In the late 1980s, all eyes were on the Germanies as the setting for a potential Third World War,
should one kick off between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
There were of course the significant non-German militaries ready to go, but West and East Germany
themselves boasted significant armored forces that would’ve faced off against each other.
This video is going to compare East and West German tank units of the time from the crew to
battalion-level to show what they would have been working with if the Hyperwar kicked off in 1989.
We’ll start at the base, the Tank Platoon.
The West Germans were relatively straight forward. They had just one
Tank Platoon organization, consisting of 4 tanks.
Generally speaking in 1989, Tank Battalions under Panzergrenadier Brigades, the primary
infantry force, were equipped with variants of the Leopard 1, primarily upgrades to the
1A1 standard including the 1A1A1, as well as the 1A5. One of the key exceptions was
the 10th Panzer Division’s 30th Panzergrenadier Brigade which had Leopard 2A4s. Tank Battalions
under Panzer Brigades meanwhile were equipped with various batch variants of the Leopard 2.
Both tanks were crewed by 4 soldiers. A Commander, Gunner, Loader, and Driver. One tank per platoon
would be commanded by the Platoon Leader, who would be a Lieutenant in one platoon per Company
and an NCO in two platoons. Tanks would be split into two Half-Platoons or Sections,
one under the Platoon Leader and one under the Deputy, who was an NCO.
Compare this to the East German platoon. Unlike the West Germans, the East Germans
had two distinct organizations. Tank Platoons part of Tank Regiments consisted of 3 tanks,
while those under Motor Rifle Regiments, the infantry force,
consisted of 4 tanks. I haven’t seen anything definitive on this matter,
but I assume the infantry organizations got 4 tanks per platoon because 4 is easier to split
in pairs for attachment or maneuvering through complex terrain. Three tanks had a logic to it
for Eastern tank organizations because they’re easier and faster to control during an armored
maneuver. Additionally, in the context of a battle, a Tank Platoon attached to a Motor Rifle
Company may be the only tanks in a particular area, so the ability for it to provide its own
overwatch may have also been a factor. A Tank Platoon operating under its own Tank
Company would probably have other Tank Platoons supporting it so that’d be less of a concern.
There was also some added complexity with regard to tank models. Regiments part of Motor Rifle
Divisions, regardless if they were Tank or Motor Rifle Regiments, ran variants of the T-55. But the
9th Panzer Division and most of the 7th Panzer Division—East Germany’s two tank divisions—were
equipped with T-72s, T-72Ms and T-72M1s from the Soviet Union, Poland and Czechoslovakia. This
extended to the Tank Battalion under the Motor Rifle Regiment in each of those Panzer Divisions.
So if you had a four square matrix of regiment versus division,
tank platoons under Tank Regiments regardless of division had 3 tanks, and Motor Rifle Regiments
regardless of division had 4. But all regiments under the Panzer Divisions had T-72s by 1990,
while all regiments under Motor Rifle Divisions still had T-55s.
Because the T-55 was a 4-man tank with a dedicated loader, each of those platoons
had between 12 and 16 crewmembers under a Lieutenant. But T-72s were autoloaded,
so each tank only had 3 crewmembers. So those platoons had between 9 and 12 crews.
Companies At the company-level
there were more similarities than differences. Both the East and West German company consisted
of 3 Tank Platoons. In the East German case, these were all commanded by officers,
while in the West German case one was led by an officer and two by NCOs.
Both had a headquarters element. The East had a tank for the Company Commander,
a motorcycle for the Deputy of Equipment and Armaments, and a Ural 375D truck for
the Hauptfeldwebel and a clerk. There was also a Deputy for Political Work in Warsaw Pact fashion.
The West German equivalent also had only one tank for the Company Commander at this time.
Unlike today, the West German tank company had only one officer in the Command Group,
the company commander who was usually a Captain or Major.
The second staff member was the Company Sergeant or Kompaniefeldwebel, normally
held by a Hauptfeldwebel. The difference was in East Germany Hauptfeldwebel was the name for
the appointment equivalent to Company Sergeant Major or First Sergeant, but it could be held
by a senior NCO, such as a Stabsfeldwebel, or a grade of Warrant Officer called a Fähnrich,
which was added to their rank structure in 1979 in Soviet fashion. There was no
East German rank of Hauptfeldwebel. But in West Germany, the appointment was Kompaniefeldwebel,
which was held by an NCO normally at the rank of Hauptfeldwebel.
But in any case, while the East German Hauptfeldwebel rode around in a Ural,
the West German company had a Company Sergeant’s Troop. At
the time this included an Unimog 2-ton truck and Mercedes-Benz 5-ton truck.
The Company Troop, which was a sort of command group, included the tank,
a half-ton jeep, and three motorcycles for messengers.
The West German Company also had two Replacement Crews, a total of 6 junior enlisted crewmembers
that could fill vacancies. Having these spare crews at the company-level allowed
platoons to still conduct exercises even when slightly understrength. A
tank with even one crewmember down is at best significantly degraded in its performance.
One level up, most East and West German Tank Battalions consisted of 3 Tank Companies and
a staff. The West German equivalent had a much more substantial staff though,
with a 183-man Staff and Supply Company versus the 43-man East German battalion staff.
In terms of armor, the West German Battalion HQ had 2 tanks and the East German had 1.
West German Brigades had 1 or 2 of this type of Tank Battalion,
depending on if it was a Panzer or Panzergrenadier Brigade. East
German Tank Regiments meanwhile had 3 of these battalions, while Motor Rifle Regiments had 1.
But there was also the case of the West German mixed battalion.
For the 1980s the West Germans wanted to increase the amount of tank units in the
field without increasing the number of armored vehicles in service. This
entailed reducing each tank platoon from 5, as was the case since the 1950s, to 4 tanks,
reducing the tanks in the company HQ from 2 to 1, and the tanks in the battalion HQ
from 3 to 2. They used those savings to create an additional tank company per Tank Battalion.
This was also done with Panzergrenadier Battalions,
and the new companies were moved into their own mixed fourth battalion,
numbered as the 1st battalion in the brigade basically. In Panzer Brigades,
this mixed battalion had 2 tank companies and 1 infantry company, while Panzergrenadier
Brigades had 2 infantry and 1 tank company, matching the number of other combat battalions.
But this battalion’s staff was actually a cadre
force that would only be activated for war and exercises. During peacetime,
these new companies were actually housed with one of the three original battalions.
The East and West Germans had somewhat similar practices when it came to tank
unit organization at the low-levels, the biggest difference being the more
substantial logistics in the West German battalion and the dimorphism in East German
units depending on if they were in a tank regiment or supported an infantry regiment.
The platforms were obviously quite different though. I’m not going to
get into comparing the specifications of tanks because that’s not what I do,
but the West Germans had significantly more of the newest Leopard 2s than the East Germans had T-72s.
East Germany had 4 Motor Rifle Divisions and 2 Panzer Divisions in the first line. The former
type each had about 214 T-55 tanks in theory. The 9th Panzer Division had 322 T-72s while the
slightly smaller 7th Panzer Division had 223 T-72s and 40 T-55As in the 1990 handover of equipment.
The larger West Germany on the other hand had 4 Panzergrenadier Divisions
and 6 Panzer Divisions in its active field army. There were some exceptions,
like the 3rd Panzer Division under the 1st Dutch Corps. But broadly speaking if you were
to assume the generic number of subunits at full-strength, Panzergrenadier Divisions were
meant to have 254 tanks and Panzer Divisions were meant to have 309. So roughly comparable,
although about 34 of these were contained in an Armored Reconnaissance Battalion
that supported the division. The East German equivalent had BMP-1s as its heavy hitters.
But in terms of fielded maneuver battalions, the West German Panzer Division had 5 pure
Tank Battalions, 2 Mixed Tank Battalions, and 1 Mixed Panzergrenadier Battalion, in addition
to the 4 pure Panzergrenadier Battalions. To compare, the East German Panzer Division had
10 pure Tank Battalions and 4-ish Motor Rifle Battalions. 4-ish because the East German Tank
Regiment didn’t have an infantry battalion, they at most had a Motor Rifle Company each.
So what the East Germans traded in lack of resiliency at the platoon- and company-level
with only 3 tanks per platoon they gained some with more Tank Battalions in the field
for a similar amount of tanks, which is probably more critical in the case of a large-scale
conflict. They also fielded more divisions as a proportion of their population than the West.
Not that I think this bean counting matters all that much given the West Germans had
three times the active Tank Divisions as the East and fielded an arguably
better tank. But I find these sorts of comparisons at least mildly interesting.
If you want more info on German armored units, check out this video on the West’s
Panzergrenadier units in the 1950s and 60s, their armored infantry force. I’ll see you over there!