Companion to the Red Army 1939-45 E-Book

Steven J Zaloga

• Herausgeber: The History Press
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

Stalin's Red Army entered the Second World War as a relatively untried fighting force. In 1941, with the launch of Operation 'Barbarossa', it joined the battle with Hitler's army, the most powerful in history. After a desperate war of attrition over four years, the Red Army defeated the Nazis on the Eastern Front and won lasting fame and glory in 1945 by eclipsing the military might of the Third Reich. This book begins with a review of the historical background of the Red Army in the years leading up to the outbreak of war in 1939, followed by a discussion of the major themes in the development of Soviet forces during the 'Great Patriotic War' that ensued in 1941. The Red Army's organisational structures are examined, from high command down to divisional level and below, which helps Western readers to understand the differences between the terminology of the Soviet and common Western (British, US and German) armies. Soviet combat arms - infantry, armour and mechanised forces, cavalry, airborne and special forces - are described, along with a technical overview of infantry weapons, armoured vehicles, artillery and support equipment. Fully illustrated with a comprehensive selection of archive photographs, charts and tables of organisation, this is an indispensable source of reference for anyone interested in the armies of the Second World War.

Leseprobe

COMPANION TO THE

RED ARMY

1939–1945

STEVEN J. ZALOGA & LELAND S. NESS

First published 1998

This edition first published 2009

The History Press

The Mill, Brimscombe Port

Stroud, Gloucestershire, GL5 2QG

www.thehistorypress.co.uk

This ebook edition first published in 2013

All rights reserved

© Steven J. Zaloga and Leland S. Ness, 1998, 2003, 2009, 2013

The right of Steven J. Zaloga and Leland S. Ness to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

EPUB ISBN 978 0 7509 5141 8

Original typesetting by The History Press

CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Red Army Infantry

2. Red Army Armoured Force

3. Red Army Cavalry

4. Red Army Artillery

5. Red Army Airborne and Chemical Units

6. Weapons of the Red Army: Armoured Vehicles

7. Weapons of the Red Army: Infantry Weapons

8. Weapons of the Red Army: Artillery

Bibliography

INTRODUCTION

On the eve of war in 1941, the Soviet armed forces were the largest in the world, and they consisted of two main branches: the Army and the Navy. The Red Army was officially known at the time as the Red Army of Workers and Peasants (RKKA: Rabochiy Krestyanskaya Krasnaya Armiya). Under the Army were the Ground Forces, Air Force, National Air Defence Force and Armed Forces Support. The Ground Forces were the largest single element, making up 79.3 per cent of the armed forces, while the Air Force was 11.5 per cent and the Navy only 5.8 per cent. The primary focus of this book is the Ground Forces.

By the start of 1939 the Red Army consisted of 84 rifle divisions, 14 mountain rifle divisions, 5 rifle brigades, about 25 cavalry divisions, 4 tank corps, 24 separate light tank brigades and 4 heavy tank brigades. With war evidently approaching the Army began activating new rifle divisions in August 1939 and on 17 September reservists were mobilized. Following the conclusion of the campaign in Poland in September 1939 in October the tank corps were abolished and further rifle divisions activated.

The Red Army had been in the forefront of European military innovation in the mid-1930s, being pioneers in large mechanized formations and in other revolutionary combat arms including paratroops, glider assault troops and self-propelled artillery. However, much of the progressive leadership of the Army was destroyed in the senseless purges that Stalin inflicted on the armed forces in 1936–7. Not only were many senior leaders shot or imprisoned, but the atmosphere of menace and betrayal stifled honest evaluations of the progress of the armed forces; senior leadership was taken over by inept cronies of Stalin from the days of the Russian Civil War of 1918–20 who were ill-prepared to manage a modern army and many of the innovations of the mid-1930s were squandered, with the large tank formations being broken up and the horse cavalry being returned to prominence.

In a matter of months the Red Army had gone from one of the most progressive in the world – with exceptional, if largely untested, deep-strike capability – to one that, strangely enough, almost mirrored the doomed French Army. The bulk of its strength was now to be found in ponderous infantry divisions reinforced by scattered tank units in the infantry support role and large holdings of General Headquarters (GHQ) artillery. Operational level manoeuvre was now entrusted to cavalry and cavalry/mechanized formations.

On 9 May 1940, the day before the German tide broke over France, the Soviet General Staff defined the Army’s force structure as being built around 161 rifle divisions (including 10 mountain rifle divisions and 7 motorized rifle divisions), 24 cavalry divisions (including 5 mountain cavalry divisions) and 38 tank brigades (comprising 18 with T-26 light tanks, 16 with BT fast tanks, 3 with T-28 medium tanks and 1 with a T-35 heavy tank). These were supported by sixty-one corps artillery regiments and forty-five GHQ artillery regiments.

The Red Army’s incredibly poor performance against the tiny Finnish Army in 1939–40 and the stunning defeat of France in 1940 forced Stalin to reconsider his appalling handling of Army affairs. Although he did not remove all of his toadies from the senior ranks, a return to professional standards was begun and many junior officers were released from prison and rehabilitated. The fall of the highly respected French Army was shocking, especially the role played by the German panzer forces. On 6 July 1940 the Red Army began forming eight mechanized corps (each of two tank and one motorized divisions) plus two separate tank divisions; in December a ninth mechanized corps was added, and in February 1941 orders went out to create no fewer than twenty more. Even without the baleful effects of the Stalinist purges such an expansion would have strained the pool of available leadership well beyond any reasonable expectations of success. Filling out these new formations with the appropriate equipment and support (including logistics structure and spare parts) proved no less daunting.

The turmoil in army policy in 1938–41 left the Red Army in a state of permanent crisis. To further complicate matters, the Soviet government embarked on a major rearmament programme in 1939–40, beginning the production of a new generation of tanks, aircraft and other weapons. The situation became even more chaotic with the mass induction of conscripts in 1940, followed by the gradual call-up of reservists. The propaganda image of the Red Army was of an enormous military machine equipped with modern weapons, led by officers trained in sophisticated tactics and guided by modern military doctrine; in reality, the Red Army of 1941 was hopelessly ill-prepared for modern war.

No matter how many shining new tanks and advanced artillery pieces were paraded through Red Square, the Red Army was still, at its heart, a vast peasant army drawn from a poor society where electrification and indoor plumbing were still rare, and where familiarity with modern technology was very limited. The officers were drawn from the ranks of the collectivized peasants, or from peasant families who had recently migrated to the new industrial cities that sprang up in the 1930s. They were not well educated and their personal experiences left them ill prepared to handle modern military equipment or contemporary military tactics. The Russian Civil War had destroyed Russia’s traditional military caste, and the Communist Party’s distrust of the potential of Bonapartist ambitions among successful military commanders did not encourage its rebirth. The leadership situation was further exacerbated by the lack of a strong non-commissioned officer (NCO) tradition in the Red Army, a fatal shortcoming in a conscript army attempting to absorb new technology. To add insult to injury, the Communist Party insisted on a dual-command authority, with political commissars in the army second-guessing the commander. Mistrust and betrayal beget martinets, not combat leaders. The lack of well-trained officers forced the Red Army to employ cookbook tactics, following rigid and unimaginative templates under a tightly centralized command.

The rank and file of the troops in 1941 were recent conscripts with little military training, or reservists called up from their civilian jobs. These troops were perfectly capable of quickly being taught the rudiments of the simple military arts common to soldiers since Napoleonic times. But the Red Army had an impossible time finding well-prepared young men with existing skills to learn demanding military tasks quickly as tankers, artillerymen, radio operators or combat engineers. An additional problem, not yet adequately confronted in Russian histories of the war, was the widespread disaffection in the lower ranks in 1941. The brutal collectivization campaign against the peasantry, which in Ukraine reached an almost genocidal fury, had a corrosive effect on morale no matter how strident the political propaganda.

The result of these deficits was an army ill prepared to conduct modern war. Red infantry formations attacked in massed waves not through a lack of textbook examples of modern infantry tactics; they did so because their commanders were unprepared to lead large formations, and their troops were unprepared to execute anything more sophisticated than a simple massed charge. Tank platoons were so ill trained that most tanks were lost due to mechanical breakdowns, and not to enemy action. Thousands of tanks with the simplest of mechanical problems were abandoned in 1941. A tanker’s training was poor and the lack of radios, except in platoon and company command tanks, made it nearly impossible to coordinate tank formations. A standard tactic was for the platoon commander to instruct his other tanks to follow his example – an approach their more experienced German adversary labelled ‘a hen with her chicks’. The consequences on the battlefield were tragic and the Soviet tank force lost six tanks for every German tank – a ratio which lasted well into the middle of the war.

The Red Army that faced the German onslaught in 1941 was built around a mix of large, complex and awkward rifle divisions and untrained and poorly supported mechanized units. The destruction of this Army in the vast encirclement battles of 1941 forced the leadership to adopt completely different approaches to force structure.

After the débâcle of the German invasion in the summer of 1941, the Red Army was painfully rebuilt, retrained and re-equipped. Rifle divisions were reduced in size and heavy weapons centralized to simplify commanders’ jobs at all levels. This speeded up the activation process and fifty-five additional rifle divisions were formed from reservists in June and July, followed by 117 more from August to December. A further ninety-three rifle divisions were formed from militia units, NKVD (Narodniy Kumissariat Vnutrennikh del: People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, i.e., state police) elements and by conversion. The mechanized corps were disbanded and replaced by much smaller tank brigades and separate battalions, operating largely in the role of infantry support – a less demanding environment for leadership. As losses (including precious experienced leadership) continued to mount, even more extreme measures were adopted. The activation of rifle divisions was replaced in large part by the formation of rifle brigades, essentially little more than independent rifle regiments. Although no fewer than 159 such brigades were raised between September and November 1941, most had rather short lives, being bereft of heavy weapons and lacking logistics support.

The Red Army of 1942 was a fundamentally new Army from the tragic set-up of 1941. The lessons of war were learned from costly battlefield experience. Consolidation began in the armoured troops in early 1942, with the creation of tank corps. Although not immediately successful, strengthening of the corps structure during the winter of 1942–3 yielded powerful formations capable of deep penetration and sustained combat. Their inability to hold terrain led to the creation of mechanized corps in late 1942 and these two complementary forces were consolidated into powerful tank armies. Employment of these massed forces was invariably accompanied by heavy losses, due in part to a continued Soviet inability to deploy mobile, responsive artillery, but, together with increasing competence and confidence on the part of their commanders, they were sufficient to steamroller the opposing German forces.

The rifle troops also began their laborious organizational rebuilding in 1942. As the commanders gained experience, heavy weapons were returned at all levels and service support was modestly increased. In 1943 the process of consolidating the rifle brigades into divisions was begun so that by the end of the year two-thirds of these inefficient formations had been removed from the order of battle. The final standard rifle division organization table was issued in December 1944. Although slightly weaker in artillery than its foreign contemporaries, it was a well-balanced formation supported by generous allocations of GHQ artillery as needed.

Nevertheless, not even the massive manpower of the Soviet Union and the ruthless mobilization process of its Stalinist government could maintain a force of over 500 rifle divisions and the equivalent of thirty-six mechanized divisions in the field against heavy losses. The mechanized units appear to have been kept close to full strength during 1944–5 but the story was not the same for the rifle troops. Only three rifle divisions were formed during 1943–5 and many of those in existence fell dramatically below their authorized levels. Authority to draft reduced-strength organization tables was delegated to the front commands, and these generated a variety of schemes for systematically redistributing losses to keep formations as balanced as possible.

In four years of war the Red Army completely reinvented itself. The rifle divisions were smaller and leaner but with a higher ratio of close-support weaponry. Their weakness in artillery reflected not a lack of faith in that arm, but rather a decision to centralize these assets on a scale never seen before, including the creation of entire artillery corps for the support of selected operations. The mechanized forces were well-balanced units, with heavy assault guns providing at least some of the high-explosive firepower normally the responsibility of artillery.

Although the structure of the Red Army in 1945 did not conform to Western conventional wisdom, it did suit the needs of the Soviet Union. A strong emphasis on strictly following orders suited the political system, reducing the training requirements of the officer corps and the signals and liaison demands within the tactical framework. Deliberate planning also reduced the strain on the inexperienced junior officers created during the massive expansion of forces and permitted centralization of many assets, including fire support and logistics. In the end, the Soviet Army was organized appropriately for its environment, which is, after all, the standard by which it must be judged. By the end of the war in May 1945, the Red Army was the largest and arguably the most powerful Army the world had ever seen. This is the subject of this handbook.

This book, then, is not a conventional account of the development of the Red Army in the war years. Rather, it is an attempt to provide military historians with a unique reference work to fill the gap in existing English language accounts of the Red Army during the Second World War (the Great Patriotic War, as it is known to the Russians). Over the past two decades, there has been a resurgence in interest in the Eastern Front among military historians. Spearheaded by the ground-breaking work of Professor John Erickson in the United Kingdom and by David Glantz in the United States, the Red Army has finally been receiving much overdue attention by Western military scholars. Nevertheless, there remain some significant gaps in coverage. Much of the recent scholarship has focused on the strategic and operational level of Eastern Front fighting; the tactical level of war from the Russian perspective has not been the subject of as much attention. For readers interested in the Eastern Front in the Second World War, there has been a glaring lack of information on the organization and equipment of the Red Army. Furthermore, much of the published material is based on inaccurate German wartime accounts.

This handbook attempts to redress this problem and has been based heavily on new Russian material made available since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The main problem facing the authors of this book was to define the scope of the material to be presented here within the space available. Due to the size limits of this series, the authors decided against a general depiction of the Red Army, since such an approach would result in a book with insufficient detail and one little different from available publications. Instead, the authors chose to focus on areas ill served by existing publications, especially organization and equipment. In order to provide sufficient detail, the authors elected to emphasize coverage of the combat arms.

In any book of this type, the contributions of many individuals must be noted. The authors would like to give their thanks to many friends and colleagues who helped with this publication including Colonel David Glantz (US Army, Ret’d), Lieutenant-Colonel James Loop (US Army, Ret’d), and Janusz Magnuski. Thanks also to Janne Kemppi for the invaluable Finnish documents. Thanks also to Janne Kemppi for the invaluable Finnish documents, and to Alex Kiyan for his sharp eye and research.

Table 1 Soviet ground forces – structure and evolution, 1940–45.

CHAPTER 1

RED ARMY INFANTRY

The basic structure of the Soviet infantry prior to the huge losses in the opening phases of Barbarossa had been established by the massive reorganization embodied in the December 1935 rifle division TO&Es (table of organization and equipment). Where previously a rifle platoon had consisted of three rifle squads and a grenadier squad, the new platoon was divided into three (four in war) identical rifle squads. The new rifle squad now consisted of a squad leader, an observer/scout, a 2-man light-machine gun team, a 2-man grenadier team and six riflemen. The main effect was to give each wartime rifle platoon four light-machine guns instead of three, while retaining the four rifle grenade launchers. As before, the rifle company was built around three rifle platoons and a machine gun platoon. The latter provided two squads each of seven men with a water-cooled Maxim M1910 machine gun carried on a one-horse cart. Divisions based in rough terrain were authorized to replace each cart with two pack horses and one additional horse handler.

As before, the infantry battalion of three rifle companies was supported by a machine gun company with three 4-gun platoons. Each platoon was divided into two sections, each of which had a section leader, an assistant section leader, a driver with a 2-horse wagon and two 4-man gun squads with M1910s. The infantry regiment consisted of three such battalions, an anti-tank (AT) battery and a regimental gun battery.

At the division level the 1935 TO&E added a tank battalion (three companies each of fifteen tanks), a reconnaissance battalion and an anti-aircraft (AA) battalion to each division, and expanded the engineer company to a 2-company battalion and the signal company to battalion strength. The new TO&Es also provided a nine-fold increase in mortar allocation but the weapons themselves were still in development so implementation of this aspect had to wait. Another improvement called for in the 1934–8 five-year plan was the provision of tactical radios down to the company level. This, however, was delayed even longer due to equipment shortages, and, indeed, was not finally implemented until after the war.

THE SEPTEMBER 1939 TO&E (NO. 04/20–38)

The first divisional structure to see combat was that mandated in the September 1939 TO&Es. This new organization introduced a number of modern features and made the division, on paper at least, one of the most powerful in the world.

Infantry armament had been strengthened through the introduction of new weapons. The new family of mortars introduced in the late 1930s – the 50mm PM-38/39, the 82mm PM-36/37 and the 120mm HM-38 – were all effective designs, and the new TO&Es made full use of them.1 Being the first nation to introduce a 120mm mortar gave the Red Army a considerable advantage, as the weapon quickly proved very useful.

Men

Main Weapons

Regiment HQ

67

Signal Company

104

Mounted Scout Platoon

41

Scout Platoon

62

Three Battalions, each

Battalion HQ

4

Signal Platoon

44

Scout Platoon

62

Three Rifle Companies, each

234

Company HQ

13

Three Rifle Platoons, each

62

4 light MGs

Light Mortar Section

11

3 50mm mortars

Machine Gun Platoon

22

2 medium MGs, 2 AT rifles

Machine Gun Company

94

12 medium MGs

Mortar Company

18

4 82mm mortars

Anti-Tank Platoon

18

2 45mm AT guns

Pioneer Squad

7

Trains

43

Anti-Tank Battery

66

6 45mm AT guns

Infantry Gun Battery

159

6 76mm infantry guns

Mortar Battery

41

4 120mm mortars

Anti-Aircraft Company

52

3 quad MGs & 6 heavy MGs

Pioneer Platoon

48

Chemical Platoon

37

Table 1.0 Infantry Regiment (TO 04/21), from September 1939

Table 1.1 Rifle division summary (TO 04/20-38), from September 1939.

The rifle company of the 1939 division was configured into a headquarters (HQ) platoon (with signal and trains squads), three rifle platoons (each of four rifle squads), a light mortar section, and a machine gun platoon. A rifle squad was armed with a light-machine gun and fourteen rifles. The machine gun platoon consisted of two squads each with a Maxim machine gun carried on a cart. The MG platoon was alo to include two Rukavish-nikov M1939 AT rifles, but in fact these were never produced. The battalion machine gun company was made up of a HQ platoon and three machine gun platoons each with four weapons. Also supporting the battalion was an anti-tank (AT) platoon and a mortar platoon.

The most noticeable change to the division was the addition of a second artillery regiment with one battalion of 122mm M1910/30 or M1938 howitzers and one of 152mm M1909/30 howitzers. This complemented the existing field artillery regiment which used a mix of 76mm M02/30 or M1936 field guns and 122mm M1910/30 or M1938 howitzers. Nominally, the field artillery regiment held three batteries of 76mm guns and six of 122mm howitzers in its three battalions, but this ratio was often reversed or otherwise changed as dictated by the stock of available weapons (see Table 1.1).

The provision for twelve 76mm guns, thirty-six 122mm howitzers and twelve 152mm howitzers was in advance of every other divisional establishment in the world. Several factors, however, served to limit the effectiveness of this massive firepower. Most importantly, not enough attention had been paid to communications and the shortage of signal assets usually limited the artillery to preplanned fire. Second, the bulk of the pieces actually in service were rather elderly designs with short range, none in excess of 10,000 m. A third factor was that all the battalions except the 152mm were horse drawn – although this was true of most Western European armies as well, the vast size of the Soviet theatre of operations tended to highlight this shortcoming.

With the decision to create large-scale mechanized formations in the late 1930s most of the infantry division tank battalions were withdrawn and concentrated under new armoured formations. The standard division under the September 1939 organization, thus, did not include a tank battalion. A few top-line divisions, however, did retain their armoured component. Such a battalion consisted of a headquarters and three companies. The HQ command element consisted of two T-26 infantry tanks and a field car, and it was supported by a signal platoon (three radio trucks, including one for air-to-ground communications), a motorcycle platoon (seven solo and two sidecar motorcycles) and a trains group. Two of the companies were equipped with T-26 tanks, each consisting of three 3-tank platoons plus one tank in company HQ. The third company was provided with T-37 amphibious light tanks and consisted of three 5-tank platoons plus one tank in company HQ.

The anti-tank firepower of the division was also substantially increased. An anti-tank battalion with eighteen 45mm guns was added to the divisional structure, along with a 6-gun AT company to each infantry regiment to supplement the two such weapons in each battalion AT platoon, for a division total of fifty-four. The divisional anti-tank capabilities were to be completed by an antitank section in each rifle company equipped with two anti-tank rifles. Initial designs, however, proved difficult to produce and the first fifty of the revised 14.5mm PTRD-1941 weapons did not come off the production line until late 1940, and even then ammunition could not be produced until late 1941.

The anti-aircraft battalion was small but indicated an appreciation for the potential of tactical air power. Two of the batteries (western platoons) each manned four 37mm M1939 guns, while the third battery was provided with four 76mm M1931 guns. Supplementing the efforts of these few weapons were the anti-aircraft-machine gun (AAMG) platoons scattered around the division. The most common weapon was a quadruple mounting of the 7.62mm M1910 Maxim machine gun. Each artillery regiment had a platoon with three of these, as did each rifle regiment AA company. The rifle regiment’s AA company was filled out with two more platoons, each equipped with three 12.7mm DShK heavy machine guns on AA mounts, although it seems unlikely that the TO&Es for these weapons were completely filled, even as late as 1941.

In a striking departure from prior practice, the 1939 TO&E introduced motor vehicles as the primary logistical support for the rifle division. The new division included no fewer than 670 motor vehicles, mostly medium-size trucks, to keep the division supplied. Unfortunately, motor vehicle production had not yet reached the stage where 100 divisions could be supplied with almost 700 trucks apiece, and this plan was never fully implemented.

The massive size and complexity of these divisions at all levels could have yielded a very powerful force had certain prerequisites been met. Such formations require highly competent staff and decisive leadership at all levels and a responsive and flexible communications system. Unfortunately, the Stalinist purges of the late 1930s had stripped the Army of much of its leadership and left the remainder timid and confused, while the technology (and manufacturing) of the day was not quite up to the task of providing these forces with the signal assets they needed. Nevertheless, it was divisions thus organized that formed the basis of the Soviet forces engaged in the Russo-Finnish War (the Winter War) between 30 November 1939 and 12 March 1940. The divisions proved extremely difficult to control, often being defeated in detail by smaller Finnish units.

REPERCUSSIONS OF THE WINTER WAR (NO. 4/100–118)

Eventual Soviet victory and an understandable disinclination to speak out in that era contributed to an apparent reluctance to draw the appropriate conclusions from the Finland experience. When new TO&Es were issued for the rifle division on 13 June 1940 only detail changes were made. Although the rifle squad size was cut from fifteen men to a more manageable twelve, two men in each rifle squad were now to be armed with semi-automatic rifles to maintain small-unit firepower. Sub-machine guns had been successfully used by the Finns in the war, albeit in relatively small numbers, and similar weapons were introduced into the Soviet infantry.2 The success of mortars in the war prompted the Stavka to enlarge the battalion mortar company by adding a third mortar to each of the two platoons, although the number of 120mm weapons remained the same. At the same time the little 50mm mortars were decentralised by abolishing the rifle company light mortar section and adding a 4-man mortar squad with one weapon to each rifle platoon. The overall structure and size of the rifle division, however, remained unchanged.

RECIPE FOR DISASTER (NO. 04/400-417)

The 1940 TO&Es never saw combat, for they were superseded on 5 April 1941 by a new set of documents. The new organization streamlined the division somewhat but the overall structure was little changed.

The infantry manoeuvre elements remained essentially the same. A rifle squad consisted of a squad leader, a 2-man light machine gun team, two men with submachine guns and six riflemen. All men except the sub-machine gunners and the light machine gunner were to be armed with semi-automatic rifles.3 A rifle platoon consisted of four such squads and a 4-man 50mm mortar team. The earlier provision of anti-tank rifles was dropped, in light of their unavailability. Company, battalion and regiment elements remained almost the same as the 1940 TO&E except that rifle squad size was reduced again, to 11 men, and the former battalion trains elements were now concentrated in a regimental transport company.

Signal facilities in the battalion were good for the time, at least on paper, with a runner assigned to each rifle platoon and company HQ, and wiremen to the machine gun company HQ and the mortar company HQ. The infantry battalion signal platoon had a 7-man radio group (with four RRU radios and a 6-PK radio) and three wire/optical squads totalling twenty-two men and three telephone carts. This would permit the assignment of backpack RRU radio to each rifle company but it seems unlikely that they were actually available in significant numbers by the time of the German invasion.

Signal assets at the regimental level were distributed on an inexplicable basis. The regimental gun battery was provided with no fewer than six RRU transceivers to permit its three platoons to operate independently but the heavy mortar battery had only a wire team with a cart. The regimental signal company provided one model 5-AK radio, two 6-PK radios and two wire/optical platoons, along with a messenger section and a switchboard team. The regimental reconnaissance, anti-tank and anti-aircraft units had no dedicated signal personnel or radios.

While the firepower of the regiment had changed only slightly (more mortars, no AT rifles), a reduction in support elements permitted a 25 per cent reduction in overall personnel strength.

Divisional fire support was provided by the two artillery regiments. The field artillery regiment contained two battalions, each with one 4-gun battery of 122mm howitzers and two 4-gun batteries of 76mm guns. Each type of battery included a large wire signal section and a radio squad with a paper authorization of three transceivers. Both types of batteries were thus fully up to international standards in communications (to the extent radios were actually available) but lacked the integral ammunition columns usually found in such units. This must have reduced their flexibility somewhat. The artillery battalion included three more radios plus three wire teams in its signal platoon, along with a transport platoon with sixteen 2-horse wagons for ammunition.

The howitzer regiment had three battalions, two of 122mm and one of 152mm weapons. It was structurally similar to the light artillery regiment, including radio allocation, but used trucks and tractors to move the guns and ammunition (the troops still walked). As in most armies of the time, fire command computation was carried out on site by the commanders and forward observers rather than by dedicated fire control personnel.

Scouting for the division was the responsibility of the reconnaissance battalion. The line companies of this battalion were stripped to the basics, each consisting of three platoons and little else. In the motorized rifle company each platoon consisted of a 2-man HQ, three 12-man rifle squads and a 4-man mortar squad, with each platoon sharing three trucks. The light tank and armoured car companies each consisted of one combat vehicle in the company HQ and three platoons (each with three armoured cars in the armoured car company or five T-38 tankettes in the light tank company). The only trains elements of note in the entire battalion was a 5-man maintenance section with a single truck.

The weakness of the reconnaissance elements at all levels of the division was the shortage of radios with which to report the information gathered. Neither platoon of the infantry regiment had any radios, while in the divisional battalion the rifle company and the tank company were also without radios; in this battalion the radios were found in the armoured car company (it is unclear how many of the armoured cars were so equipped), and in the battalion signal platoon with three radio trucks.