Alternate German Infantry

what if instead of creating the garbadge luftwaffe field divisions and the volksgrenadier corps the surplus personel released from the luftwaffe and reserved occupations where fed into the regular line infantry as replacements

the luftwaffe field divisions didnt have as many heavy weapons as the regular heer divisions... as well they had a severe lack of experianced officers and nco's

the volksgrenadiers absorbed a lot of equipment and men that could have brought the regular divisions up to full strength

i read somewhere that these groups absorbed enough manpower to bring over 75 german infantry divisions up to full strength

your thoughts?
 
The war goes on 3 months longer, enough to make the US drop a nuke somewhere in Germany, maybe not Berlin as it has been conventionally bombed. Or the war will end at the same time, because the Nazis will probably find another way to screw up.

Next!
 
The war goes on 3 months longer, enough to make the US drop a nuke somewhere in Germany, maybe not Berlin as it has been conventionally bombed. Or the war will end at the same time, because the Nazis will probably find another way to screw up.

Next!

I doubt that few more months would see German city nuked. Allies were winning, it was just a matter of time before Germany would fold so nuking a city would be more or less pointless. and US didn't exactly have nukes to throw around at will and Japan would still have to be dealt with
 

Redbeard

Banned
what if instead of creating the garbadge luftwaffe field divisions and the volksgrenadier corps the surplus personel released from the luftwaffe and reserved occupations where fed into the regular line infantry as replacements

the luftwaffe field divisions didnt have as many heavy weapons as the regular heer divisions... as well they had a severe lack of experianced officers and nco's

the volksgrenadiers absorbed a lot of equipment and men that could have brought the regular divisions up to full strength

i read somewhere that these groups absorbed enough manpower to bring over 75 german infantry divisions up to full strength

your thoughts?

The German army did not have a system like the US Army where units were kept up to strength by a continious flow of "refills". Rather units were kept in the frontline until attrition had made the unit incapable of comnbat, and thenm the entire unit (or what was left of it) was withdrawn and completely rebuilt.

So if the available replacements were used in rebuilding field Divisions almost from scratch or new Volksgrenadier Divisions probably makes little if any difference.

AFAIK the Luftwaffe Field Divisions were not that bad, at least some fought quite well. The biggest problem was them having a glare of being Göring's private army. That is never good for unity of command.

Regards

Steffen Redbeard
 
The German army did not have a system like the US Army where units were kept up to strength by a continious flow of "refills". Rather units were kept in the frontline until attrition had made the unit incapable of comnbat, and thenm the entire unit (or what was left of it) was withdrawn and completely rebuilt.

So if the available replacements were used in rebuilding field Divisions almost from scratch or new Volksgrenadier Divisions probably makes little if any difference.

AFAIK the Luftwaffe Field Divisions were not that bad, at least some fought quite well. The biggest problem was them having a glare of being Göring's private army. That is never good for unity of command.

Anyway, the US system of sending replacements piecemeal to units at the front wasn't that great. Other armies knew to only bring in replacements mostly (but not exclusively) when units were being put back together again in the rear.

I've read of at least one observer who was in NE Europe in '44/'45 and later in Vietnam in the sixties, and he was convinced that the American infantry in both conflicts was mismanaged, with eerily similar replacement policies in both wars.
 
I would have to agree I have read many accounts of the American army just sending replacements foward without letting them integrate into the unit beforehand. This in turn lead to very high casualites among the replacements... plus the US didnt have enough line infantry so they routinely transferred men from other occupations ie rear echelon duty and or support units (aa, at or whatever) to be frontline infantry which again due to a lack of training and unit cohesion lead to very high casualites and poor performance.

I dont think there is reason to think that between the recapture of Kharkov and the battle of Kursk in 1943 that the German army couldnt have integrated these men into experianced line infantry divisions and had some improvement in their performance. Particularly the VG divisions absorbed the newest and heaviest weapons and deprived the field divisions of them. IMO the German line divisions could have been a lot more difficult to overrun in 1943,44,45 if they had been consistently returned to strength and equipped with the best Germany could build.

if this had been the general strategy I could see the allies having to nuke their way across the rhine and vistula
 
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