Company Officer S Handbook Of The German Army

The Handbook On German Military Forces is an indispensable primary reference source for historians and enthusiasts. In 1945 the Allies were still engaged in bitter fighting against stiff resistance from the German armies in the west. The US War Department was determined to do its best to equip the US forces fighting the Germans in the field with as much knowledge as possible. March 1945 saw the issue of an astonishing document entitled the Handbook On German Military Forces. This was a truly remarkable work of intelligence gathering which formed a vast compendium of all the relevant knowledge amassed on the German Wehrmacht.Amazingly accurate and comprehensive, the Handbook ran to over six hundred pages and was designed to equip commanders in the field with everything they were likely to need to know about the German forces. The Handbook remained classified until 1953 and then slipped into obscurity.This new paperback reprint rescues this great work from obscurity, covering the psychology, organisation, tactics and operational aspects of the German forces. The weapons, machines, aircraft and uniforms of the German forces are also documented within the Handbook.The Handbook On German Military Forces is a fascinating primary reference source for historians and enthusiasts alike, providing an invaluable insight into the detail of the German Army which is still an unrivaled source of information today.

An exact reproduction of the landmark British assessment of German military capability in the final months of World War I. Compiled by British Intelligence, for restricted official issue by the General Staff, The German Army Handbook of April 1918 is a comprehensive assessment of the German Army during the latter stages of the First World War. Illustrated throughout with plates, diagrams, charts, tables, and maps, it provides a detailed breakdown of the army, covering all aspects from recruiting and training, mobilization, command and organization, weapons and signals to transportation, medical and veterinary services, and uniform. There are also two maps, showing Army Corps Districts, and Zones of Administration and Lines of Command in June 1917. The German Army Handbook of 1918 was a remarkable achievement. It provides solutions to many questions that histories of the First World War and accounts of its battles are unable to answer. It shows how the static conventions of trench warfare usurped the traditional role of cavalry, and how the German Army was able to take advantage of the dominance of the machine gun on the Western Front in 1915.

This pamphlet was issued in August 1943 to all regimental officers of the British Army expected to have contact with German forces. It is the result of many contacts with the German army, together with some Ultra information, although this is of course not stated. It looks at the organisation of the German Infantry Regiment from section level upwards, showing the organisation of the infantry section, infantry platoon, rifle company, machine gun company. It then looks at the infantry battalion, infantry regiment, and the support included at regimental level: the infantry gun company and the infantry anti-tank company. The pamphlet then examines the German infantry division. The next section deals with the organisation of the German Armoured Division, and this is shown in the same detail as the infantry component: from troop of tanks up to tank regiment. Complementing this is the same treatment of a Panzer Grenadier regiment. The pamphlet then looks at German tactics in the attack, and co-operation between infantry and armour, defensive tactics and the German withdrawal. There are also tables of German military symbols with an explanation, and an important tabular layout of weapons, including small arms and grenades, artillery and anti-tank guns and heavy smoke mortars and projectiles. The whole pamphlet is illustrated with organisation charts and tactical maps.

From the opening shots of World War II in Poland in September 1939, through the blitzkrieg to the fall of France and the Low Countries, the German Army was at the forefront of battle. It remained in the thick of the action - the Eastern Front, North Africa, the Balkans, Scandinavia, North West Europe - right up until the last desperate shots were fired over the ruins of a crumbling Third Reich in May 1945. As the instrument with which Hitler was to achieve his plan for world domination, the German Army was at the cutting edge of 20th-century military technology. Before the emergence of the US Army as a force to be reckoned with later in World War II, the German Army was the most powerful, efficient and well-equipped fighting force in the world.