That's a really really cool and well made overview of the 1st gen Bundeswehr Panzergrenadiers! It's an era of the Bundeswehr that's rather obsucre to me, despite being German myself. I really hope there will be a follow up video depicting the later developments of Army Structures 3 and 4! 14:30 Please do it!
Yeah, a big part is the doctrin struggle in this time - the conflict of how to build up the BW between the so called "Russians" and "Africans". The name comes mostly from the front they gained ther experiences, so the Africans - for example prefaring wheeled vehicles over chain - were really mobility focused, while the Russians did have more static defense ideas. It's a cool topic, cause you don't often see an army build up from the beginning - but with enough own professionals bringing in their own ideas. The Ukrains of cause, but I guess it will take some time to work this up on a historical level ;)
11:55 : Another video dedicated to the GLORIOUS DESIGN OF M113. Also remember to suppress weak Soviet T-80Us with M113s targeting them with attack-ground, while HS.30 and SPz 11-2 Kurz platoons charge at the T-80Us and destroy them through sheer autocannon power below 350m. Source : Wargame: Airland Battle
@@colbygordon6936 Indeed. Nothing screams realism more than fast-moving to the frontline underpowered Centurion tanks at 110 km/h. Or dropping cluster bombs on infantry that deals zero damages.
@@OFN_is_BASED Also remember that members of NATO have M113s in one form or another... Which means France isn't part of NATO in W:ALB ! 😅 Even Sweden has something based on the M113 ! France's tragic mistake has since been fixed by the firefighters of Corsica.
Right in time, since I have just been to German Tank Museum at Munster yesterday. :D. Bundeswehr's 1st Panzerdivison issued a 500 pages book on its history, which a I got for a donation.
Some of the Panzergrenadier gepanzert (half-track) TOEs show the platoon leader in a half-track with a mounted AT gun or AA cannon (Sd.Kfz. 251/10 or Sd.Kfz. 251/17) to support his 3 squads that only had machine guns on their half-tracks. I feel like that could be considered an early version of the IFV concept, although the firepower and transport capacity is more split up compared to later IFV doctrine.
Yes I also agree that SdKfz 251 in gun versions (/7 with Panzerbuchse, /9 with 7.5cm HE gun, /10 with 3.7cm gun, and /17 with 20mm Flak) can be considered first types of IFV. People say they don't fit criteria for IFV because they don't fit entire Panzergrenadier squad inside, but today you also have IFVs like M2 Bradley that have only like 6 places for infantry. 251/9 and 251/10 carried platoon leader and his men, which would be 4-6 passengers. If this loadout is considered by someone small then he can argue it was a bad IFV, but it's an IFV nonetheless lol
Great video on a fascinating subject! I find the development of proto-IFVs during WWII particularly interesting. You mentioned in the video the focus of German doctrine on fluidity between mounted and dismounted combat. Another point, raised by Major Coffey in his thesis 'Doctrinal orphan or active partner? A history of US Army mechanized infantry doctrine', is that Germany's late-war tank shortage led to experimentation with up-gunned half-tracks serving as mobile, protected firepower for the infantry. One notable example of this that I came across in my own research was the 107th Panzerbrigade, which equipped the majority of its half-tracks with triple 15mm autocannons. I'd say that comes pretty close to an IFV for its time.
Considering 20mm was considered an acceptable tank main gun caliber only ten years prior, i'd say so
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Nice Video and interesting topic. I recently did a Video overview about the IFVs of the German Panzergrenadiers after WW2. For that I read a book by Dieter Kollmer "Rüstungsgüterbeschaffung in der Aufbauphase der Bundeswehr". It looks at defence procurement around the founding of the Bundeswehr. The main focus of the book is the HS-30 procurement saga. The main problem with many of these early procurment scandals was the mad rush to try and get an army with 500.000 soldiers up and running in 3 years. They needed to be quick to get political capital in NATO and more generally. So with the Schützenpanzer they needed they needed it fast. The procurment office was also understaffed and had littel experience. So in the end they were conned by some guys from Switzerland with questionable morals and not a lot of competence. Which was a problem, because the contracts they signed with HS left a lot of room for interpretation and looked them in with HS. But they learned from it and organized the Leopard 1 and Marder Programms much better, which is why both lead to good vehicles.
Great video! I've been interested in Cold War Bundeswehr structures for some time now, and your video came in really handy. Please make more content about 70s/80s Bundeswehr
Another interesting early IFV development, both conceptually and doctrinally was the Swedish PBV 301 and 302 from the early 60's. Also equipped with a 20mm gun.
Thank you so much for this video! I've been a fan of your content for years and I think your videos are absolutely great. The only thing I always missed were videos about the Bundeswehr. I would love for you to make this a two or three part miniseries about the German Panzergrenadiere from past to present. It would be so great to see how the implementation of the Marder and now Puma IFV went and all around it. Cheers mate; keep up the great work!
At 8:02 you can see defense minister Franz Joseph Strauß (pronounced as Shtrauss), who also was responsible for -buying- getting rid of the HS30. His personal secretary recieved 2,3 mio D-Marks bribe. [edited]
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Strauss only beceam Minister when the decision to buy the HS-30 had already been made. So he naturally wasnt bribed. Quite the contrary. After becoming Defence Minister he killed the HS-30 program. He rather energetically did everything to lower the number of HS-30 the BW had to buy and tried to get out of the contract as fast as possible. You can read all about it in "Rüstungsgüterbeschaffung in der Aufbauphase der Bundeswehr" by Dieter Kollmer
As Säbelzahnmöve has told, it was a popular myth, perpetrated by „The Spiegel“, which hated Strauß. He was responsible for buying the F 104, but he killed the HS 30.
Regarding the quality of the HS 30: there was a popular comedian in the 60ies, Herbert Hiesel, who had a Bundeswehr routine. Among other things there was a HS 30 thing: „ this morning the guy bringing our coffee collided with an HS 30. Nothing happened to our coffee, but it took 3 hours to free the driver from the HS30 wreck“
HS.30 - The stunningly cheap IFV designed by a french-polish nobleman with no degree in engineering whatsoever, offert by a swiss company with no experience in building armored vehicles whatsoever. What could possibly go wrong! At least those vehicles got some nice nicknames by the soldiers: Because of its size and form the short version was called "chock" or "combatwheelchair", while the long version was known as the "route of march marker", because you just had to follow the broken down vehicles to see where the unit was going. 😄
I love the very early bundeswehr Heer. The mixture of Splitternmuster uniforms, US Helmets and WW2 Weaponry with the occasional bit of german kit thrown in the mix. It makes them look like they are from an alternate reality. I will always be sad that nato decided to go with the full green uniforms rather than keep the various national camouflages in service....
Honestly they look awful lol as if someone mismatched parts on WWII miniatures. But generally with few exceptions (for me for example it's France and UK) all 1950s-1970s armies look bad, weird design choices and straight up downgrades from experiences taken from WWII, both in practical and technical sense as well as aesthetic (badly fitting uniforms, horrible helmet designs, bad quality materials in personal equipment). Only after 1970s the military technology and designs both progressed forward and picked up previously rejected WWII experiences and outcomes to incorporate it to their doctrines. From helmet designs through intermediate cartridges to studies of camouflage patterns, all that had to be picked up, reanalyzed and restudied again because of weird post war choices of many countries.
@@AbuHajarAlBugattiTimes are changin and if you can't accept that you get left behind, and they did change for the better in a span of a mere 40 years we made a 180° turn and became the most powerful and economically well of country in europe at that time and the m1 helmet is reflective of this insecure period and hopes for the future the overall direction we were going as a society, for me it's an important little symbol of that temporary identity crisis after all the horrid shit our ancestors have done. You are not in the position to judge how our ancestors feel about that my guy, my great grandma and grandpa were damn fucking lucky and proud to have lived in such a promising and peacefull state after all the madness they had to endure by the NSDAP to even get the chance for a new dawn. Only people who haven't expirienced war or its effects take there mouth this full of empty phrases or other edgy warmonger shit
@@norbi1411 Afghanistan was a very different environment than cold war or todays hot war. In Afgh the vehicles were mainly battle taxis and not too much space to maneuver. In Europe in a hot war you lead easier 3 vehicles with very different weapon systems than 5...
@@woli6872 not really. There are many similarities, you just need filter them out. Just like Ukraine witch is not the war NATO's gonna fight. Modern technology plus some organisational changes like adding section leaders can help work around C2 problems. Speaking of Europe no one in NATO operates three-vehicle platoons. Four AFVs are the golden standard. US Army is planning to use Bradleys replacement in six-vehicle platoon layout.
The Americans have already tedtef 6-vehicle Bradley platoons. Both in scout platoons (which I think have already been aproved for adoption?) and as part of new armoured assault companies. In the latter the Bradley's and infantry are in platoons with their own platoon leaders but are part of the same company.
My father was a HS 30 commander during his time as an aspiring officer. He told us horror stories about its unreliability and general s****tiness for decades afterwards.
A great video highlighting important but generally forgotten historical units, equipment, and doctrine. The BMP-1 is often heralded as the first infantry fighting vehicle. You're setting history right.
Since you asked....when I was assigned to an LMTV, I named her Elizabeth, as a reference to the Queen. The reason why is the LMTV I had was old, cranky, but refused to die. I joked that Elizabeth would still be puttering around long after I left the Army.
all the meme jokes aside.....making a new tracked IFV vehicle is actually really fucking hard and resource consuming for any nation and its industry , hence why there have been relatively few good ones.
@@crabyman3555after the HS30 we absolutely nailed it though with the Marder. After that, the Puma… but it‘s getting there, after a lot of toothing pains…
Regarding the motorcycle messengers: Originally the most common bikes were the DKW RT175 and the Triumph BDG 250, later replaced by the Maico M250B like displayed here (sweet bike own one) and after that came the Hercules K125BW (also have one of those, still cool but not as cool as the Maico)
At 2:19 there looks to be a vehicle modeled on a chafee, and just a bit later you see the hell cat unit is seen, drive sprocket and idler are give aways, just wondering what Chaffee unit might have been called. Awesome content
Should be no surprise that the Bundeswehr is going to be different from the American structures, especially because of old Wehrmacht officers leading it.
I mean, an intelligent Wehrmacht Officer would take a gander at the people who actually won the last war. W. Germany didn’t have 20million fanatical conscripts so Red Army doctrine is out which leaves the US.
You also had a big doctrin struggle between these officers. There were basicly two groups - one the "Russians" and the other were the "Africans", the first one prefering a flexible defense with heave material, like they expierienced on the eastern front - and the other going for mobility, for example going more for wheeled vehicles, wich are faster. Also the whole leadership was allready on an agile "Leading by Order" instead of "Leading by Command" system, wich reaches back to Moltke. And was a pretty special philosophy for these times as well - with other needs then the top-down leadership systems of other militaries.
would like to have more German stuff. Like deffencere between, Panzergrenadier, Jäger and Gebiergsjäger and Fallschirmjäger Battallion over the the Time in the Bundeswehr. somehow its feels like, Germany never had a big "Infantry" and is more liky a Supporting/Armored power. Real Fighting Troops ar somehow only the upper 4 and the Tanksbattalions. In the US somehow if feel, theres such more Infantry. Like Mariens, light Infantry, Rangers, Mountaintroops, Airborne, amoured Infantry, striker Infantry etc...
In the US it seems to me, the standart infantry, the standart combat formation over all, is the light infantry. In the German army, the Panzergrenadier units still outnumber all other forms of Heer infantry (Jäger, Gebirgsjäger, Fallschirmjäger) combined. The standart Bundeswehr infantry is the mechanised infantry. Traditionally (i.e. in the Cold War), Bundeswehr infantry only lacked IFVs if they could not have any: Fallschirmjäger (can't throw a Marder out of a plane), Gebirgsjäger (mountains make them pointless) and Jäger (In the cold war, mainly reserve formations for defending rear areas. Outfitting all of them with IFVs would be too expensive. However, some Jäger units, mostly those attached to active divisions would later get M113s, when they were replaced by Marders.) In the Bundeswehr, if you could get an IFV, you would get an IFV. Aside: I always thought it made a lot of sense from a NATO point of view to have the Bundeswehr be a very heavy force, with the US Army bringing more light infantry to the table. Lacking light infantry on the border with the Warsaw pact? Well, just fly over a US infantry division in case of tensions or a crisis. Lacking armored units? Can't fly those around, and they need a lot more shipping space than an infantry unit of equal size, if air transport is not an option. No clue if that was intentional though.
@christophbeckmann7281 The US is generally more comfortable with light infantry, a tendency that was especially reinforced by the counterinsurgency fights in Iraq and Afghanistan, but during the Cold War, the Army already pre-stationed most of it's mechanized forces in Germany, like the 3rd Armored Division, 8th Infantry Division, 3rd Infantry Division etc... The US force structure called for those mechanized units to delay the Warsaw Pact offensive while divisions in the US were airlifted to Europe, the so called REFORGER concept, those US divisions being primarily light infantry formations because it was simply easier to airlift.
@@christophbeckmann7281 I guess, there's a difference in expierience that lead to other doctrins as well. Jäger are an other concept than light infantry, their job is the "Jagdkampf", attacking supply routes, ambush, tank hunting and delaying tactics, and so on. It's more a speciallized infantry. The lack of light infantry was a result of expieriences on the eastern front and the conclussion that light infantery will not be able to hold up heavy forces or simply bigger light forces. An other thing might be, that the Germans did make their expieriences with an artillery focused enemy, that will stay artillery focused in the cold war as well. You will have to bring your troops to the enemy line - and the only way to do this, without loosing 3/4, are armoured vehicles that are more than a taxi, but are able to bring the troops directly to the enemy line. Light infantry is not really capable of doing it's job, when under constant artillery fire - and we see actually the Ukrainians having this very problem...
@@katzenkralle7262 Da haben sie immer drüber geschimpft.😁 Das musste ich mir zum Glück nicht antun, da ich in einer Kampfkompanie mit dem Marder1a2 war.
MVA? That’s Mavis. She may not catch many second looks across a room. She might not be able to share a rowboat, but when it’s time for taking loads, you can bet she can get dirtier and is sure keep going long past where lesser girls would’ve given up. The true quality of a military rests on how much attention they pay to her.
Thank you Call to Arms: Gates of Hell mod “Hotmod 1968” for having Federal Republic of Germany as a faction with most of these vehicles. I am going to test out these unit formations against REDFOR Soviet or Chinese units.
May I add that a "short version" of the HS 30 existed..the Hotchkiss also armed with a 20mm Cannon. It was used in the "Panzer Späh Züge" (Armoured Recce Platoons)..for example 2. Jägerdivision, Panzerbrigade 6, PzSpZg 60 and in the 4th Coy (heavy Coy) of the PzAufklBats (Armoured Recce BNs). The 4th Coy had a PanzergrenadiePlatoon on Hotchkiss, 1 Engeneer Plt, one Mortarplt and two Leo Platoons. Altogether 12 Hotchkiss for 6 Infantriegroups....I served in the 4.PzAufklBat and my wepaon colour was "gold" for Recce and "green" for Panzergrenadier. In the late 70ys the Hotchkiss were chnaged against the "Fuchs"
This was the first 10 years of the Bundeswehr. They just took what they could get. USA gave some outdated tanks for (almost?) free, like the mentioned M47 and M48 Pattons and some artillery pieces. The Bundeswehr tried to get to 12 Divisions with 3 brigades each, but they didnt have enough officers and equipement. That's the reason why they had 3 different types of infanrtry (IFVs, APCs and trucks): The plan was to give IFVs to all of them, but production took time, so for the time being, they used what they had.
The infantry has known all along we needed an armored troop carrier. It was just the brass that couldn't see it. They were busy liasoning with the "civilians". 😂 We had the technology all along. The Schutzenpanzer looks amazingly like a Soviet BMP.
From what I remember from my WW2 German ORBATs, it seems to have been normal practice for them to only have some platoons led by Junior Officers. 7 Mortars seems an odd number?
That was the "Notsoll" . Because of the Lack of Officers in the early Days until the early 90s there were 2 Officers in an Pz. Gren. Coy. . The Komanie Chef, an Hauptmann or Capitan and the Leader of the first Platon, an Leutnant or Oberleutnant. The other two Platoons were led by Feldwebel or Oberfeldwebel. During the 80s the two Nco Platoon Leaders were Hauptfeldwebel.
Im pretty sure order of battle goes: brigade -> battalion grouping Division -> regimental(brigade) grouping Corps-> Divisional grouping So for division to be operating with battalions and
I'd be interested in Indian (and Pakistani) armoured formations in the 60s-90s. Especially whether they followed the British TO&Es, or developed their own (having had some of the largest tank battles post WW2).
I could see a vehicle like the HS-30 modernized with composite armor, modern sensors, a trophy system, thermals, and tow missiles (or even a vehicle borne Javelin system) instead of the 106mm recoiless gun being insanely lethal on the modern battlefield. That low silhouette would make it easier to hide behind micro terrain and add a thermal signature reducing camo net mesh over top. That would be very interesting.
Is that correct with the 7x81mm in the first mortar platoon? It just seems odd; the one extra HS30 would likely be the mortar platoon FDC and/or HQ vehicle. I've never heard of 7 tube platoons; where would the 1 extra tube be allocated if 2x per rifle company was normal distribution?
@@josephahner3031 that's possible - but then you would think it would be up at Company or battalion level as a reserve. That still wouldn't explain the extra 81mm mortar though. They were dismountable - so they could easily be transferred to another carrier. The other thing is they don't seem to have extra carriers attached anywhere else. The numbers seem to pretty well match up. It's only in the mortars that we see an extra and like I say, an odd number of tubes.
As it was explained to me in the late Cold War, the German habit of mixing IFV and APC (and thebmotorized infantry as a placeholder for APCs, because they just didn't have enough) battalions in a brigade started as a logistical requirement, not having enough IFVs. But, the Bundeswehr later made a virtue out of necessity, and *tactically* operated them with the IFVs (with the more concentrated firepower and theoretical slight advantage in protection) being the "breacher" units, and the APC units (with the much higher rifle count) being there for exploitation and restricted terrain (like securing a town). I've long thought that this conceptual model would be a logical one to follow with heavy divisions, as IFVs simply can't be feasibly large enough to carry full dismount squads without splitting the squad across multiple vehicles and adding even more vehicles. So, teaming IFVs like Bradleys (with the squad being one vehicle and the discounts it can carry, and the "vehicle team" acting like the old British "gun team" while the discounts form a "rifle team") with APC (like Stryker) units where the APCs each carry a full sized dismount squad that duplicates the light infantry squad (likely leaving the APC crews as part of the Platoon HQ squad, replacing things like MG teams that would normally be there in a light infantry platoon HQ). And, like the German organization, it would probably be best to organize these as "pure" IFV or APC elements at no lower than battalion level. One could also make a strong case that the tank brigades should likely have IFV, not APC infantry battalions, and mix the IFV and APC battalions in the mech infantry brigades. Note this still leaves the option of creating "medium" brigades or divisions where all, or almost all, of the mech battalions are APC, optimized for roles where rifle strength and strategic transport weight outweighs the increased mounted punch of going heavy on IFVs.
Not really Doing mix up out of necessity like Germans did or Ukrainians doing now doesn't mean it's a good solution. If given choice most armies stay with "pure" armoured, mech and light brigades due to different jobs on the battlefield. Neither tank or mech units simply do not need that much of manpower.
Some Panzergrenadierbtl. were equipped complete with Marder IFV, others were mixed 3 companies Marder IFv, 1 company with M113 APC.(late cold war structure)
@norbi1411 that's not what experiance in Ukriane has found. Ifvs have been unable to provide sufficent infantry screens for both sides resulting in the only effective tank pushes being in relatively uncontested areas (like the ukrianian kharkiv/ov offensive).
@@norbi1411 Thing is, that as well Germans as Ukrainians simply made the expierience, that in reality of war mixing up is a good idea - if your leadership is able to carry it. German "Auftragstaktik", wich basicly mean an agile form of leadership by Order not by Command, with very low hierachies, goes back to Moltke and has a strong tradition. The German concept of ad-hoc "Kampfgruppen" (Battle Groups) was highly effective. It will fail in a very top-down army system, though, we see it failing in the Russian forces for example and the US leadership might not be able to carry it as well. And no, no tank replaces manpower.
@@hansulrichboning8551Ist dem so? Wir hatten 4 Kampfkompanien mit dem Marder und neben der Stabs- und Versorgungskompanie noch eine PzMrsKp mit 120mm Mörsern.
Hey @BattleOrder can you make one of thers type of videos for the danish army becaus it will be fun to see how my home cruntry's army is uesed for attak and how its weapon loadout is and how infantry and tanks worke togetter?. and noice video
Highly unlikely. The whole country is barely a country anymore. It is basically just a country sized business park and the people living in it don't really have a patriotic, loving attitude towards it, but rather see it as if it were a giant corporation and they were one of its employees. If some foreign power would invade Germany today, 90+% of Germans would not even get the idea of resisting but would just ask: "What does that have to do with me?" To them it would just be like the company they work for being bought up by another company. People in other parts of Europe and the world as a whole have those conspiracy theories about the Germans plotting to control Europe and take it over with money and politics instead of with weapons, but to anyone who actually knows modern Germany and the people living there, that idea is absolutely ridiculous and laughable. Germans are actually psychotic, damaged and broken enough to really believe and mean all that "EU" BS they are saying. They don't want to be Germans anymore, so being "Europeans" seems like a alternative to them and they genuinely don't get that other people in other countries think differently and actually love their homelands and cherish their sovereignty. The political, cultural and media elites running Germany are all genuine Globalists and feel nothing but contempt for anything German. They behave like a foreign occupying force within their own country, fighting a Cold Civil War against their own people anyways, so to most Germans there wouldn't really be a difference between being ruled by actual foreign occupiers when their own rulers and elites already behave indistinguishable from foreign occupiers. One example for what I am talking about was that infamous New Years Eve debacle in 2015, when hordes of freshly arrived foreign invaders molested and raped hundreds of German women during New Years Eve parties all over the country. Do you know what the reaction of the government to that was? Did they harshly punish those criminals and deport them, as a healthy, sane, proper government would have? Nope. What they did instead was to increase the number of secret state police that monitors "Right Wing Activities" and outlaw Mace and Pepper Spray. I'm not kidding. Hundreds of women get molested and raped and the first thing the German government did was to outlaw Pepper Spray. This is so weird, outrageous and Orwellian dystopian that I can hardly believe it myself. I am a German wannabe patriot. I would like to be proud of my country and its military as much as the next guy, but that isn't an option for me. All I can tell you about a strong German army is: What for? What for would we need a army when we don't have a country? All that army would do would be to work for Globalist elites and against the German people, the same way the government and the police do.
Your situation described started after reunification, when the British believed Continental Europe would be reconquered by the Germans soon again. But then the EU started and now you can see the development .
@@TrangleC Need a tissue? You sound like one of those incel neonazi basement dwellers here in germany who never leave their house and are sad that swastikas arent seen on the streets anymore with a strong austrian daddy telling you how to live
@@apis_aculei Germany controls the EU and funds the EU. No germany=no EU. Head of EU parliament: also german. Head of EU commission. Also german. The German Bahn owns around a thousand companies across the EU. Germany owns important infrastructure in Spain, Italy and greece too
It's an very interesting part if the Bundeswehr - and military - history, the 1960's were actually a time of doctrin struggle in the German military with two groups, the so called "Russians", mostly Veterans of the war in the east and the so called "Africans", mostly veterans of the Afrika Corps and the Western front, wich had very different ideas. While the Russians wanted to build up heavy defensive forces, the Africans prefered movement and asymmetry. For example, Africans wanted to go for mostly wheeled vehicles - basicly the idea that formed the US Stryker doctrins later. Both doctrins kind of made it's way into the Bundeswehr and lead to some untypical stuff compared to other NATO Forces.
Schutzenpanzer looks kinda wierd tho, hard to believe they fit a autocannon in such a small turret. Also why did u reffer to it as the HS.30? I think Schutzenpanzer would sound better, or "protection tank"
First, Schützenpanzer is just the german designation for IFV, HS.30 is the name of the Vehikel. Second, no if you translate Schützenpanzer into english its not protection tank ( that would be the translation of Schutzpanzer) but something like rifleman tanke ( Schütze= rifleman/ gunner ).
5:10 i would rather say engine wise, the cooling issues was due to horrible design, now allowing a proper cooling system which you can only blame the germans themselves for. every other fault is due to not putting enough work on it
As I always say, when you're getting into German units, their structure, and equipment, you come for Nazi Germany and stay for post-'55 West Germany. Seriously, I don't know what it is about Germany that they just produce cool military stuff that you just gotta love. Also, those early Bundeswehr helmets look like if a US M1 Helmet and a German M35 Helmet had a baby and the M35's genes were the stronger ones.
this german early IFV is very nice to look at, a small target, and gunner protected by a smal turret with a powerful gun. compare that to the M113 with the gunner unprotected standing tall in the hatch as if to be executed, which is what would have happened if the cold war went hot
@@bluntcabbage6042 if the cold war went hot, APCs would find themselves on the front lines. Soviet BMP crews wouldn't have cared that the M113 was a "battle taxi". who would you want to be on the side of - a BMP company , squared off against an M113 company? What if you're a infantry company commander and you're told that you MUST take that ridgeline from the soviet enemy? and the tanks are 3 miles away and you can't wait for them to arrive?
@@decimated550 Except there's fundamental differences to how vehicles are deployed which change the situations in which they find themselves in. American attacks would not need M113s rushing along like IFVs, it's fundamentally contrary to what the M113 was and how it was employed. If they were thrown into the meatgrinder, they would die. So would BMPs and HS.30s. Neither of the IFVs were any better _protected,_ they just offered better firepower. By your rationale, there is no reason not to make every single AFV obese with armor and firepower. Because what if the tanks are miles away??? And you need to take a ridgeline??? The answer to both questions is that you offset the shortcoming with other assets or risk the attack failing, or don't attack at all. The (ultimately marginal) increase in firepower of an IFV isn't going to really fix that problem, you still can't substitute IFVs with tanks in a proper assault. American units also had a larger variety of assets to offset any lack in firepower that the M113 may have. It was the same army that reduced combined arms artillery and air support to a science with perfect optimization in the last large war. While the IFV concept was obviously fruitful in hindsight, comparing M113 to IFVs and acting shocked that IFVs might be better for upfront combat is just a weird thing to make a stink about. All mechanized formations beforehand were using variations of proto-battletaxis and accompanying full-size armored elements, so it was natural that the US would refine that concept instead of attempting a largely foreign and strange idea of making a hybrid tank/infantry carrier. If the war had gone hot, all three vehicles would be death traps. All of them are vulnerable to anything more than a .30 caliber machine gun. All of them would result in the fiery death of their inhabitants. Having a notoriously bad 73mm HEAT grenade launcher, or a small caliber autocannon, won't stop that reality from playing out.
@@bluntcabbage6042 thanks for reply. i've read the papers of Gen Wm Dupuy, and he was convinced that america needed an IFV to keep up with the M1 tank and provide firepower to fully realize panzergrenaider operations. He wrote that "the m113 is not even in the same class as the BMP - it will be driven off the battlefield". his words, not mine. Having a 30mm autocannon and a low profile and that can swim rivers withouit preparation and be able to shoot antitank missiles from under armor means that...the BMP would be useful in a combind arms army like the Warsaw pact, and , and ... it wouldn't always need to be "babysitted" by tanks . it could put a lot of projectiles flying towards NATO infantry and APCs to be it's own fire support. that's just my thoughts. I"m playing a game called Combat Mission , great series, of armor combat from ww2 to modern day, and the title i play most (can you guess) is Cold War, with the period 1979 to 1983. the soviet stuff is pretty good. it blows up too and the men die flaming deaths, but they have good mobility and firepower - and they are numerous.
@@decimated550 Worth noting that M113's heyday was long before BMP-2 came about and introduced the auto cannon to the BMP family. While M113 was dominant in US circles, the Soviets were mostly using BMP-1, whose weaponry was not as impressive as 2's. Still, I appreciate this discussion as it made me think deeper into this than I initially expected. You have good points! Cheers 👍
I hoped you would make this video - I had been lookin for this info for some time, now. But do you know how the squads fought, though? Did they split into fire teams?
No sources to back it up, but I think the HS30 dismounts fought as undivided sections, each with an MG3. Then the platoon dismount Commander manoeuvred the 3 or 4 sections available. Bear in mind that in a lot of cases they anticipated firing from the vehicle itself, to assist in maintaining the speed of advance.
you should do a Weapon Loadout Video about the West German Panzerjäger / Tank Destroyer Battalion . They had the Jaguar / The Raketenjagdpanzer 1 It was an anti-tank guided missile-armed tank destroyer. The Missile was the HOT en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOT_(missile)
The guy in the thumbnail actually recovered the fall, like a cat: facebook.com/tankmuseum/photos/a.352150330841/10159687873580842/
ok.
Now that's hilarious😂
How do you create the military charts?
Thank you for your videos.
Could you do some videos on Canada during the Cold War?
Love the content BTW, keep it up👍
Would you consider making a video on the modern Panzergrendadier-Platoons? Would be really interesting to see the shift in focus/doktrin.
That's a really really cool and well made overview of the 1st gen Bundeswehr Panzergrenadiers! It's an era of the Bundeswehr that's rather obsucre to me, despite being German myself.
I really hope there will be a follow up video depicting the later developments of Army Structures 3 and 4!
14:30 Please do it!
Yeah, a big part is the doctrin struggle in this time - the conflict of how to build up the BW between the so called "Russians" and "Africans". The name comes mostly from the front they gained ther experiences, so the Africans - for example prefaring wheeled vehicles over chain - were really mobility focused, while the Russians did have more static defense ideas.
It's a cool topic, cause you don't often see an army build up from the beginning - but with enough own professionals bringing in their own ideas.
The Ukrains of cause, but I guess it will take some time to work this up on a historical level ;)
11:55 : Another video dedicated to the GLORIOUS DESIGN OF M113.
Also remember to suppress weak Soviet T-80Us with M113s targeting them with attack-ground, while HS.30 and SPz 11-2 Kurz platoons charge at the T-80Us and destroy them through sheer autocannon power below 350m.
Source : Wargame: Airland Battle
*B**O**X*
Eugen really do be making the most realistic™ rts games.
@@colbygordon6936 Indeed.
Nothing screams realism more than fast-moving to the frontline underpowered Centurion tanks at 110 km/h.
Or dropping cluster bombs on infantry that deals zero damages.
nice to see a fellow Wargame/Eugen enjoyer
@@OFN_is_BASED Also remember that members of NATO have M113s in one form or another...
Which means France isn't part of NATO in W:ALB ! 😅
Even Sweden has something based on the M113 !
France's tragic mistake has since been fixed by the firefighters of Corsica.
As a retired US Army Tanker, 1980-2010, I really enjoy this detailed video on the structure of the German Army in the early years of the Cold War.
Right in time, since I have just been to German Tank Museum at Munster yesterday. :D. Bundeswehr's 1st Panzerdivison issued a 500 pages book on its history, which a I got for a donation.
Some of the Panzergrenadier gepanzert (half-track) TOEs show the platoon leader in a half-track with a mounted AT gun or AA cannon (Sd.Kfz. 251/10 or Sd.Kfz. 251/17) to support his 3 squads that only had machine guns on their half-tracks. I feel like that could be considered an early version of the IFV concept, although the firepower and transport capacity is more split up compared to later IFV doctrine.
Yes I also agree that SdKfz 251 in gun versions (/7 with Panzerbuchse, /9 with 7.5cm HE gun, /10 with 3.7cm gun, and /17 with 20mm Flak) can be considered first types of IFV. People say they don't fit criteria for IFV because they don't fit entire Panzergrenadier squad inside, but today you also have IFVs like M2 Bradley that have only like 6 places for infantry. 251/9 and 251/10 carried platoon leader and his men, which would be 4-6 passengers. If this loadout is considered by someone small then he can argue it was a bad IFV, but it's an IFV nonetheless lol
Great video on a fascinating subject!
I find the development of proto-IFVs during WWII particularly interesting. You mentioned in the video the focus of German doctrine on fluidity between mounted and dismounted combat. Another point, raised by Major Coffey in his thesis 'Doctrinal orphan or active partner? A history of US Army mechanized infantry doctrine', is that Germany's late-war tank shortage led to experimentation with up-gunned half-tracks serving as mobile, protected firepower for the infantry.
One notable example of this that I came across in my own research was the 107th Panzerbrigade, which equipped the majority of its half-tracks with triple 15mm autocannons. I'd say that comes pretty close to an IFV for its time.
Considering 20mm was considered an acceptable tank main gun caliber only ten years prior, i'd say so
Nice Video and interesting topic. I recently did a Video overview about the IFVs of the German Panzergrenadiers after WW2.
For that I read a book by Dieter Kollmer "Rüstungsgüterbeschaffung in der Aufbauphase der Bundeswehr". It looks at defence procurement around the founding of the Bundeswehr. The main focus of the book is the HS-30 procurement saga.
The main problem with many of these early procurment scandals was the mad rush to try and get an army with 500.000 soldiers up and running in 3 years. They needed to be quick to get political capital in NATO and more generally. So with the Schützenpanzer they needed they needed it fast. The procurment office was also understaffed and had littel experience. So in the end they were conned by some guys from Switzerland with questionable morals and not a lot of competence. Which was a problem, because the contracts they signed with HS left a lot of room for interpretation and looked them in with HS.
But they learned from it and organized the Leopard 1 and Marder Programms much better, which is why both lead to good vehicles.
Great video! I've been interested in Cold War Bundeswehr structures for some time now, and your video came in really handy. Please make more content about 70s/80s Bundeswehr
Yeah, some Heeresstruktur 3 & 4 would be nice :)
Another interesting early IFV development, both conceptually and doctrinally was the Swedish PBV 301 and 302 from the early 60's. Also equipped with a 20mm gun.
Wish we had retained the 302s in storage... would been a nice addition for Ukrainian logistics.
@@johanmetreus1268 what did we do with them?
@@morrikai They were cut up as scrap along with the tanks, as so much else from the "obsolete" Invasion defence.
Thank you so much for this video! I've been a fan of your content for years and I think your videos are absolutely great. The only thing I always missed were videos about the Bundeswehr. I would love for you to make this a two or three part miniseries about the German Panzergrenadiere from past to present. It would be so great to see how the implementation of the Marder and now Puma IFV went and all around it. Cheers mate; keep up the great work!
When that Medal of Honour music hits... it is just the best to acompany this.
At 8:02 you can see defense minister Franz Joseph Strauß (pronounced as Shtrauss), who also was responsible for -buying- getting rid of the HS30. His personal secretary recieved 2,3 mio D-Marks bribe. [edited]
Strauss only beceam Minister when the decision to buy the HS-30 had already been made. So he naturally wasnt bribed. Quite the contrary. After becoming Defence Minister he killed the HS-30 program. He rather energetically did everything to lower the number of HS-30 the BW had to buy and tried to get out of the contract as fast as possible. You can read all about it in "Rüstungsgüterbeschaffung in der Aufbauphase der Bundeswehr" by Dieter Kollmer
As Säbelzahnmöve has told, it was a popular myth, perpetrated by „The Spiegel“, which hated Strauß. He was responsible for buying the F 104, but he killed the HS 30.
Regarding the quality of the HS 30: there was a popular comedian in the 60ies, Herbert Hiesel, who had a Bundeswehr routine. Among other things there was a HS 30 thing: „ this morning the guy bringing our coffee collided with an HS 30. Nothing happened to our coffee, but it took 3 hours to free the driver from the HS30 wreck“
@ I should read more carefully before posting shit.
@Sabelzahnmowe but he made bank with the f-104.
HS.30 - The stunningly cheap IFV designed by a french-polish nobleman with no degree in engineering whatsoever, offert by a swiss company with no experience in building armored vehicles whatsoever. What could possibly go wrong! At least those vehicles got some nice nicknames by the soldiers: Because of its size and form the short version was called "chock" or "combatwheelchair", while the long version was known as the "route of march marker", because you just had to follow the broken down vehicles to see where the unit was going.
😄
Tbf, how many engineering degrees did we throw at the MBT-70/Kpz70 project that saw no problem with the idea of sticking the driver in the turret?
I love the very early bundeswehr Heer. The mixture of Splitternmuster uniforms, US Helmets and WW2 Weaponry with the occasional bit of german kit thrown in the mix. It makes them look like they are from an alternate reality. I will always be sad that nato decided to go with the full green uniforms rather than keep the various national camouflages in service....
Honestly they look awful lol as if someone mismatched parts on WWII miniatures. But generally with few exceptions (for me for example it's France and UK) all 1950s-1970s armies look bad, weird design choices and straight up downgrades from experiences taken from WWII, both in practical and technical sense as well as aesthetic (badly fitting uniforms, horrible helmet designs, bad quality materials in personal equipment). Only after 1970s the military technology and designs both progressed forward and picked up previously rejected WWII experiences and outcomes to incorporate it to their doctrines. From helmet designs through intermediate cartridges to studies of camouflage patterns, all that had to be picked up, reanalyzed and restudied again because of weird post war choices of many countries.
I was part of the green Bundeswehr and to me it looks a lot better than the camouflaged units of today.
Swiss and soviet armies look good in the 50s-70s
Anyone who wore the American helmet spat on his country and ancestors
@@AbuHajarAlBugattiTimes are changin and if you can't accept that you get left behind, and they did change for the better in a span of a mere 40 years we made a 180° turn and became the most powerful and economically well of country in europe at that time and the m1 helmet is reflective of this insecure period and hopes for the future the overall direction we were going as a society, for me it's an important little symbol of that temporary identity crisis after all the horrid shit our ancestors have done.
You are not in the position to judge how our ancestors feel about that my guy, my great grandma and grandpa were damn fucking lucky and proud to have lived in such a promising and peacefull state after all the madness they had to endure by the NSDAP to even get the chance for a new dawn. Only people who haven't expirienced war or its effects take there mouth this full of empty phrases or other edgy warmonger shit
Five-vehicle platoon is a very good set up. Gives more room for drones, EW and other extra equipment being introduced to small units.
Too many vehicles and troups to lead for a platoon leader. After the HS30 with 3 Marders in a platoon that was still one of the most demanding jobs.
@@woli6872 not really, especially novadays. Poland used similar five-vehicke set up in Afghanistan, and it worked very well.
@@norbi1411 Afghanistan was a very different environment than cold war or todays hot war. In Afgh the vehicles were mainly battle taxis and not too much space to maneuver. In Europe in a hot war you lead easier 3 vehicles with very different weapon systems than 5...
@@woli6872 not really. There are many similarities, you just need filter them out. Just like Ukraine witch is not the war NATO's gonna fight. Modern technology plus some organisational changes like adding section leaders can help work around C2 problems. Speaking of Europe no one in NATO operates three-vehicle platoons. Four AFVs are the golden standard. US Army is planning to use Bradleys replacement in six-vehicle platoon layout.
The Americans have already tedtef 6-vehicle Bradley platoons. Both in scout platoons (which I think have already been aproved for adoption?) and as part of new armoured assault companies. In the latter the Bradley's and infantry are in platoons with their own platoon leaders but are part of the same company.
My father was a HS 30 commander during his time as an aspiring officer. He told us horror stories about its unreliability and general s****tiness for decades afterwards.
sa fait longtemps que je te regarde et t’es video m’impressionne toujours par leur qualité de création.
A great video highlighting important but generally forgotten historical units, equipment, and doctrine. The BMP-1 is often heralded as the first infantry fighting vehicle. You're setting history right.
As another German soldier, please make more videos about the Bundeswehr.
We Germans love watching videos about Germany.
Yes, please make a follow up video about Army Structure 3
Since you asked....when I was assigned to an LMTV, I named her Elizabeth, as a reference to the Queen. The reason why is the LMTV I had was old, cranky, but refused to die. I joked that Elizabeth would still be puttering around long after I left the Army.
i chuckle when you said HS.30 IFV weakness is "not durable gearbox"
_they still didnt learn the lesson_
Lmao.
all the meme jokes aside.....making a new tracked IFV vehicle is actually really fucking hard and resource consuming for any nation and its industry , hence why there have been relatively few good ones.
The HS 30 was made by a french polish guy with no degree
@@crabyman3555after the HS30 we absolutely nailed it though with the Marder.
After that, the Puma… but it‘s getting there, after a lot of toothing pains…
Ha,thought about for a moment why the background music sounds so familiar;)Thanks for bringing back a blast from the past!
Regarding the motorcycle messengers: Originally the most common bikes were the DKW RT175 and the Triumph BDG 250, later replaced by the Maico M250B like displayed here (sweet bike own one) and after that came the Hercules K125BW (also have one of those, still cool but not as cool as the Maico)
Oh boy I've waited for a video about modern (well, post WW2) Germany for so long. Please more!
At 2:19 there looks to be a vehicle modeled on a chafee, and just a bit later you see the hell cat unit is seen, drive sprocket and idler are give aways, just wondering what Chaffee unit might have been called. Awesome content
0:58 that soundtrack hit me hard thank you!
Should be no surprise that the Bundeswehr is going to be different from the American structures, especially because of old Wehrmacht officers leading it.
I mean, an intelligent Wehrmacht Officer would take a gander at the people who actually won the last war. W. Germany didn’t have 20million fanatical conscripts so Red Army doctrine is out which leaves the US.
You also had a big doctrin struggle between these officers. There were basicly two groups - one the "Russians" and the other were the "Africans", the first one prefering a flexible defense with heave material, like they expierienced on the eastern front - and the other going for mobility, for example going more for wheeled vehicles, wich are faster. Also the whole leadership was allready on an agile "Leading by Order" instead of "Leading by Command" system, wich reaches back to Moltke. And was a pretty special philosophy for these times as well - with other needs then the top-down leadership systems of other militaries.
would like to have more German stuff. Like deffencere between, Panzergrenadier, Jäger and Gebiergsjäger and Fallschirmjäger Battallion over the the Time in the Bundeswehr.
somehow its feels like, Germany never had a big "Infantry" and is more liky a Supporting/Armored power.
Real Fighting Troops ar somehow only the upper 4 and the Tanksbattalions.
In the US somehow if feel, theres such more Infantry. Like Mariens, light Infantry, Rangers, Mountaintroops, Airborne, amoured Infantry, striker Infantry etc...
In the US it seems to me, the standart infantry, the standart combat formation over all, is the light infantry.
In the German army, the Panzergrenadier units still outnumber all other forms of Heer infantry (Jäger, Gebirgsjäger, Fallschirmjäger) combined. The standart Bundeswehr infantry is the mechanised infantry.
Traditionally (i.e. in the Cold War), Bundeswehr infantry only lacked IFVs if they could not have any: Fallschirmjäger (can't throw a Marder out of a plane), Gebirgsjäger (mountains make them pointless) and Jäger (In the cold war, mainly reserve formations for defending rear areas. Outfitting all of them with IFVs would be too expensive. However, some Jäger units, mostly those attached to active divisions would later get M113s, when they were replaced by Marders.)
In the Bundeswehr, if you could get an IFV, you would get an IFV.
Aside: I always thought it made a lot of sense from a NATO point of view to have the Bundeswehr be a very heavy force, with the US Army bringing more light infantry to the table. Lacking light infantry on the border with the Warsaw pact? Well, just fly over a US infantry division in case of tensions or a crisis.
Lacking armored units? Can't fly those around, and they need a lot more shipping space than an infantry unit of equal size, if air transport is not an option.
No clue if that was intentional though.
@christophbeckmann7281 The US is generally more comfortable with light infantry, a tendency that was especially reinforced by the counterinsurgency fights in Iraq and Afghanistan, but during the Cold War, the Army already pre-stationed most of it's mechanized forces in Germany, like the 3rd Armored Division, 8th Infantry Division, 3rd Infantry Division etc...
The US force structure called for those mechanized units to delay the Warsaw Pact offensive while divisions in the US were airlifted to Europe, the so called REFORGER concept, those US divisions being primarily light infantry formations because it was simply easier to airlift.
@@christophbeckmann7281 I guess, there's a difference in expierience that lead to other doctrins as well. Jäger are an other concept than light infantry, their job is the "Jagdkampf", attacking supply routes, ambush, tank hunting and delaying tactics, and so on. It's more a speciallized infantry. The lack of light infantry was a result of expieriences on the eastern front and the conclussion that light infantery will not be able to hold up heavy forces or simply bigger light forces.
An other thing might be, that the Germans did make their expieriences with an artillery focused enemy, that will stay artillery focused in the cold war as well. You will have to bring your troops to the enemy line - and the only way to do this, without loosing 3/4, are armoured vehicles that are more than a taxi, but are able to bring the troops directly to the enemy line. Light infantry is not really capable of doing it's job, when under constant artillery fire - and we see actually the Ukrainians having this very problem...
My grandpa served in a spz pzgren btl in the 120mm mortar platoon and later in the jägerlehrbatallion
Die jungs in der schweren Kompanie hatten ordentlich zutun, solch eine hatten wir im PzGrenBtl332 ebenfalls.
@@max.h332. die Bodenplattenrallies waren scheinbar sehr spassig
@@katzenkralle7262 Da haben sie immer drüber geschimpft.😁
Das musste ich mir zum Glück nicht antun, da ich in einer Kampfkompanie mit dem Marder1a2 war.
If MAN 630 = Emma, I'm a fan of Tiffany for the MTV 5-ton.
MTV 5 ton is a velma. The windshield reminds me of the character's glasses
Great video. I like your content
Well made sir!
MVA? That’s Mavis. She may not catch many second looks across a room. She might not be able to share a rowboat, but when it’s time for taking loads, you can bet she can get dirtier and is sure keep going long past where lesser girls would’ve given up. The true quality of a military rests on how much attention they pay to her.
OH NAH WHAT BRO IT'S A TRANSPORT WHAT IS YOU TALKING ABOUT
@@miscreantwithinternetacces7370
Yeah, those are all truck things. What do you think he meant, sinner.
Weird comment. Is sex all you think about? IQ 80 i guess?
Facinating! Love your videos
Awesome bro!
Thank you Call to Arms: Gates of Hell mod “Hotmod 1968” for having Federal Republic of Germany as a faction with most of these vehicles. I am going to test out these unit formations against REDFOR Soviet or Chinese units.
May I add that a "short version" of the HS 30 existed..the Hotchkiss also armed with a 20mm Cannon. It was used in the "Panzer Späh Züge" (Armoured Recce Platoons)..for example 2. Jägerdivision, Panzerbrigade 6, PzSpZg 60 and in the 4th Coy (heavy Coy) of the PzAufklBats (Armoured Recce BNs). The 4th Coy had a PanzergrenadiePlatoon on Hotchkiss, 1 Engeneer Plt, one Mortarplt and two Leo Platoons. Altogether 12 Hotchkiss for 6 Infantriegroups....I served in the 4.PzAufklBat and my wepaon colour was "gold" for Recce and "green" for Panzergrenadier. In the late 70ys the Hotchkiss were chnaged against the "Fuchs"
Sweet sheets! I plan to buy some. That's such a fantastic idea.
Excellent video 👍 Thank you 💜
Ngl I love your use of the medal of honour theme in this vid
A video about the modern Panzergrenadiere would be interesting
Lots of variety in the anti tank weapons in each brigade. Must have been a major headache for the quartermaster!
It is good to have a weapon suitable for each situation one might run into.
This was the first 10 years of the Bundeswehr. They just took what they could get. USA gave some outdated tanks for (almost?) free, like the mentioned M47 and M48 Pattons and some artillery pieces. The Bundeswehr tried to get to 12 Divisions with 3 brigades each, but they didnt have enough officers and equipement. That's the reason why they had 3 different types of infanrtry (IFVs, APCs and trucks): The plan was to give IFVs to all of them, but production took time, so for the time being, they used what they had.
The infantry has known all along we needed an armored troop carrier. It was just the brass that couldn't see it. They were busy liasoning with the "civilians". 😂 We had the technology all along. The Schutzenpanzer looks amazingly like a Soviet BMP.
4:31 Mad lad really tried to shoot down an F-4 with a flare gun
excellent video
From what I remember from my WW2 German ORBATs, it seems to have been normal practice for them to only have some platoons led by Junior Officers.
7 Mortars seems an odd number?
That was the "Notsoll" . Because of the Lack of Officers in the early Days until the early 90s there were 2 Officers in an Pz. Gren. Coy. . The Komanie Chef, an Hauptmann or Capitan and the Leader of the first Platon, an Leutnant or Oberleutnant. The other two Platoons were led by Feldwebel or Oberfeldwebel. During the 80s the two Nco Platoon Leaders were Hauptfeldwebel.
I really enjoyed this video and I personally think that you should make video like this but for world war 2 and post world war ussr garrisons
4:32 Have to love the anti-air pistol fire!
finally! ive been waiting ages for a video relating to the BW
Will you do a yugoslav army organization video?
Im pretty sure order of battle goes: brigade -> battalion grouping
Division -> regimental(brigade) grouping
Corps-> Divisional grouping
So for division to be operating with battalions and
Please also make one based on Indian army
I'd be interested in Indian (and Pakistani) armoured formations in the 60s-90s. Especially whether they followed the British TO&Es, or developed their own (having had some of the largest tank battles post WW2).
I could see a vehicle like the HS-30 modernized with composite armor, modern sensors, a trophy system, thermals, and tow missiles (or even a vehicle borne Javelin system) instead of the 106mm recoiless gun being insanely lethal on the modern battlefield. That low silhouette would make it easier to hide behind micro terrain and add a thermal signature reducing camo net mesh over top. That would be very interesting.
Is that correct with the 7x81mm in the first mortar platoon? It just seems odd; the one extra HS30 would likely be the mortar platoon FDC and/or HQ vehicle. I've never heard of 7 tube platoons; where would the 1 extra tube be allocated if 2x per rifle company was normal distribution?
A reserve due to the atrocious automotive performance of the HS30 is my guess.
@@josephahner3031 that's possible - but then you would think it would be up at Company or battalion level as a reserve.
That still wouldn't explain the extra 81mm mortar though. They were dismountable - so they could easily be transferred to another carrier.
The other thing is they don't seem to have extra carriers attached anywhere else. The numbers seem to pretty well match up. It's only in the mortars that we see an extra and like I say, an odd number of tubes.
As it was explained to me in the late Cold War, the German habit of mixing IFV and APC (and thebmotorized infantry as a placeholder for APCs, because they just didn't have enough) battalions in a brigade started as a logistical requirement, not having enough IFVs. But, the Bundeswehr later made a virtue out of necessity, and *tactically* operated them with the IFVs (with the more concentrated firepower and theoretical slight advantage in protection) being the "breacher" units, and the APC units (with the much higher rifle count) being there for exploitation and restricted terrain (like securing a town).
I've long thought that this conceptual model would be a logical one to follow with heavy divisions, as IFVs simply can't be feasibly large enough to carry full dismount squads without splitting the squad across multiple vehicles and adding even more vehicles.
So, teaming IFVs like Bradleys (with the squad being one vehicle and the discounts it can carry, and the "vehicle team" acting like the old British "gun team" while the discounts form a "rifle team") with APC (like Stryker) units where the APCs each carry a full sized dismount squad that duplicates the light infantry squad (likely leaving the APC crews as part of the Platoon HQ squad, replacing things like MG teams that would normally be there in a light infantry platoon HQ).
And, like the German organization, it would probably be best to organize these as "pure" IFV or APC elements at no lower than battalion level. One could also make a strong case that the tank brigades should likely have IFV, not APC infantry battalions, and mix the IFV and APC battalions in the mech infantry brigades.
Note this still leaves the option of creating "medium" brigades or divisions where all, or almost all, of the mech battalions are APC, optimized for roles where rifle strength and strategic transport weight outweighs the increased mounted punch of going heavy on IFVs.
Not really Doing mix up out of necessity like Germans did or Ukrainians doing now doesn't mean it's a good solution. If given choice most armies stay with "pure" armoured, mech and light brigades due to different jobs on the battlefield. Neither tank or mech units simply do not need that much of manpower.
Some Panzergrenadierbtl. were equipped complete with Marder IFV, others were mixed 3 companies Marder IFv, 1 company with M113 APC.(late cold war structure)
@norbi1411 that's not what experiance in Ukriane has found. Ifvs have been unable to provide sufficent infantry screens for both sides resulting in the only effective tank pushes being in relatively uncontested areas (like the ukrianian kharkiv/ov offensive).
@@norbi1411 Thing is, that as well Germans as Ukrainians simply made the expierience, that in reality of war mixing up is a good idea - if your leadership is able to carry it. German "Auftragstaktik", wich basicly mean an agile form of leadership by Order not by Command, with very low hierachies, goes back to Moltke and has a strong tradition. The German concept of ad-hoc "Kampfgruppen" (Battle Groups) was highly effective. It will fail in a very top-down army system, though, we see it failing in the Russian forces for example and the US leadership might not be able to carry it as well. And no, no tank replaces manpower.
@@hansulrichboning8551Ist dem so? Wir hatten 4 Kampfkompanien mit dem Marder und neben der Stabs- und Versorgungskompanie noch eine PzMrsKp mit 120mm Mörsern.
Lujan - my proposal for the US Truck name.
you should do the spanish army next.
I'd adore to see some Italian unit breakdowns
If u make vids on tactics of such formations, it’d be great 😍
Would love to see more of this
I just realized that the background music being used here is from Medal of Honour heroes 2 for the PSP...this brings back memories😂
Impressed how you managed to say mannschaft without giggling.
Thank You
As an Marsian soldier I need to ask you to make more videos about the MIF
5:07 aaaah, der Spiegel, immer da haha
I'd really love a video about the modern structures with the puma ifv.
Bro i like the medal of honor soundtrack, it makes the show so much better
Great work
8:28 War Thunder players click that timestamp for the SPz 12-3 with recoilless rifle.
Cool video man
Well done 👍👍👍
Hey @BattleOrder can you make one of thers type of videos for the danish army becaus it will be fun to see how my home cruntry's army is uesed for attak and how its weapon loadout is and how infantry and tanks worke togetter?. and noice video
The Danes considered this type of information sensitive so I cannot make a video on it
Taking notes for when playing WARNO again.
What a formidable army this used to be. Hopefully it can go back there one day
Highly unlikely. The whole country is barely a country anymore. It is basically just a country sized business park and the people living in it don't really have a patriotic, loving attitude towards it, but rather see it as if it were a giant corporation and they were one of its employees.
If some foreign power would invade Germany today, 90+% of Germans would not even get the idea of resisting but would just ask: "What does that have to do with me?"
To them it would just be like the company they work for being bought up by another company.
People in other parts of Europe and the world as a whole have those conspiracy theories about the Germans plotting to control Europe and take it over with money and politics instead of with weapons, but to anyone who actually knows modern Germany and the people living there, that idea is absolutely ridiculous and laughable.
Germans are actually psychotic, damaged and broken enough to really believe and mean all that "EU" BS they are saying. They don't want to be Germans anymore, so being "Europeans" seems like a alternative to them and they genuinely don't get that other people in other countries think differently and actually love their homelands and cherish their sovereignty.
The political, cultural and media elites running Germany are all genuine Globalists and feel nothing but contempt for anything German. They behave like a foreign occupying force within their own country, fighting a Cold Civil War against their own people anyways, so to most Germans there wouldn't really be a difference between being ruled by actual foreign occupiers when their own rulers and elites already behave indistinguishable from foreign occupiers.
One example for what I am talking about was that infamous New Years Eve debacle in 2015, when hordes of freshly arrived foreign invaders molested and raped hundreds of German women during New Years Eve parties all over the country.
Do you know what the reaction of the government to that was?
Did they harshly punish those criminals and deport them, as a healthy, sane, proper government would have?
Nope.
What they did instead was to increase the number of secret state police that monitors "Right Wing Activities" and outlaw Mace and Pepper Spray.
I'm not kidding. Hundreds of women get molested and raped and the first thing the German government did was to outlaw Pepper Spray.
This is so weird, outrageous and Orwellian dystopian that I can hardly believe it myself.
I am a German wannabe patriot. I would like to be proud of my country and its military as much as the next guy, but that isn't an option for me. All I can tell you about a strong German army is:
What for?
What for would we need a army when we don't have a country?
All that army would do would be to work for Globalist elites and against the German people, the same way the government and the police do.
Your situation described started after reunification, when the British believed Continental Europe would be reconquered by the Germans soon again. But then the EU started and now you can see the development .
@@TrangleC
Need a tissue? You sound like one of those incel neonazi basement dwellers here in germany who never leave their house and are sad that swastikas arent seen on the streets anymore with a strong austrian daddy telling you how to live
@@apis_aculei
Germany controls the EU and funds the EU. No germany=no EU. Head of EU parliament: also german. Head of EU commission. Also german. The German Bahn owns around a thousand companies across the EU. Germany owns important infrastructure in Spain, Italy and greece too
@@TrangleC get your crap Out of here
4:01 The use of comic strip in the manual is interesting. What’s the name of this manual?
FM 7-7 "The Mechanized Infantry Platoon/Squad" (30 September 1977)
The HS 30 sounds like they just converted an early-model Panther tank into an APC and called it auf wiedersehn 😆
Can you go over the German 1960s tank, arty and AA Brigade and Battalions too?
It's an very interesting part if the Bundeswehr - and military - history, the 1960's were actually a time of doctrin struggle in the German military with two groups, the so called "Russians", mostly Veterans of the war in the east and the so called "Africans", mostly veterans of the Afrika Corps and the Western front, wich had very different ideas. While the Russians wanted to build up heavy defensive forces, the Africans prefered movement and asymmetry. For example, Africans wanted to go for mostly wheeled vehicles - basicly the idea that formed the US Stryker doctrins later.
Both doctrins kind of made it's way into the Bundeswehr and lead to some untypical stuff compared to other NATO Forces.
Schutzenpanzer looks kinda wierd tho, hard to believe they fit a autocannon in such a small turret.
Also why did u reffer to it as the HS.30? I think Schutzenpanzer would sound better, or "protection tank"
First, Schützenpanzer is just the
german designation for IFV, HS.30 is the name of the Vehikel.
Second, no if you translate Schützenpanzer into english its not protection tank ( that would be the translation of Schutzpanzer) but something like rifleman tanke ( Schütze= rifleman/ gunner ).
5:10 i would rather say engine wise, the cooling issues was due to horrible design, now allowing a proper cooling system which you can only blame the germans themselves for. every other fault is due to not putting enough work on it
“Tank destroter” in the PzGr Brigade section 😉
Jaaaaaaaaaa! Finaly a video about the Bundeswehr.
finaly a video about the Bundeswehr
The difference between having fuel or no although the amount they were using was minor compared to the Wehrmacht
Halb Mensch halb Tier: Panzergrenadier!
As I always say, when you're getting into German units, their structure, and equipment, you come for Nazi Germany and stay for post-'55 West Germany. Seriously, I don't know what it is about Germany that they just produce cool military stuff that you just gotta love. Also, those early Bundeswehr helmets look like if a US M1 Helmet and a German M35 Helmet had a baby and the M35's genes were the stronger ones.
this german early IFV is very nice to look at, a small target, and gunner protected by a smal turret with a powerful gun. compare that to the M113 with the gunner unprotected standing tall in the hatch as if to be executed, which is what would have happened if the cold war went hot
>compares an IFV to an APC
>shocked that an IFV offers more protection
>ignores the purpose of a basic APC
Doesn't get any better than that!
@@bluntcabbage6042 if the cold war went hot, APCs would find themselves on the front lines. Soviet BMP crews wouldn't have cared that the M113 was a "battle taxi". who would you want to be on the side of - a BMP company , squared off against an M113 company? What if you're a infantry company commander and you're told that you MUST take that ridgeline from the soviet enemy? and the tanks are 3 miles away and you can't wait for them to arrive?
@@decimated550 Except there's fundamental differences to how vehicles are deployed which change the situations in which they find themselves in. American attacks would not need M113s rushing along like IFVs, it's fundamentally contrary to what the M113 was and how it was employed. If they were thrown into the meatgrinder, they would die. So would BMPs and HS.30s. Neither of the IFVs were any better _protected,_ they just offered better firepower.
By your rationale, there is no reason not to make every single AFV obese with armor and firepower. Because what if the tanks are miles away??? And you need to take a ridgeline??? The answer to both questions is that you offset the shortcoming with other assets or risk the attack failing, or don't attack at all. The (ultimately marginal) increase in firepower of an IFV isn't going to really fix that problem, you still can't substitute IFVs with tanks in a proper assault.
American units also had a larger variety of assets to offset any lack in firepower that the M113 may have. It was the same army that reduced combined arms artillery and air support to a science with perfect optimization in the last large war.
While the IFV concept was obviously fruitful in hindsight, comparing M113 to IFVs and acting shocked that IFVs might be better for upfront combat is just a weird thing to make a stink about. All mechanized formations beforehand were using variations of proto-battletaxis and accompanying full-size armored elements, so it was natural that the US would refine that concept instead of attempting a largely foreign and strange idea of making a hybrid tank/infantry carrier.
If the war had gone hot, all three vehicles would be death traps. All of them are vulnerable to anything more than a .30 caliber machine gun. All of them would result in the fiery death of their inhabitants. Having a notoriously bad 73mm HEAT grenade launcher, or a small caliber autocannon, won't stop that reality from playing out.
@@bluntcabbage6042 thanks for reply. i've read the papers of Gen Wm Dupuy, and he was convinced that america needed an IFV to keep up with the M1 tank and provide firepower to fully realize panzergrenaider operations. He wrote that "the m113 is not even in the same class as the BMP - it will be driven off the battlefield". his words, not mine. Having a 30mm autocannon and a low profile and that can swim rivers withouit preparation and be able to shoot antitank missiles from under armor means that...the BMP would be useful in a combind arms army like the Warsaw pact, and , and ... it wouldn't always need to be "babysitted" by tanks . it could put a lot of projectiles flying towards NATO infantry and APCs to be it's own fire support. that's just my thoughts. I"m playing a game called Combat Mission , great series, of armor combat from ww2 to modern day, and the title i play most (can you guess) is Cold War, with the period 1979 to 1983. the soviet stuff is pretty good. it blows up too and the men die flaming deaths, but they have good mobility and firepower - and they are numerous.
@@decimated550 Worth noting that M113's heyday was long before BMP-2 came about and introduced the auto cannon to the BMP family. While M113 was dominant in US circles, the Soviets were mostly using BMP-1, whose weaponry was not as impressive as 2's. Still, I appreciate this discussion as it made me think deeper into this than I initially expected. You have good points! Cheers 👍
Es ist kein Mensch, Es ist kein Tier, es ist ein Panzergrenadier
I hoped you would make this video - I had been lookin for this info for some time, now.
But do you know how the squads fought, though? Did they split into fire teams?
No sources to back it up, but I think the HS30 dismounts fought as undivided sections, each with an MG3. Then the platoon dismount Commander manoeuvred the 3 or 4 sections available. Bear in mind that in a lot of cases they anticipated firing from the vehicle itself, to assist in maintaining the speed of advance.
@@ThatAdamIsMildthank you for your kind answer!
What's the music? It has a strong 1950's/1960's Germany vibe
bro at 2:20 is having the time of his life for the camera
mtv-5Ton is Gertrude or Gerdy.
Amazing please more Bundeswehr stuff
Would really love to see the dutch army structure from the 1980's
i rem ember when yo u made an article on this
early cold war mechanised doctrines w ere kinda funky
I'm in a cav squadron, finna cop the soypoint mug
A US cav squadron? What do you think about the new Abrams platoons that you got?
you should do a Weapon Loadout Video about the West German Panzerjäger / Tank Destroyer Battalion .
They had the Jaguar / The Raketenjagdpanzer 1
It was an anti-tank guided missile-armed tank destroyer. The Missile was the HOT
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HOT_(missile)