Counting Tank Hunters

Winter 1945

The headquarters, escort platoon, and combatant companies of a tank hunter battalion of an infantry division

Recently, while looking for material on Volksgrenadier divisions, I ran into a set of worksheets for a census of the tank hunter battalions [Panzer-Jäger Abteilungen] of the various infantry divisions of the German Army of the last winter of the war. (The cover for the worksheets bears a date of 19 December 1944. Some of the entries, however, seem to have been made as late as February of 1945.)

Few of the entries on the worksheet provide full figures for either the personnel or the matériel of the unit. Nonetheless, the document supplies a snapshot of state of such units in the aftermath of the great disasters of 1944. Better yet, it gives an idea of the sort of divisional anti-tank battalions the German Army would have fielded if the necessary resources had been available.

At the time of the census, the combatant component of a complete tank hunter battalion consisted of a company (numbered as the first) armed with towed anti-tank guns, a (second) company of armored fighting vehicles, a (third) company of small caliber anti-aircraft guns, and a ‘grenadier escort platoon’ [Grenadier Begleit Zug].

The first of the fighting companies of each tank hunter battalion rated a dozen 75^mm anti-tank guns. The entries on the worksheets, however, indicate that many, if not most, of these outfits of made do with a smaller number of the weapons that defined them. Only two battalions, moreover, possessed more towed anti-tank battalions than the establishments called for. (While the tank hunter battalion of the 68th Infantry Division reported the presence of fifteen 75^mm guns, that of the 48th Volksgrenadier Division admitted to the ownership of twenty-one anti-tank guns of unspecified types.)

Few of the entries on the worksheets indicate the caliber, let alone the model, of towed anti-tank guns serving with a particular battalion. This may reflect the presumption that the weapons on hand qualified as up-to-date equipment of a standard type. I suspect, however, that some of the units employed towed ordnance of two or three distinct varieties.

The 75^mm, 50^mm, and 37^mm anti-tank guns (Company Officer’s Handbook)

The matériel of the third companies of displayed an even greater degree of diversity. Thus, each made use of light anti-aircraft guns of a bewildering variety of models and mountings. While many of these rode into battle on the backs of fully tracked vehicles and a few were bolted onto the cargo beds of cargo trucks, most moved from place to place with the help of prime movers of some sort.

A 37mm anti-aircraft gun mounted on the back of a modified Mercedes cargo truck (Wikipedia)

The armament of the second companies of each tank hunter battalion enjoyed a much greater degree of internal uniformity than their odd-numbered counterparts. That is, most such units seem to have been equipped with either the Jagdpanzer 38 (on the chassis of the ‘38t’ tank), the Sturmgeschütz III (based on the Mark III tank), a Sturmgeschütz IV (Mark IV tank), or the Italian-built Semovente 75/34. (Use of the last-named vehicle seems to have been limited to units serving in Italy or the Balkans.)

Symbols for the Jagdpanzer 38, the Sturmgeschütz III, the Sturmgeschütz IV, and the Semovente 75/34

With very few exceptions, the symbols that indicate the presence of an escort [Begliet] platoon appear to have been added, by a pencil wielded by an untrained hand, after the worksheets emerged from the lithographer’s press. This suggests that few such units were serving with tank hunter battalions before 19 December 1944.

Source: Generalinspekteur der Panzertruppen, Org./Kartei Nr. 4600/44 g. Kdos, 19 Dez. 1944, German Docs in Russia

For Further Reading:

The Unsung Assault Gun

Assault Guns as Tank Hunters

Assault Gun Escort Company

A Grenadier Escort Platoon