German platoon and company strengths Normandy.

[RMD]

My boss always asks me when he phones me things like : Äre you legless", or "Did I catch you on the hop". Capitalist exploiter of the disabled working classes.

You should kick his arse (could you video it when you do...?)!

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

Thanks, Mark. Obviously not my period, but I would have thought an internal explosion that lifted off the turret would also have done more obvious damage to other bits of the tank. Maybe there wasn't much ammon already on board the Tiger?

[RMD]

Thanks, Mark. Obviously not my period, but I would have thought an internal explosion that lifted off the turret would also have done more obvious damage to other bits of the tank. Maybe there wasn't much ammon already on board the Tiger?

I imagine that the Tiger II's armour was too thick to burst open. The damage to the house immediately behind it was presumably caused when the turret blew off (the house fell over soon afterwards and is completely collapsed in later photos). The Vimoutiers Tiger (i.e. the Tiger I that's now parked by the side of a road outside the town of Vimoutiers) also suffered an internal explosion, having been scuttled by its crew and there is only slight upward bulging of the deck and splitting of the welds. The belly-plates meanwhile, were completely blown open.

On the subject of 9th and 10th SS - I forgot to mention that they were 25% undermanned when they arrived in Normandy at the end of June. However, this does not necessarily mean that the 'rifle-strength' was reduced, but would mean that they would have absolutely no slack to replace losses and probably explains why they so rapidly had to consolidate and amalgamate their panzer-grenadier battalions.

9th SS was thoroughly worked over in its very first battle in Normandy - the unsuccessful counter-attack against Operation EPSOM at Rauray, which came to a head on 1st July. 53rd (Welsh) Division then gave them another good rogering during Operation GREENLINE (Evrecy) two weeks later and it was immediately following this battle that 9th SS consolidated their two panzer-grenadier regiments into one regiment (the SS fanboiz like to paint GREENLINE as a disaster for 53 W Div).

In the case of 10th SS, while they defeated 43 (Wessex) Division and Operation JUPITER at Hill 112 on 10th July, they came out of that battle having lost two battalions that they couldn't replace.

[FreddBloggs]

One of the attractions for 9th and 10th was a comment from one of its officers that no matter where they went, they ran into a black bull in normandy.

[RMD]

One of the attractions for 9th and 10th was a comment from one of its officers that no matter where they went, they ran into a black bull in normandy.

True enough - they bumped into them on Hill 112 during EPSOM and then again near Vire during BLUECOAT.

Something else on the small-unit orgs: Their panzer-grenadier companies also had a couple of man-packed flamethrowers at company level. This was fairly common for panzer-grenadier units.