanded by Ernst Femann.

Most other armies of the era organized their tanks into "tank brigades" that required additional infantry and artillery support. Panzer divisions had their own organic infantry and artillery support. This led to a change in operational doctrine: instead of the tanks supporting operations by other arms, the tanks led operations, with other arms supporting them. Since the panzer divisions had the supporting arms included, they could operate independently from other units.

These first panzer divisions (1st through 5th) were composed of two tank regiments, one motorised infantry regiment of two battalions each, and supporting troops. After the invasion of Poland in 1939, the old divisions were partially reorganised (adding a third battalion to some infantry regiments or alternatively adding a second regiment of two battalions). Around this time, the newly organised divisions (6th through 10th) diverged in organisation, each on average with one tank regiment, one separate tank battalion, one or two infantry regiments (three to four battalions per division).

By the start of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the 21 panzer divisions had undergone further reorganisation to now consist of one tank regiment (of two or three battalions) and two motorised regiments (of two battalions each). Until the winter of 1941/42, the organic component of these divisions consisted of a motorised[4] artillery regiment (of one heavy and two light battalions) and the following battalions: reconnaissance, motorcycle, anti-tank, pioneer, field replacement, and communications. The number of tanks in the 1941-style divisions was relatively small, compared to their predecessors' composition. All other units in these formations were fully motorised (trucks, half-tracks, specialized combat vehicles) to match the speed of the tanks.

During the winter of 1941/42, the divisions underwent another reorganisation, with a tank regiment comprising from one to three battalions, depending on location (generally three for Army Group South, one for Army Group Centre, other commands usually two battalions). Throughout 1942, the reconnaissance battalions were merged into the motorcycle battalions.

By the summer of 1943, the Luftwaffe and Waffen-SS also had panzer divisions. A renewed standardization of the tank regiments was attempted. Each was now supposed to consist of two battalions, one with Panzer IV and one with Panther (Panzer V). In reality, the organization continued to vary from division to division. The first infantry battalion of the first infantry regiment of each panzer division was now supposed to be fully mechanised (mounted on armoured half-tracks (Sd.Kfz. 251). The first battalion of the artillery regiment replaced its former towed light howitzers with a mix of heavy and light self-propelled artillery (the Hummel with a 15 cm sFH 18/1 L/30 gun and the standard 105mm howitzer-equipped Wespe). The anti-tank battalion now included assault guns, tank destroyers (Panzerjaeger/Jadgpanzer), and towed anti-tank guns. Generally, the mechanization of these divisions increased compared to their previous organization.

The tank strength of the panzer divisions varied throughout the war. The actual equipment of each division is difficult to determine due to battle losses, the formation of new units, reinforcements and captured enemy equipment. The following table gives the tank strength of every division on two dates when this was known.

b Arrived on the Eastern Front after Operation Barbarossa.

c Formed after the Polish Campaign.

d Renamed following the Polish Campaign.

e Merged into other Divisions following the Polish Campaign.

Hollywood westerns often feature a stock scene where the new gang rides into town. They're armed, they're mounted, and they're mean. It's high noon on Main Street. Cowards flee, mothers hurriedly grab their children, and the sheriff desperately tries to round up a few good men.

The new gang had a name: the Panzer division. A mechanized formation formed around a hard core of swiftly moving tanks, surrounded by vehicles of all sorts to perform the reconnaissance, carry the infantry and drag the guns, the Panzer division brought the concept of sustained mobility to modern warfare. Such a formation could travel 50 miles or more per day, and then repeat the process day after day, out to the limit of its logistical network.

In the opening battles of World War II, German Panzer divisions ran over, through and around every enemy defensive position in their way. They restored mobility and maneuver to the modern battlefield, and in so doing they proved that war could consist of more than launching bloody frontal assaults by massed infantry. They proved that armies could still win decisive victories la Napoleon, a prospect that seemed out of reach to most military experts of the day. The new riders shocked the world, and they reshaped the face of battle.

It was a conundrum, but military officers are nothing if not problem solvers. The British, and then the French, experimented with a new armored tractor on caterpillar treads (code-named "tank") that carried its own artillery and machine guns. Tanks were able to crush barbed wire and cross trench lines, and late in 1917, at the battle of Cambrai, they showed their potential when used en masse, tearing a great hole in the German lines and sending 1000s of front-line German infantry reeling back in panic. But tanks were not yet war winners. They were cumbersome, too slow (with a top speed of 4-5 miles per hour), and prone to breakdown.

The interwar era found all the world's armies seeking a solution to the trench/machine gun/artillery deadlock. The debate revolved around the issue of military mechanization, that is, the role that the new weapons pioneered during World War I would play in a future conflict. Unfortunately, the answers were all over the map. It was obvious that airplanes and tanks were here to stay, but that was where agreement ended. Conservatives, including most of the world's general staffs, weren't all that impressed. The new machines were role players, certainly, but the battlefield still belonged to "the man and the horse." Radicals, usually younger officers like J.F.C. Fuller and B.H. Liddell Hart in Britain, saw the combination of tank and aircraft as the key to future success. Fuller went so far as to call for the abolition of infantry altogether and the conversion of the entire army to tanks. In a clash of armor, he wrote, a foot soldier was nothing more than "an interested bystander." The rhetoric was often overheated on both sides, featuring ad hominem arguments, bitter invective, and predictions of doom if the other side won the argument.

The debate in Germany was different. Contrary to the common wisdom, the Germans had not emerged from World War I fundamentally disenchanted with their military tradition. Indeed, they felt they had come within an ace of winning the war in the opening campaign, before a combination of circumstances, bad luck, and weak leadership had robbed them of victory at the battle of the Marne in September 1914. The loss on the Marne fundamentally transformed the war from a highly mobile "war of movement" (Bewegungskrieg) to a static "positional war" of trench lines and barbed wire (Stellungskrieg). With neither side maneuvering, a war of attrition had begun, a brutal contest of firepower and killing in which the wealthier and better-armed Allies eventually triumphed, while the German people slowly starved to death under an Allied blockade.

But the Germans believed that it could have all gone differently, if only they had won the war early. The German army therefore spent the interwar era looking for ways to increase its mobility, to hit its enemies faster and harder early on in the fighting, and to make sure it would win some future, hypothetical battle of the Marne. The tank seemed to be one possible way to keep armies moving and to avoid a future stalemate.

This disdain for one-sidedness tempered German enthusiasm for the tank. The Germans could see that for all the potential of the tank, it also had serious weaknesses. Tanks were better at attacking than defending; they couldn't hold ground on their own; and if they came across unsuppressed enemy artillery or antitank guns, they became easy targets for enemy fire. Tanks could succeed, but only if they worked in harmony with the other weapon systems in a close, cooperative, combined arms arrangement: the tank to take ground, the infantry to hold it, and the artillery to suppress enemy weapons that might harm the tank.

On the Jterbog and Grafenwhr training grounds, the Germans soon learned that high velocity of tank warfare had only made things worse. With mechanized units careening around the battlefield at speed, and aircraft now inserted into the mix, command and control was lurching towards chaos. Thankfully, a new technological solution was at hand: the radio. While the tank was the obsession of most contemporary military discourse, radio was the real military breakthrough of the period. The days of the primitive Morse code were over, replaced by direct voice messages from the commander to subordinate and vice versa, in something approaching real time.

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