Panzer Divisionen
Armored Divisions of the Third Reich
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A panzer division is an armored division in the German Army (German: Panzerdivision).
Panzer divisions are combined-arms formations having both armor (panzers) and infantry as organic components, along with the usual
assets of artillery, antiaircraft, signals, etc. that are common to most military divisions of the industrial era. However, the
proportions of the components of a panzer division have changed over time.
Although initially the formation of units larger than a panzer regiment proposed by Heinz Guderian were rejected by the inspector
of motorised troops Otto von Stuelpnagel, on his replacement by Oswald Lutz, Guderians mentor, the attitude gained more support in
the Army, and after 1933 was also supported by Hitler. On the 15 October 1935 the first three panzer divisions were formed in Weimar,
Würzburg and Berlin.
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List of Heer Panzer Divisions
Panzer Divisions
The German panzer divisions were the main building blocks of the German successes in the Blitzkrieg operations in the early years of
the war. They were organized in a way that they could operate relatively independent from other units. As opposed to most other
armies in the era, that had usually organized their tanks in "tank brigades" which always needed infantry and artillery support,
the panzer divisions had their support units organic in themselves, which led to an automatic change in military doctrine: rather
than seeing tanks as a unit to support operations by other units, the tanks became the main focus of attention, with other units
supporting them.
The number of tanks was comparatively small, but all other units in the panzer division had motorization (trucks, half-tracks,
specialized combat vehicles) to match the speed of the tanks. These divisions usually consisted of one tank regiment, two motorized
infantry regiments (including one mechanized battalion), an artillery regiment with self-propelled howitzers, and several support
battalions (reconnaissance, anti-tank, anti-aircraft, engineers, etc).
Both the Wehrmacht Heer and the Waffen-SS included panzer divisions in their structure.
The Wehrmacht Heer panzer division consisted of a single panzer regiment, two panzer grenadier regiments, one motorised artillery
regiment (later panzer artillery regiment); one anti-tank destroyer battalion organised into three anti-tank companies with eight 37mm
and three 50mm guns each, and a battery of anti-aircraft guns was also included that used both single and quadruple mount 20mm
auto-cannons. There were also five other combat and combat support battalions: motorcycle-infantry battalion, reconnaissance battalion,
pioneer battalion, signals battalion, and field replacement battalion. In all the division included 16,000 personnel and was equipped
with from 135 to 209 tanks, 25 armoured cars, and 192 guns, including 53 anti-tank weapons.
One myth that emerged in post-war years was that SS Divisions received more tanks than their Wehrmacht counterparts. Recent research
has shown this to be untrue, with both types of unit receiving the same amounts of equipment. Since both the Wehrmacht and SS used
their own ordinal system, there were duplicate numbers (i.e. there was both a 9th Panzer Division and a 9th SS Panzer Division),
which occasionally led to confusion amongst their opponents.
As the war progressed, the battle losses were decreasingly replaced in favour of forming new divisions. This led to the situation
where most panzer divisions were a shadow of themselves by the second half of the war.