The German Infantry Platoon

The next building block in a military unit is the platoon, or Zug in German. It’s usually composed from four squads, numbering about 40 soldiers. The 1940 Heer infantry platoon was slightly larger at 48 enlisted men and NCOs, led by one officer (a Leutnant or Oberleutnant). There were four squads of ten men each (see the previous post), a three-man 5 cm mortar team, and the platoon headquarters with two messengers (Melder), one stretcher bearer (Krankenträger), one musician (Spielmann – a rifleman who was also a member of the regimental or divisional band), and the platoon commander (Zugführer) and his deputy (a senior NCO).

The rifle platoon as outlined in Reibert’s 1940 manual “Der Dienstunterricht im Heere”.

With four machine guns, the platoon had pretty formidable firepower. The standard US platoon usually had just one MG, drawn from the company’s heavy weapons platoon, and the British platoon had three Bren light machine guns (fed with box magazines, limiting the volume of fire available). The light mortar, on the other hand, was largely useless, and it was eliminated in the leaner 1944 organization platoon. The platoon had one horse-drawn wagon for the heavier weapons and the baggage.

The 1944 platoon fielded just 33 men (29 enlisted men, three NCOs, and the platoon commander), organized into three squads and the platoon HQ. The squads had nine men each (1 NCO, 8 EM), and the HQ with the commander, two messengers, a stretcher bearer, and two riflemen whose function my sources fail to mention. There were more automatic weapons, and the MG42 with its higher rate of fire was more or less standard, but it was still a downgrade, as it wasn’t uncommon for the platoons to lack up to a third of their manpower.

When the platoon was at full strength, it was a versatile fighting force. With the four-squad setup, it could be divided into two equally sized troops, the other half led by the deputy platoon commander. The officers were taught the importance of taking the initiative and press the attack. It was a greater sin to wait for orders and perhaps lose a tactical advantage, than to make a quick decision and act on it despite it not being optimal in order to gain success. This aggressiveness came at a price, though, as the attrition rate for NCOs and junior officers was high. Still, it was contrary to the more rigid structures of the US, British and Soviet armies, and not corresponding with the prejudiced idea that the Germans were unimaginative and lacking initiative. For first-line troops, especially after they had gained some combat experience, nothing could be more wrong.

The German infantry company will be covered in a future post.

The German Infantry Squad

The infantry squad is the smallest tactical unit. Its size has changed over the course of history, mostly due to the increase in firepower. In the German Heer (Army), the rifle squad numbered 13 soldiers in 1939, but experiences from the battles in Poland led to a reorganization in 1940, where the squad was reduced to a more manageable ten men. This setup was basically the same until late 1943, when the new divisions formed fielded squads of nine soldiers. When I did my military service in a motorized rifle company in the Swedish Army in the 1980s, a squad consisted of eight men.

The illustration above is from Der Dienstunterricht im Heere, an infantry training manual published in 1940, showing the organization of the 10-man squad. The column to the left shows the squad when in a rank, with (from top to bottom): the squad leader, the machine gunner (1), the assistant machine gunners (2, 3), five riflemen, and the assistant squad leader. The squad leader, usually an NCO with the rank of Unteroffizier, was armed with a submachine gun, while the machine gunner and the loader carried pistols for personal protection, and the third soldier (the ammunition carrier) in the machine gun team was armed with a rifle. The rest of the squad was armed with rifles, too.

It’s easy to think of the machine gun as a support weapon, as this is the way most armies used it, but in the German army of WW2, it was the rest of the squad that supported the machine gun team. It might seem like a technicality, but instead of having the MG laying down covering fire from the back while the riflemen advanced, the German infantry tactic was to use the MG team in a more aggressive way, the rest of the squad supporting it. While marksmanship was important, it wasn’t stressed to the extent of for example the British army.

Another illustration from the Dienstunterricht, showing the deployment of the MG team in a firefight. The squad leader (left) orders the MG team to fire at the enemy (“Feind“), while the ammunition carrier and another soldier are ready to provide additional fire, and to pass more ammo to the MG team. In addition to the MG, SMG and rifles, the squad also carried hand grenades, usually a couple per soldier.

There was another aspect to the squad, too, and that was that it was one’s “family”. You trained, marched, ate, slept and fought together, forming strong bonds of comradeship that was a greater motivator to fight hard (apart from mere survival), than any political convictions. German soldiers didn’t fight for Hitler; they fought for their comrades. While there was indoctrination and a conviction in the righteousness of the aim of the Nazi state, it was more important to not let your comrades down. Compared to the US Army infantry squad, the German squad was more close-knit. A soldier who had been wounded was usually sent back to his squad, while a US soldier more often than not ended up in a reinforcement pool and then assigned to another unit. This affected squad cohesion, and was one of the things the US army changed after the war.

The German soldier wasn’t some super-soldier, nor was he some brainless automaton. He had been trained to be aggressive in battle and to take initiative. He was at a disadvantage, though, as the Heer was far less motorized than the Allied armies, and that artillery support wasn’t available to the same extent. Still, even late in the war, the German infantry squad wasn’t to be underestimated.

Next: the German infantry platoon.