Historical Company Level Cross Attachment?

[Akmatov]

I find that fighting SP with a core force larger than a company become tedious micro-management as I spend a lot of time moving every squad and heavy weapon individually. However, at company level this is fine and fun.

Historically, I know the Germans, in particular, frequently organized groups of units of different branches. I think the term for such units of battalion size was Kampfgruppe. I have memory of reading that there were other Kampf- - - names for such composite groups from brigade to company, but I forgotten the details and would appreciate it if anyone can enlighten me.

One of my favorite SP sets of scenarios was an old SPII set recreating the engagements of the book Team Yankee, scenarios which as far as I know have, sadly, never been updated to SPMBT. The armour heavy company team plus a few attachments was just a very nicely sized and varied unit for long term play - enough different arms present to explore, but not so large as to become a second career.

I'm currently fiddling around creating a 1939 Wehrmacht version of the Team Yankee armour-heavy company team type force and was wondering if there was a historical precedent for such a force at the time. Later in the war, of course, the Germans had all sorts of adhoc composite units, but I'm wondering more about intentional TO&E type company-size mixed units.

I suspect if any group might know about such things, this is the one.

[Akmatov]

Did some rummaging around in my 'library' and found what I was thinking of. In the case of a Motorized Rifle Division in a 'typical march' formation in circumstance where hostile contact was possible, the late Soviet Army doctrine called for an "Advance Guard" to head the march. This would be composed of:
1) Combat Reconnaissance Patrol
* Motorized Rifle Platoon + chemical/radiological & engineer assets
2) Advance Party
* Motorized Rifle Company + Tank Plt + AT Det + Arty Btry + Eng Det +
chemical/radiological Det
3) Advance Guard Main Force
* the rest of the battalion
4) Rear Party
* a Motorized Rifle Platoon

It was the Advanced Party that I was remembering as being a company-sized combined arms team of a non-US army.

Having read that much of the later soviet military doctrine was based on a close study and sometimes imitation of WW2 German doctrine, I went looking to see if the Germans had done something similar. They had. In Wolfgang Schneider's Panzer Tactics, page 93, I found support for my suspicion. Although not as clearly expressed as I would have like (odd coming from a German officer-however I am working from a translation and sometimes translators get their pronouns confused), it was stated that the Germans on the march employed a Advance Guard (Vorhut) and a Leading Company (SpitzenKompanie) serving as advance guard support. The SpitzenKompanie would always be supported by attached engineer troops and self-propelled artillery with PanzerGrenadiere and recon troops frequently also assigned.

So there you have it, a historical example of an intentional German combined arms company-sized unit. Now I plan to take liberties and setup a combined arms company reinforced that is armour heavy, but at least I'm not being totally anachronistic.

I must admit that having just received the book I have not read it completely, but a skimming does not seem to refer to a combining of armour and infantry below the homogeneous company in the tactics discussed, which I find a bit surprising. Need to read more.

[Mobhack]

From what I recollect reading of German team tactics post-war back in my 1/300 days, so it must have been some article in the 80s (maybe the 70s), the Germans tended to operate a pure tank co and a pure panzer grenadier company acting together in one area of operations.

Platoons of the tank or panzer grenadier unit would "marry up" as needed (it was a fluid pairing off, not fixed) and the commanders of the 2 companies somehow cooperated in joint command of the combat group, swapping platoons and mutually supporting each other as needed.

At a guess - probably, they would act as 2 closely-linked company teams (A and B elements), sending platoons to temporarily act under the other coy's HQ as the situation changed for a few minutes or an hour or 2. But not being formally 'chopped' under the other company's line of command for a day or more as with the other armies x-attachments.

But - it was a long time ago I saw the magazine article - main point was that they did not do the 'fixed' splitting up of an attached company (like the Soviets) or platoon cross-swapping between companies of other NATO armies, at least in that time frame, into formal combined-arms company teams.

(The article may have been notes in some army lists for use with WRG and/or the Challenger tabletop rule-sets?.)

For SP type games the chain of command is fixed for the battle. But battles are short, and so it can be deemed to reflect the short-term swapping of platoons back and forth between the 2 associated companies. Just operate the tank coy (cross attached as desired) with the grenadier coy (as cross attached) plus any attached battalion support (flak, stug sections etc) as an "A team" and "B team" operating mutually in quite close proximity (probably both coy HQs within 1000m or so in WW2).

However - some readers may have personal experience of how they did things post-war. That would likely have some relation to tier WW2 experience in any case.

[Zardoz]

Other term in WW2 for Kampfgruppe was Kampfstaffel