WW1 Sturmtruppen...

[Chris Boonzaier]

You often read that Special forces troops are unloved by regular commanders because they take the best men to the detriment of the other units...

My question...

Did WW1 Sturmtruppen really consist of the cream of the German army... or were they just better trained?

Thoughts?

[The Prussian]

Hi Chris!

I don?t think, they were the "cream" of the german army. Some people might think so, because in the past years, the name "Sturmtruppen" had become a legendary name, like the french foreign legion...

Have they been trained better? I don?t know. Fact is, they had a better equipment than a regular infantry unit. They didn?t use rifles, they used carabines. The first Sturmtruppen were pioneers.

Major Calsow from the Pi.Btl.15 first formed a experimental troup, depending of 2 pioneer companies with shields and 1 detachment with 20 guns (3,7cm). They first operated at the front of Loretto. They failed.

The rest of those units came to the Armee-Abteilung Gaede.

Now came the well-known Hauptman Rohr (Garde-Sch?tzen-Bataillon). He didn?t use the shields. Rohr trained them in well-done comunication of machine-guns and artillery. As "Sturmbataillon der Armee-Abteilung Gaede", they re-concered the "Hartmannsweiller Kopf" brilliant (dec., 22./23. 1915). Early in 1916 the Sturmbataillon Rohr came to the 5th army.

In 1916 the following Sturmbataillone were founded:

The J?ger-Batallion 3 became the Sturmbataillon 3 (july, 8th. 1916)

The Sturmbataillon Rohr became the number 5 (still a Pioneer unit!!!). The name Sturmbataillon Rohr became official in 1917 (feb.2nd)

and 8 Sturmbataillone, belonging to the Infantry.

Those bataillons came into action in december 1916. They were shared to the differnt armies.

They consist of 2-3 "storm-companies", 1 MG-company and 1 mine-sweeper company and a flame-thrower troup.

Early 1918 existed the Sturmbataillone 1-12 and 14-17. N? 13 and 18 were only companies. The 13 became in march part of the 12th bataillon and the N?18 became the new bataillon 18 in august 1918.

Disbanded were the Btl.9 (may 1918) ; Btl.17 (august 1918) and Btl.12 (october 1918)

Each bataillon of the btls. 1,2,4,6,7,8 and 16 had missed 1-2 companies in 1918.

They also had a special uniform. The 3rd batallion wore the J?ger uniforms, the 5th batallion wore pionier uniforms. The rest wore infantry uniforms. The mine-sweepers of all bataillons wore pionier uniforms with the shoulder straps "M.W."

The artillery detachment of the 5th btl. wore the artillery-uniform with a grenade upon the shoulder straps.The flame-throwers of the 5th btl. wore the uniform of the "Garde-Reserve-Pionier-Regiements" with laces at the collar and a skullhead upon the lower-arm (left).

To come to an end, here again the Sturmbataillone and the date of set-up)

1916: N? 1 ; N?2 ; N?3 (J?ger) ; N?4 ; N?5 (Rohr) ; N?6 (bavarian) ; N?7 ; N?8 ; N?9 ; N?10 ; N?11 ; N?12 ; N?15 (bavarian) ; N?16

1917: N?14 ; N?17

1918: N?18 ;

If we have one bataillon for one army, I don?t think they were the cream og the german army. What could they do in any strategic questions? Nothing.

They were brilliant in tactical solutions on regimental, maybe on divisional level.

Nevertheless I think, the were the forefathers of modern small, tactical units, who are used more and more in our times.

Edited April 26, 2009 by The Prussian

[Chris Boonzaier]

"Have they been trained better? I don?t know. Fact is, they had a better equipment than a regular infantry unit. They didn?t use rifles, they used carabines. The first Sturmtruppen were pioneers.

Major Calsow from the Pi.Btl.15 first formed a experimental troup, depending of 2 pioneer companies with shields and 1 detachment with 20 guns (3,7cm). They first operated at the front of Loretto. They failed.

The rest of those units came to the Armee-Abteilung Gaede. "

Hi,

I think they were without a doubt better trained, simply because they were in constant training whereas regular units were often for long periods in the front line. The men of the Sturmtruppen also trained other units, and there is no better way to really learn something than having to teach it to someone else.

So if you are constantly training, AND being used for assaults, you are much more active than other line units who waste long periods while artillery shoots at their trenches.

Even elite units like the Alpenkorps, 10RD, 50ID etc were trained by the Sturmtruppen and the knowledge was passed down to the infantry.

It is important to remember, the Sturm bataillonen were supposed (in the long run) to make themselves redundant, Ludendorff wanted the tactics passed down to the Infantry... once that had been achieved the SB themselves would have been little more than combat schools who did refresher course assaults for themselves at the front.

All in all I think the SB WERE an elite, cream of the crop organization, The men were selected, better trained, better fed and I dare say the unit pride gave them a better moral.... What I wonder though (the main theme of the thread) was this selection of men to the detriment of other units? Was the SB gain, another units loss? Did the fact that there were SB lead to a lowering of quality in the regular Infantry regiments?

Loretto and the Calsow period I think should be kept separate as it was really a "staggering around blindly" period before any theory had been decided on.

All the best

Chris

[The Prussian]

Hi Chris!

Yes, I agree with you, but I think the word "cream" is a wrong one. The "lessons", they gave to other units, were the experiences of a maximum of 1,5 years of combat.

A cream for me, is a bigger unit, that could make a battle won. A bataillon in an army was not able to fight against an enemy division, how ever the strenghth of the enemy was.

What I wanted to say is, the Sturmtruppen were an effective small unit in tactical cases and, of course, in the psychological case. Do you know any battle, won only by the stormtroopers?

In battle, if they were in the frontline, they had a lot of suffers. But they hadn?t an "Ersatz" company. So the new soldiers couldn?t get the experience in a short time. So I don?t think, they were fit for action for 100% each day.

I?d rather be saying that, if you use the word "cream", one better takes this word the old guard-units.

[Chris Boonzaier]

Agreed,

I think we are tripping over how each of us uses the word "Cream"

It is sure that no SB on its lonesome ever won a major battle, but worth noting that in the 1918 offensives most of the spearheading divisions had not only been trained by the SB, but the front units were accompanied by elements (Mostly companies) of the various SB to provide on the spot tactical aid (either advice, muscle or moral). This inspite of the fact that they had already been trained in SB methods.

Best

<Chris

[The Prussian]

By the way, Chris, do you know books about the Sturmtruppen? Here in Germany I can?t find anything good.

Specially I?m looking for informations, in which battles the SBs were active. Most of the german books only go down on regimental level

Edited April 26, 2009 by The Prussian

[Chris Boonzaier]

There is indeed little.

I have been working with a photocopy of the "Aufbau und Verwendung der Deutschen Sturmbataillone im Weltkrieg" by Hellmuth Gruss (published 1939) for a few years. It is not a bad basic start.

A French Book called "Les Gladiateurs"(Les formations offensives dans l'Armee allemande) by JC LaParra is pretty good.

"Stormtroop Tactics" by Bruce Gudmundsson was a good primer, but now way out of date.

There are a couple more floating around, but those are a good start.

I have some stuff ready for the website, but it still needs a bit of work.

Best

Chris

[bob lembke]

I think and have concrete evidence that the storm units (the original elite one battalion per army units) were picked men, and additionally were certainly better trained. Unfortunately I have to go out in a few minutes so I cannot respond in detail now, but will later.

No mention was made of Garde=Reserve=Pionier=Regiment (Flammenwerfer) , my father's unit, which arguably was both the first and the largest of the original storm units. He was also lent to the Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 3 (Rohr) at Verdun several times to provide additional Flammenwerfer support. (Rohr did have one Zug of their own FW.) He loved fighting with those professionals, entirely professional and reliable.

I have concrete evidence from my father's Militaer=Pass that the physical standards were higher for Sturm=Truppen.

Bob Lembke

[bob lembke]

Edited April 26, 2009 by bob lembke

[Chris Boonzaier]

I have concrete evidence from my father's Militaer=Pass that the physical standards were higher for Sturm=Truppen.

Bob Lembke

Would love to see it...

[The Prussian]

Me too, mate!!!

[bob lembke]

Would love to see it...

I'm still not out the door.

The Pass has an entry "k.v., but not for Flammenwerfer", or "fit for combat, but not with flamethrowers". His second wound at Verdun was the worst of his four wounds, and his arm spit bone for over ten years, and he was sent back to Berlin to train other men. When things went bad in Fall 1918 he tricked his way back to the front, quickly was wounded twice again, and the command was very angry with him. So he was fit for combat, but not to the standards of Garde=Reserve=Pionier=Regiment (Flammenwerfer).

When Jaeger=Bataillon Nr. 3 was converted to Jaeger=Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 3, although I would consider the former unit an elite unit, they found that 500 men had to be sent to other units, and replaced with picked men.

Generally you only have to look at photos of men from one of these units, they are taller, in part, young, generally quite fit looking. Generally they only wanted EM that were under 25 and single. I think that they were generally but not universally volunteers. G=R=P=R was, I think, mostly if not exclusively volunteers, and at the beginning entirely firemen, interestingly. (When I speak of "G=R=P=R" I also mean the predecessor units, like Abteilung Reddemann, as well as the regiment itself, formed in mid-1916).

They certainly were better trained, and did a lot of live firing exercises, sometime losing men in the process. Both the unit history and my father said that the GRPR, as much as possible, avoided fighting in cooperation with infantry, as they were unreliable and did not understand their unusual tactics. Sometimes GRPR cadre were able to train infantry units for a few days before a big attack.

However, the storm units that were later developed in line infantry units, sometimes a company per regiment or division, were quite uneven in quality, I believe.

The Austrians actually seem to have developed more storm units per division than the Germans, and, from my readings, towards the end of the war were sometimes the only units that would still fight.

Bob Lembke

[Chris Boonzaier]

When Jaeger=Bataillon Nr. 3 was converted to Jaeger=Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 3, although I would consider the former unit an elite unit, they found that 500 men had to be sent to other units, and replaced with picked men.

Generally you only have to look at photos of men from one of these units, they are taller, in part, young, generally quite fit looking. Generally they only wanted EM that were under 25 and single.

Indeed... but here are my thoughts....

500 men of the 3rd J?ger may have been older, it does not mean the 500 that then came were Olympic contenders, just younger and fresher...

We often read (in post war literature) that SB gathered together the best men to the detriment of the other units...

My thoughts... I think thats BS.

Why?

Because there were no recruiting drives in line regiments taking their best elements to join the SB.

The Ersatz for each of the SB was quite simply an Ersatz battalion somewhere that MAY have skimmed of the youngest and fittest for the SB (They were also responsible for supplying their parent units), but these Ersatz Batallion only had what happened to come through their doors, like any other.

Lets take SB Rohr, replacements came from the Ersatz Batallion of Pi35.

Pi. 35 had men sent to them like a thousand other Ersatz battalions in Germany. They had to supply Pionier Regiment 35 and Rohr. It is possible that the better men went to Rohr, but that still means for 250 men to Rohr, it was the best 250 men of 600 men in the depot. (Not a "best out of 50!" thing)

There was no army wide recruiting drive saying "all the best may volunteer to join the SB".....

The SB were beholden to an Ersatz Battalion that received the same quality of recruits than the Ersatz Battalion in the next Kasserne....

If you were young and eager and your local Ersatz Battalion was the EB of the I.R.111, you may have a chance of getting sent to the SB 7.

If you were just as young and eager and your local Ersatz Battalion was the EB of the I.R.112, you would not.

So, basically, as I see it, the SB simply got the best of the Ersatz Battalion that was responsible for them. That battalion in turn had the same average of good and bad recruits as 1000 other Ersatz Battalions in Germany. There may have been a group of super soldiers at the EB for IR112... and they would go on to serve in IR112.

Seen that way, the material that came to the SB was probably slightly better than the average soldier, but NOT the finest men selected from all the serving units.

Any thoughts?

[Deruelle]

Hi,

If you want s very interresting book about Sturmtruppen, you have to buy the following one :

LARCADE (Jean-Louis), Deutsche Sturmtruppen, troupes d'assaut allemandes 1914-1918, Edition des ARgonautes, 2002, isbn : 2-9515172-2-2

Regards

Christophe

[Chris Boonzaier]

Hi,

I will definately look for it...

Is it better than Jean Claude Laparra's?

Best

Chris

[Deruelle]

Oh yes Chris, a very pleasant and well illustrate book.

Here is the adress where you can find it

EDITIONS DES ARGONAUTES

1 ROUTE DE LA BASSONIERE

27410 LES JONQUERETS DE LIVET

39 euros without shipping..

voil? mon ami

Christophe

[Bruce I Gudmundsson]

I've not done any serious research on the Sturmbataillone in more than twenty years. However, precis of the wartime careers of individual soldiers suggest that the Sturmbataillone did, in fact, accept volunteers from other units. In particular, if the anecdotes I remember are at all typical, former cavalrymen were well represented.

Some Sturmbataillone, moreover, had originally been created at the front from men already at the front. Once they were formally established, these battalions were linked to Ersatz organizations at home. The original members of the unit, however, would probably have come from a variety of arms and regiments.

The assault units that failed to become full-fledged Sturmbataillone, many of which existed for relatively short periods of time, necessarily drew their men from units already at the front. Of course, the quality of these ad hoc units must have varied greatly, but that is another story.

By the way, Chis is quite right about my Storm Troop Tactics being outdated. If I were to write it today, it would be a very different book. Of course, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't go out and buy it. After all, I have two children at university! ;)

Edited April 28, 2009 by Bruce I Gudmundsson

[Chris Boonzaier]

By the way, Chis is quite right about my Storm Troop Tactics being outdated. If I were to write it today, it would be a very different book. Of course, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't go out and buy it. After all, I have two children at university!

Hi,

Not to knock the book at all, it was a groundbreaker and I always have it at hand. Anyone doing any work on the subject afterwards has benefited enormously from the book, and from the fact that they have the WWW to aid in research (a tool not to be underestimated).

Best

Chris

[bob lembke]

First of all, Bruce's book is an extraordinary work, and I for one would not call it dated. I got a copy at the very onset of my serious WW I study, and it was really formative. I generally avoid working with secondary sources, unless perhaps to orient myself when taking up a new topic within the field, but I place the book in the small set of nominally secondary sources that I regard as a primary source, or even have a higher regard for, as a fine military mind has already filtered through the many primary sources used in its creation.

It is clear that the storm units received men and officers from a variety of sources. I am working with two others in attempting to identify the officers in an extraordinary photo taken in the officer's mess of a storm battalion, and front and center is an officer in a hussar's jacket, probably a migration like the many migrations of cavalry officers into the flying corps.

It has been pointed out that the initial batch of men that formed a storm battalion may have been really picked men, but that the following Ersatz may have been hit or miss. This may have been true, and "good" men were more and more scarce as the war went on, but I am sure that generally a fairly high standard was usually applied to Ersatz for the storm units. What was not mentioned is the fact that usually these units suffered relatively light casualties, for a variety of reasons, major ones being the skill of the men and officers, and the fact that they were not kept in line, but resided in barracks well behind the lines, usually being trucked in for a quick, well-planned operation, and then quickly withdrawn. In other posts I have detailed how the CO of a flame unit sent to support an attack by an infantry unit, who may have only been a senior NCO, had, based on an order from the OHL, to right to veto a plan of attack, which may have been drawn up by or for a Generalleutnant, if the junior officer or NCO felt that the plan did not reflect the unique characteristics of the flame weapon. I do not know the analogous situation for the "ordinary" storm battalions, who were often doled out piecemeal to stiffen larger units.

I only have worked on the details of this question of low casualties for my father's storm unit, which was, for unique reasons, documented meticulously by a CO who was a published scientist, as he had to report every attack, however small, in detail to the OHL on a monthly basis, reporting to a very, very smart staff officer. The flame regiment, across the entire war, lost barely more than one man to KIA, died of wounds or illness, or missing, per flame attack. I know that this seems counter-intuitive, and is counter to the common literary device (a la Alistair Horne) of the "exploding flamethrower", or the "flamethrower operator enveloped in flame", and my father and grand-father argued about this in their correspondence, but the figures are clear. My father, in a letter, described a flame attack in which three men were lost, and 12 wounded, as "a catastrophe". This is remarkable, as some flame attacks involved two or six FW teams, plus other flame pioneers, but many involved 30-odd or 60-odd or even more FW teams, and my tally for the largest FW attack was 154 FW teams, while another author puts that number considerably higher. (That attack also featured the highest FW casualty tally of the war, but an entire square mile of elaborate concrete fortifications were taken, and 4400 POWs, 27 MGs, and 12 mortars, at a cost of 21 men lost, including several died of wounds.)

Given this low casualty rate, there was less need for Ersatz, with its hypothesized dilution in quality of personnel. But it is true as the war went on the general quality of replacements for the German Army became rather bad. And, as observed, the men of the storm units were not Olympic gods, or Helden=tenors, just picked men. My father, when he joined the Pioniere at 18 years, was 6 foot tall, an athlete and a crack shot (trained from about 8 years old on the range by his father, a Prussian officer and a "gun nut"), had six languages (five taught in school, and self-taught Russian, as as a teen-ager he frequently went pre-war into Russia by himself for vacation and for work delivering payrolls in gold to German construction companies), had a Gymnasium education, one year of technical institute, and was a journeyman bricklayer; he was training to become a Festungsbau=Offizier. Upon joining the Pioniere in 1915 he volunteered for the volunteer Pionier=Kompagnie at Gallipoli, and when he got back and shook off his malaria he evidentially volunteered for the flame unit. (As I have studied his history, with the aid of considerable correspondence and family oral history, I have discovered that the young Georg was also a real hothead, a real thug, an all-around dangerous person, much different than his later persona.) I can't say that he was typical, but he certainly was good material for the storm-troops and a technical arm.

Bob Lembke

[Thomas W]

The flame-throwers of the 5th btl. wore the uniform of the "Garde-Reserve-Pionier-Regiements" with laces at the collar and a skullhead upon the lower-arm (left).

Just to clarify: The flamethrower pioneers of Sturmbataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr) wore Guard Pioneer uniforms with a red "5" on the shoulder straps. I have a photo that shows this. I can't post it because it's in my new book Flamethrower Troops of World War I: The Central and Allied Powers, which will be published by Schiffer later this year.

The flamethrower pioneers of Sturmbataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr) did wear the death's head sleeve badge, but directly below the left elbow, not on or above the left cuff as prescribed for the men of the Garde-Reserve-Pionier-Regiment. After February of 1916 Rohr's flamethrower pioneers came directly from the II. Garde-Pionier-Ersatz-Battalion. They served with Rohr an unspecified time and then many were transferred into the G-R-P-R.

When they joined the G-R-P-R, they moved their death's head sleeve badge into the lower position, on or directly above the cuff.

Here's a flamethrower pioneer of Sturmbataillon Nr. 14. The photo on the left was taken May 19, 1918, and the one on the right August 9, 1918. You can see that in May he still wore his sleeve badge in the upper position, as he had recently been transferred out of Rohr's battalion. By August he had moved the badge down to the cuff of his Bluse.

Edited April 28, 2009 by Thomas W

[bob lembke]

Tom;

Interesting and informative pair of photos. Almost certainly the most important single historical source on the German FW in WW I is the short history written by Major Dr. Reddemann, and while I judge that the material in the history is unusually accurate, Reddemann evidentally was annoyed at anything to do with FW that he could not control, or control completely, and he expressed it by simply not even mentioning, for example, a unit that he could not control. Therefore it is difficult to puzzle out the relationships between the various units involved with FW. The II. Garde=Pionier=Ersatz=Bataillon was deeply involved with the FW (my father repeatedly was transferred between the two units in his almost 2 1/2 years in the flamethrower service), but I believe that the name of the unit is not even mentioned in Reddemann's book. While he mentions the topic of the loan of FW platoons to storm battalions (later in the war each field company of G=R=P=R (Flammenwerfer) had one Zug (platoon) specially modified for loan to storm battalions), Reddemann (from memory) never seemed to mention the few storm battalions that were allowed to have their own FW platoons, like Sturm=Bataillon Nr. 5 (Rohr). (These units with their own FW were also allowed, upon occasion, to borrow additional FW from Reddemann; my father was loaned to Rohr several times at Verdun. He loved fighting with those professionals, and despised most German infantry, who he felt could not be trusted, probably an unfair judgement, but one born of experience.)

Bob

[Chris Boonzaier]

"First of all, Bruce's book is an extraordinary work, and I for one would not call it dated. I got a copy at the very onset of my serious WW I study, and it was really formative. I generally avoid working with secondary sources, unless perhaps to orient myself when taking up a new topic within the field, but I place the book in the small set of nominally secondary sources that I regard as a primary source, or even have a higher regard for, as a fine military mind has already filtered through the many primary sources used in its creation."

Noble defense Bob, but Bruce himself agrees that the book could use a major update. Much has been discovered over the last 20 years. I get the impression that you use mainly secondary source and not THAT much primary source?

[Chris Boonzaier]

"It has been pointed out that the initial batch of men that formed a storm battalion may have been really picked men, but that the following Ersatz may have been hit or miss. This may have been true, and "good" men were more and more scarce as the war went on, but I am sure that generally a fairly high standard was usually applied to Ersatz for the storm units."

A "High standard" was probably limited to "Young and fit".

Even when SB Rohr was increased from 2 to 4 Komp. no selection was made from front line units to do this. The Ersatz Battalion of P.B. 35 seems to have gathered infantrymen from the E.B. of different Infantry regiments in their area, the whole process taking less than 2 weeks... and whammo... 2 Kompagnies soon to be elite assault troopers were formed....

No Navy SEAL or SAS selection course needed....

[Chris Boonzaier]

"I only have worked on the details of this question of low casualties for my father's storm unit, which was, for unique reasons, documented meticulously by a CO who was a published scientist, as he had to report every attack, however small, in detail to the OHL on a monthly basis, reporting to a very, very smart staff officer."

Published scientist hin, published scientist her... as you know, his history of his unit was a pss poor effort and showed an objectivity deficiency...

[Chris Boonzaier]

"I know that this seems counter-intuitive, and is counter to the common literary device (a la Alistair Horne) of the "exploding flamethrower", or the "flamethrower operator enveloped in flame", "

Bob, I have on a number of occasions pointed out to you of period documented incidents of FW catching fire, on one occasion the same incident described by the Germans, AND the opposing French (I pointed this out to you 3-4 years ago, an incident on 304 or Mort Homme... you seen determined to ignore this as it does not fit your argument :-(