Operation Lüttich - German Units

Sully

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Hi All,

I've been researching the battle near Mortain, France during Operation Lüttich (7 Aug 44) for a CG I'm designing. There are a number of good resources from the US perspective (Reardon, Featherston), but I'm looking for some help finding better resources for the German units, namely the 2. SS Panzer and 17. SS Panzergrenadier divisions. I've found a few books that look interesting, but I don't want to spend hundreds of dollars just to find out they just duplicate the US books. You know how that goes - a lot of these are just picture books

I'd also be interested in ideas in how to represent these units in ASL.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks, Sully
 

Sully

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I have. It has good information on the US forces, but unfortunately little on the German units. -Sully
 

xenovin

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Randy - how did you load a PDF?
 

RandyT0001

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Attach files (on bottom left of edit area), select your .pdf

JR
And I was going to extort massive amounts of money from him!!
No, wait. I was going to charge a nominal educator's fee. Yeah, that's it.
;)
 

Paul M. Weir

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I made this based on assessments by Paul Weir on this forum.
Nice job! I like that you gave the ethnic/regional composition. That can provide additional hints as to quality. If a player does not have the SS 548 or 447 that came with various HASL (ABtF, FB), then don't forget to increase their broken morale by 1 and give them Assault Fire in 44+.

For the late Normandy time period, I would suggest Das Reich being mainly 658 with Götz von Berlichingen mainly 548. Both had been fairly battered by then, but DR, being a much more experienced unit, weathered it better. DR had the usual range of vehicles for a Pz Div, but GvB only had StuGs, possibly StuG IV which are identical to StuG III Gs in ASL terms.
 

Eagle4ty

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Nice job! I like that you gave the ethnic/regional composition. That can provide additional hints as to quality. If a player does not have the SS 548 or 447 that came with various HASL (ABtF, FB), then don't forget to increase their broken morale by 1 and give them Assault Fire in 44+.

For the late Normandy time period, I would suggest Das Reich being mainly 658 with Götz von Berlichingen mainly 548. Both had been fairly battered by then, but DR, being a much more experienced unit, weathered it better. DR had the usual range of vehicles for a Pz Div, but GvB only had StuGs, possibly StuG IV which are identical to StuG III Gs in ASL terms.
I take it you are talking about a different vehicle than the JgdPz IV (German MAVN #52)? Was the StuG IV modeled a bit different (i.e. less sloped armor, etc)?
 

Paul M. Weir

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I take it you are talking about a different vehicle than the JgdPz IV (German MAVN #52)? Was the StuG IV modeled a bit different (i.e. less sloped armor, etc)?
The first JgPz IV were, at least in prototype form, earlier than the StuG IV. What happened was that in late '43 (Nov?) the Alkett factory in Berlin, the main producer of StuG III got badly bombed. There had already been some talk by Hitler to replace Pz IV production with Pz IV/70 (V) (the JgPz IV with StuK 42 L/70) as he had heard good reports about the StuG III's antitank work. To bypass the loss of StuG III production it was decided to put the existing StuG III superstructure on the Pz IV chassis. The Pz IV chassis was about a foot longer so what they did was make the horizontal glacis a bit longer but with a cuboid forward extension to the driver's position. This moved the gun mount back from the front compared to the StuG III and resulted in a shorter overall length due to less gun overhang.

The gun, armour and armour layout differed very, very little. The power to weight went up by about 5%, but other than that they were identical in combat power.

The JgPz IV and StuG IV only had the basic automotive chassis in common. The front hull was almost vertical on the Pz/StuG IV and ">" shaped on the JgPz IV and Pz IV/70 (V). Interestingly in '45 to increase JgPz IV production a similar job was done with the JgPz/Pz IV/70. Alkett produced a modified JgPz IV superstructure that sat on a Pz IV J chassis. Basically, below the waist it was an unchanged Pz IV and from the waist up it was a JgPz IV. That version was known as the Pz IV/70 (A). The Pz IV/70 (A) was about a foot taller, heavier and had weaker lower front armour than the Pz IV/70 (V). (V for Vomag and A for Alkett)
 
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