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What? Where are you getting this from? Please cite your sources.
VG divisions were built around a cadre of veterans where possible, but many consisted of the "boys and old men" drafts that had not previously been suitable. Training was also cut down.
Looking at how they performed in Normandy, they did, at best, roughly equivalent to "legacy" formations and many were rather lackluster in their performance.
This isn't "more advanced" as such.
The re-organization was to account for the less skilled unit commanders available.
The traditional approach of 3 infantry Gruppe operating as 2 teams each was not tactically viable any longer.
Instead, a platoon consisting of 3 elements, 2 assault squads and one support, was more within their capabilities.
This makes no sense. Officers don't just wander around aimlessly.
Can you provide a source for these "extra officers" and where they go in the TO&E?
This would be laughably awful if it was the case.
Trade away a weapon capable of knocking out tanks at a kilometer with accurate fire AND providing direct HE fire if needed for a weapon that isn't accurate over 150 meters?
I might suggest picking up a few books on the topic mate. Ospreys is usually a good entry point for basic information and you can often find them at the library.
"With a nominal strength of 10,072, the People's Grenadier Division - either a reorganised combat-weary formation, or a new formation raised from convalescent wounded and untrained recruits - was organised like a M1944 Infantry Division but with a Fusilier company instead of a battalion, with 18% less manpower and 16% less firepower. Quality varied from reasonably good to wholly inadequate"
While I agree they should be in the game, my tabletop wargames German armies are Volksgrenadier, the idea that they were some sort of super formation is laughable.
They were the sort of desperate stopgap measure that the German army increasingly resorted to, because they could no longer field better formations.
Also can you show me the performance of any volksgrenadier division that did poorly during the normandy campaign?
As for their squad composition having more automatic weapons was the way to go for infantry combat. They had specialized assault teams with automatic rifles like the BAR, captured PPSh SMGs and the like which was considered the first rate armaments of Nazi infantry. The more traditional base of fire squad was retained for its limited function. But world war 2 had demonstrated the primacy of close range automatic weapons for infantry small arms during WW2. it's a sign of doctrinal improvement.
Also German riflemen were notably easy to work with for an untrained officer. Their entire unit was focused around the machine gun so you simply found a good defensive position and had them fight from their. carrying out a coordinated infantry shock trooper assault is a much tougher task.
And the point about having a more concise command structure is that it relieves administrative burden off commanders. If you have an infantry division with 3 regiments with 2 battalions a piece that's less work put onto the staff which allows them to focus on their specific task more easily. While still retaining the same numbers in the field. The only thing is that it requires more officers and staff to maintain more elite units like that.
Keep in mind that every nation in WW2 broke up their field units into smaller and better organized groups like that. and the process continued to this very day if you look at a Brigade Combat Team.
Anti tank guns suck i'm sorry to say. In a realistic combat scenario they would take up to a day to put into position, fire on a single tank and maybe destroy it before getting annihilated by artillery fire because they couldn't reposition. This was compounded by the lack of motor transport in the werhmacht meaning they'd have to be moved by horse. And the PaK40 used solid tires with terrible ground pressure making them harder to move than the pneumatic tires of the PaK36.
They're also completely useless in the assault where the Volksgrenadiers are going to be fighting most of the time anyways.
If Germany had the resources to produce and maintain enough self propelled anti tank guns like the Marders to fully replace towed AT guns like the Allies had then the Panzershreks would have been a dumb idea. But since they didn't the Panzershrek which was mobile enough to be repositioned and move with the infantry was as good a stopgap they could get. Also while it was inferior to the Bazooka in terms of accuracy and effectiveness against soft targets the panzershrek was still used as an assault weapon. And volksgrenadiers were also given first priority on captured bazookas.
In fact after WW2 recoiless rifles like the M18 and M20 were light enough to be used by infantry on the assault and replaced the towed AT gun in infantry units. The only real difference is that they were longer ranged and more effective than the haphazardly designed Panzershrek.
Anyway you seem to have read more about Company of Heroes lore than actual WW2 history. which isn't your fault because of the media lying to us but i am going to redpill you about this and I expect you to listen. I think i've already demonstrated that you can't actually use vague statements like "quality" from these dudes trying to sell wargaming models seriously.
These are the guys who falsely attribute entire field armies to a single insignificant fallschirmjager unit made up of fat 'tards that the Heer had rejected for service in their infantry (the home of the fat tards is generally the infantry) just to pass them onto the Luftwaffe. Because an assault against a well fortified enemy took a few days or weeks which would be expected.
The name Volksgrenadiere was chosen to raise the moral by apealing to the peoples nationalism and older german military tradition where Grenadiers where elitetroops.
There was made about 50 of these divisions at the end of the war..
However these new groups where not 100% specific elite units as i understand it.
+ Remember in war there is a HUGE amount of propeganda.. Imagine if you all of a sudden are told you are going to an elite unit.. you moral will raise and you feel special ect ect.
and then they give you some "new" and better guns than the single shot rifle many soldiers had, that also boost moral.
Due to the strategic emergency after the defeat in russia and now invation by the allies
there was a need to save soldiers and use less soldiers in the new divisions.
They changed the focus on being more defensive rather than offensive.
when you defend you need example 1:3 men or 1:5 men to hold a possition
( example during invation the allies had a huge amount of men, the germans did not have that many in their bunkers.. But they kills and enormous amout of people while defending ).
Volksgrenadiere divisions where made smaller, and went from normaly 9 infantry battalions to just 6 infantry battalions.
The units had more machine pistols, and light automatic weapons such as sturmgewehr 44 and AT panzerfaust where often used by the volksgrenadier.
There volksgrenadiere also had some hardened veteran soldiers and officers who had seen action, but also other people from the navy or airforce who no longer where needed.. And wounded who had recovered ect.
Volksgrenadier divisions where part of the ardenne battle and defence of siegfried line on the east front and the last battles before germany fell.
Som of the divisions did very well in battle and thought bravely, while other where thrown into battle with little training and therefor did a "bad job".
THe unit with a mix of saiors and airforce personel had high motivation and did a surprisingly good and effective defence for the last 8 month af the war.
Calling them elite is think is a wrong name for them.. BUT i some battalions where better than other, example the ones with verterans where much better than new soldiers.
They were focused around using more automatic weapons for offensives. Not defensives. That's why they spearheaded the BotB for instance. Also Volksgrenadiers mostly used the PPSh, Sten and MP40. The StG44 was uncommon. They also had a significant number of Panzershreks to compensate for their lack of mobile tank destroyers.
Also the Nazis had manpower advantages in most defensive operations the stories of them facing off against hordes are a myth. There were 8 million Nazis on the western front where the allies only sent 5 million to face them.
This guy and this topic....again? "Are we getting a Volksgrenadier division?"
No you are not.And you were told this the last time you started this "topic"-Why is it so hard for you to understand that there were no Volksgrenadier Divisions on the Invasion Front?
Also why do you insist on repeatably posting such nonsense as "There were 8 million Nazis on the western front where the allies only sent 5 million to face them." ?
And this pithy sentence-"They also had a significant number of Panzershreks to compensate for their lack of mobile tank destroyers."-is patently false.
VGD were to be allocated more panzerfausts&panzerschrecks due to the removal of the towed PAK 40s from the infantry regiments & battalions' heavy weapons companies.
And VGD were to be allocated a company of 14 StuGs,later 14 JagdPz 38s...
Also the VGD's TOE allocated fewer officers & ncos,few signal troops & fewer support troops,which critically hampered these divisions on the tactical level.
Volksgrenadier Divisions were,with only very few exceptions,cobbled together,pared down sub-standard infantry divisions.
The smaller size of the support troops of a volksgrenadier division was due to having less soldiers for taking care of their horses due to the lighter equipment their division used. The Nazis just assigned untrained NCOs and Officers to positions anyways so having more of them wouldn't do anything.
Nazi divisions also generally lacked signal troops or support troops anyways. They didn't use radios a lot of the time because the allies were listening in. They more often used telephone wire.
Total German soldiers who surrendered in the West, including 3,404,950 who surrendered after the end of the war, is given as 7,614,790. To this must be added the 263,000–655,000 who died, giving a rough total of 8 million German soldiers having served on the Western Front in 1944–1945.
This is why we know there were at least 8 million Nazis on the western front. The Nazis used human wave attacks as standard procedure and required manpower advantages. They also had a larger population base than the allied nations they faced off against. And most allied forces were support troops which made the balance of combat troops significantly more in favor of the Nazis If you ever wondered why WW2 media shows US soldiers facing off against significantly larger groups of Nazis and winning with minimal casualties, that's because they fought like that in reality.
If you ever read the works of an actual Nazi veteran they actually pretty well refute the various of-repeated myths about Nazi supremacy. For instance Friedrich Freiherr von der Heydte in his books discusses how his 6th fallschirmjager regiment was unprepared to fight against american forces. With a lot of their troops having less than 2 weeks of training and being pressed in from non-combat roles as they took more losses. He also said that the American forces were elite and far more capable than his own, constantly outmanuevering his own forces or destroying them.
Sounds a lot different than the stories of the "green devils" huh?