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 By the way, Chis is quite right about my Storm Troop Tactics being outdated.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! ;)

I don't know much about the evolution of Train units during the war. I do know, however, that the pre-war German Army had one train battalion for each peacetime army corps, and that the number of this battalion corresponded to the number of the army corps. Thus the Train battalion of I. Armee Korps was Train Bataillon Nr. 1. Short (less than 20 pages) regimental histories exist for most of the peacetime Train battalions. I've not seen any of these, but I suspect that they are little more than lists of the many wartime units descended from the "mother" unit. Reading several of these, however, would probably give a good sense of the sorts of Train units that were formed, naming conventions, and the like. You may also want to search for A. von Haldenwang, Feldverwaltung, Etappe und Ersatzformationen im Weltkrieg, 1914-1918, (Stuttgart: Berger, 1925). This is Volume 19 of the series W?rttembergs Heer im Weltkriege.