The Tank Destroyer Company
The 14th (tank destroyer) company of a Grenadier regiment of a Volksgrenadier division of the 32nd Wave consisted of a tiny headquarters, a support echelon, and three fifty-man tank destroyer platoons, each of which wielded eighteen Panzerschreck anti-tank rocket launchers.
The internal organization of a tank destroyer platoon echoed that of its parent company. That is, it comprised a ‘platoon team’ [Zugtrupp] and three fourteen-man squads, each of which carried six of the aforementioned weapons.
Each of the nine squads consisted of a leader, a teamster, and six two-man anti-tank teams. The teamster led a one-horse cart that carried both the six rocket launchers of the squad and a supply of rockets.
The ‘platoon team’ consisted of a platoon commander, a sergeant who served as ‘leader of the platoon team’, a messenger, a medic, two machine gunners, and two teamsters. One teamster led the one-horse cart that carried, among other things, a single light machine gun. The other drove an ammunition wagon drawn by two heavy horses [schwere Pferde].
Two of the three members of the company headquarters - the commanding officer and a driver - rode in the single motor vehicle rated by the tank destroyer company. The messenger, alas, seems to relied upon Shank’s proverbial mare.
The support echelon [Tross] of the tank destroyer company rated four horse-drawn vehicles. The heaviest of these, drawn by two heavy horses and two equines of ordinary size, carried enough rocket launchers to equip a standard tank destroyer platoon. (These extra weapons may have served as a means of repurposing a platoon of another sort. Alternatively, the supply of spare bazookas may have reflected a lack of confidence in the reliability of the new weapon.)
Of the fifteen members of the support echelon, one led the horses that pulled the field kitchen, four drove wagons, four rode bicycles, and six walked. All of the cyclists - the first sergeant, the medical sergeant, the equipment sergeant, and the senior armorer - ranked as non-commissioned officers. Two of the walkers - the chief cook and the accountant - also bore the title of Unteroffizier. Of the rest, two - the assistants to the chief cook and the senior armorer - were ordinary soldiers of the German Army - while two - the tailor and the shoemaker - belonged to the category of HiWi. (Short for Hilfsfreiwillige [‘volunteer helper’], a HiWi was a resident of a place liberated by the German armed forces who had volunteered for auxiliary service.)
Sources:
The figures used in this post come from General der Infanterie beim Chef Generalstabs des Heeres, Nr. 3160/ 44g vom 5.9.44, microfilmed at the U.S. National Archives, Captured German Records , Series T-78, Reel 763. (The link will take you to a PDF of this document on file at the Military Learning Library.)
Organizations Abteilung/Generalstab des Heeres Nr. I./44 g. K dated 1 September 1944, Bundesarchiv, RH 2 1295 provides figures that differ slightly from those found in the previous source. (The link will take you to a page on the website of the Bundesarchiv.)
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