"Platoon/Company level radios in WWII" Topic

I've been trying to do some research on infantry use of radios in World War II. Am I right in thinking that the Americans were the only people to distribute a really effective radio as far down as Platoon commanders in the infantry? I've read that British platoon radios were withdrawn, and other nations never issued them because the technical challenges of making a reliable, man-portable radio for platoon-level use were just too great.

I understand that wire communications were extensively used by Artillery OPs, but in infantry practice were mainly used from Battalion HQ upwards.

I'm also interested in allocation of radios at the company level.

All the data I've found on the web or in my meagre WWII library is either highly technical about the equipment itself, or very vague. I'm really interested in the tactical/practical impact for the troops on the ground. Can anyone point me to something more suitable.

Many thanks in advance.

Andrew

The Germans actually had a limited issue of a tactical/platoon radio, but it was very late war (late '44 IIRC) and not very widespread. I have an article written by the (in)famous Art Obermyer, who used the one he had picked up in 1945 as the example. I dont believe it worked very well, something about cramming tubes into a small package made it sort of self-limiting....

It was kind of cool, though. Small enough that it clipped to a soldiers Y-strap on the left or right shoulder.

'It was kind of cool, though. Small enough that it clipped to a soldiers Y-strap on the left or right shoulder'

So it was cool to look at, hi-tech, hardly any of them reached the troops and (whisper it) it wasn't actually very effective?

Sounds like authentic WWII German equipment.

That confirms my understanding that Germans essentially didn't have radios at the infantry platoon level, which is really helpful. I presume they did have them at company level, or was it only from Battalion upwards?

Thanks a lot

Andrew

"Sounds like authentic WWII German equipment."

LOL, too true.

I think the Feldfu "B" and others (I cant recall all the various models off the top of my head) were issued on a company level for most of the war, not sure if any were issued on a platoon level. I would tend to doubt it, except for certain special units.

The SCR-536 handi-talkie was not really an 'effective radio'. The range was really short. Last summer I helped a friend get two working and the range was negliable. Yes it was 60 years old, but it was an interesting experiment. They are very vunerable to obstacles and really only work line of sight.

My favorite story was a friend crossing the Roer and he was trying to talk to a guy on the other bank he could see- no contact. SO he wrapped the antenna around a tree and left it there vowing never to carry one again.

In my dad's regiment they had a good radio repairman, and they grabbed every SCR-300 they could find. By war's end they had a pile of them and would use those for even minor things like LP's.

Wire was used a lot down to platoon. The wartime sound powered phone (many still work today just fine) are cool! need no batteries- just a handset and wire.

Wire communications were definitely used a lot, especially in static positions. It also has some advantages over radios, which can be located by their signal, jammed with other radios or listened to easily.

Wire communications are still commonly used in military, I spent many unhappy hours laying wire during my service.

As for Germans, remember that in tank formations they were issuing radios to every tank, unlike Soviets who for long only had one radio per platoon. From what I have heard Red Army was quite sort of radios in general, sometimes with only one radio per batallion.

Griefbringer

In early 1943 the NZ Division didn't have reliable (any!)communications between battalion and company in attacks, let alone down to platoons. I believe this was normal in British forces at the time. Later radios down to company level were common.

Cheers

and how many photos have you seen of german commanders in the back of a half track crammed full of radios, seems to have helped with the flexibility in attack

Radios began to be used more as the war progressed from what I understand. 1939-41, they were pretty much restricted to Battalion level, with some presence at Company HQ.

Later war, these are a few examples of radio distribution - British Inf Bn, a No.18 set for Rifle Coy HQ, with a No.38 set for two Rifle Pls, perhaps all three. The No.38 sets were pooled with enough for two per Coy so someone else had to do without to fully equip a Coy.

US Inf Bn, one set for each Rifle Coy HQ from the Comm Pl, with one set per Rifle Pl and the Weapons Pl. There was also a 'spare' set for any attached FOO.

German Inf Bn, I don't know about radios but there were four signallers at Coy HQ, which would suggest four sets, but it could have been less.

That's only in relation to marching infantry units of course, mechanised troops would have one set with each Pl as well as Coy HQ.

I thought the Panzers only had one set per Platoon, with the leader's vehicle? I remember reading something about Platoon sets being set to receive only, with Company sets being able to transmit and receive. Or am I getting confused with the cold war Red Army in my old age...

My Grandfather was in the Pacific during WW2. At wars end, before they shipped him home, he wrote about the immense waste of materiel. On Guam, his last duty station before coming home, he said that there were huge stockpiles of stuff left in the jungles. Many of the stockpiles became overgrown but the diligent only needed to search to find them.

From these stock piles he sent home tubes of shaving cream which he, my dad, and my uncle used until the early 60s when they finally ran out.

Among other things he also sent home a few sets of the EE-8 field phones. Still have them today and they still work great.

Not related to radios but we also have his cavalry uniform from the 30s, really cool stuff.

Gary

I believe your thinking about the Red Army, not the Germans. Supposedly, later in the war the Soviets began using reciever/transmitters in all thier tanks, not just command tanks. Seems as if I've read that somewhere.

The early German tank platoons only had a send/receive set in the platoon commanders vehicles, the others were receive only.

Anyway, the original Q was about allocation of radios to the infantry. The short answer is that these were fairly few and far between below battalion level in any army, and even if they were, manpack radios were so unreliable that they weren't much use anyway. Runners, flares and perhaps more importantly liaison vehicles like jeeps, scout cars, motorcycles etc were much more useful.

Radios which were either permanently mounted in vehicles or spent most of thier time in vehicles (such as artillery FOs or those allocated to formation HQs) of course worked rather better. IIRC British Company HQ trucks were often used as a radio truck, although whether the company CO would be very keen on this bumping along behind him in full view of the enemy in the middle of a battle is another matter. The main function of the scout cars assigned to armoured regiments was to provide vehicle mounted radio sets on the same net as the tanks to other units, despite the tendency of rules writers to think they were used for recce! They were also used to bring up vital supplies like cigarettes and tea.

Cheers
Martin

Infantry tactics rely on inter communication between elements. British infantry post D-Day had a theoretical allocation of radios to Platoon level, No.18 sets to Coy level, No.38 sets at platoon.

The problem occurs when you look at the technology available. There were never enough radios, especially when breakages were common often due to man-handling. The company runners were kept busy - and should be factored into games at this level. Remember non of the radios were of any use while moving.

Higher up (Company and above) radios were often kept either static or in vehicles where practical. There was a distinct diference between communication within the Bn. and external traffic. From his Tactical HQ, the CO had specific communication to the units in his command, or directly supporting him. All this was handled by men from the battalion (or supporting units attached to Tac.HQ - artillery liaison, Tank Sqn commander).

Communication with Brigade and higher formations (including non-integral support - eg. air assets or Divisional artillery) was through Battalion HQ (usually about a mile back from Tac.HQ) the traffic was handled by attached Royal Signals personnel (under an officer) assisted by clerks etc. from the Bn. under the 2IC. Information was filtered and what was pertinent passed forward to Tac.HQ.

Unfortunatly organisational charts tend to to take no account of this split. Generally in a Batallion level game Tac HQ should comprise the CO, RSM, a signaller with 18set and about 4-6 men including runners and drivers, usually with a jeep or scout car for the CO, a Universal Carrier and a motorbike for the RSM (at least). The Intelligence Officer and two of his men could also be around to advise, with their jeep and trailer. You might also have a carrier or scout car with the Artillery subaltern and signaller representing the battery in support, etc. You don't need to represent the whole circus of HQ vehicles and personnel.

I hope this helps.

Keith Matthews

"Runners, flares and perhaps more importantly liaison vehicles like jeeps, scout cars, motorcycles etc were much more useful."

As for liaison vehicles, do not forget bicycles and horses - they were the usual choices for that role in less mechanised armies.

Griefbringer

Thanks for the further comments.

I have read that the British largely gave up on the 38 set after Normandy, as it wasn't really any use, but this is the first time I had come across criticism of the US equipment, that's really useful.

I've also read accounts of British infantry using the communications network of attached tanks to contact their own CO - clearly this wasn't an isolated experience.

To come clean on my reasons for starting the thread, I have been playing a bit of Crossfire recently, and whilst ts a great game, I've had trouble reconciling these little Artillery FOs zipping around the place and platoons/companies cheerfully changing their thrust line & mission all the time with what I understand WWII to have been like at the battlaion/company/platoon level.

To my mind, if you reflect the idea that effective communications are either (a) static (whether wire or carefully tended radio) or (b) vehicle-mounted, that has a big impact on command and control, right down to the company level. I know that British battalion-level attacks were extensively pre-planned whenever possible, but some books discuss this as a British-specific weakness. It sounds to me (as I've suspected) that it was more of a neccessity in view of the technology available.

I am interested in your sources for the British giving up on the 38 set. I have not heard this, for its day it is a nice piece of kit, well respected amongst the amateur radio people I know.

I am aware the general feeling amongst those needing to communicate (platoon/coy officers) was that all radios were too suceptible to local conditions, damage or interference to be relied upon. At platoon to company level pre-arranged waves, flares or runners were tried and tested.

Keith

"To come clean on my reasons for starting the thread, I have been playing a bit of Crossfire recently, and whilst ts a great game, I've had trouble reconciling these little Artillery FOs zipping around the place and platoons/companies cheerfully changing their thrust line & mission all the time with what I understand WWII to have been like at the battlaion/company/platoon level."

Umm, well the 'zipping around' in CF is partly supposed to represent the initiative of the platoon commanders & some armies are better at this sort of thing than others. I do agree that there are some jarring oddities in the way that CF plays, especially over-reliance on smoke delivered with a precision and timelines whic modern armies can only envy.

The tactical flexibility of sections and platoons in many wargames is somewhat at variance with real battles where company COs had to walk several yards in front of their platoons yelling and pointing just to get them to go in roughly the right direction! "It is all I can do to get the men to climb out of their foxholes, walk forward two hundred yards and then dig in again". Having said that, the whole point of post 1916 infantry tactics was that platoon commanders had a degree flexibility in how they achieved their missions, in particular choice of approach routes & use of ground.

Cheers
Martin

'I am interested in your sources for the British giving up on the 38 set. I have not heard this, for its day it is a nice piece of kit, well respected amongst the amateur radio people I know.'

I'm not sure I can remember where I read it so place no weight on my views (although 'my batman can't use this bl**dy thing' isn't incompatible with the same piece of kit being well-regarded amongst better-informed users)

Martin - good points. I'm more interested in how you re-role a platoon or company (turn your intended feint attack into a genuine one when you see resistance is weak, call off an attack when you see it is too strong). These things are often quite easy to do in wargames - not just CF by any means - but were very hard in WWII, as far as I can see. CF has just concentrated my mind on a perennial wargamers' issue.

Thanks for your responses. Does anyone know a good book I could read, or even a website?

Andrew

No specifics on radios I am afraid but for a real feel of a British Infantry Battalion in action you can't do better than :

Martin Lindsay - 'So Few Got Through'. Back in print recently. Lindsay was 2IC 2nd Gordon Highlanders, the title refers to Company Commanders! Sorry mine is an early edition so no ISBN.

Keith

BTW I wargame IIWW using my own rules with people I know, know the subject. Trying to write and control the unwritable is a bummer!

In our own game (Disposbale Heroes/Coffin for Seven Brothers), you can take radios in your platoons, but the only use they have in game is spotting for a mortar off board and even that use is very limited as it doesn't help too much.

Most people don't use them in game and we designed it that way because our own research indicated exaclty what you guys have been mentioning: that they were pretty useless. I kind of like having the model in the unit, but don't expect them to be running around directing artillery and doing much.

We like to say in our own games that the radio op guy is good for tuning in some music for the Platoon commander to enjoy...

"Martin - good points. I'm more interested in how you re-role a platoon or company (turn your intended feint attack into a genuine one when you see resistance is weak, call off an attack when you see it is too strong)."

Like Keith, I tend to play with other people who are clued up on WW2 infantry tactics and we play with our own rules in a somewhat gentlemanly manner - remembering which sections/platoons have been told to do what and imposing suitable delays on order changes etc. It helps to have umpire(s) for this sort of thing.

"Thanks for your responses. Does anyone know a good book I could read, or even a website?"

The mission changes you have mentioned above are really the role of the battalion commander or possibly the company CO - to turn a feint attack into the the real thing will require the commitment of his reserve (he does _have_ reserve doesn't he?), to call an attack off requires the issuing of a halt order, hopefully before the chaps beat themselves to pieces and just give up. In one of those 'mission directed' type armies of course the platoon commanders will all just be wandering around doing their own thing, shooting at each other by mistake etc;-)

A decent primer is: 'Infantry Tactics 1939-45' by Anthony Farrar Hockley. Long OOP but I've seen lots of copies second hand in military booksellers. Whilst it emphasises the British Army at least it has a go at covering other nationalities as well, especially the Germans up to battalion level.

The US Army Handbook of German Military forces (pub 1945) is also very useful for what the Germans got up to. I dug around on the internet to find this, IIRC HPS (computer games company) has the chapter on tactics on its website.

The real 'horses mouth' are of course the relevant manuals (which is why the english translation of the German ones above is useful). The British March 1944 Platoon Commanders handbook covers the drill for all sorts of interesting military operations, from the endlessly reproduced 'how to outflank the mysteriously isolated group of German riflemen' and 'how to walk down the road' to the less reproduced 'how to clear a wood', 'how to clear a village' and 'how to assault a pillbox'. It is not too hard to pick this up from military booksellers or at militaria shows, although sadly IRL the drills contained therein were found to be far too complicated for all but the best trained & experienced troops to execute but they at least give an idea of what was thought to be possible.

Hersants (?) have done some reprints of WW1 Manuals which are also relevant - the 1916 one covering Divison level assaults (done _after_ the Somme!) and the 1917 one covering platoon tactics. Well worth the money and very interesting, again for an idea of what was considered possible. A distillation of some of these can be found in Paddy Griffiths 'British Army Battle Tactics 1916-18'.

The main thing that strikes me about all of these tactical approaches, even the mighty Germans, is how formal and ponderous they all here. It could be argued that doing it 'by the book' does not necessarily produce an interesting game, unless you are interesting in simulating such things. Being an utter dweeb I even give the players their briefings in Information, Intention, Method format - none of this new fangled OPORD stuff...

Cheers
Martin

"It could be argued that doing it 'by the book' does not necessarily produce an interesting game,"

It could also be claimed that doing things "by the book" became less common once units actually got to the field and into action.

Griefbringer

One example of a problem wargames need to cope with is the difference between expectation (upon which the plan is made) and reality.

For example the Company commander points to a building on the map and says 1 Platoon assault and occupy HERE, supported by 2 Platoon on this wooded ridge HERE with 3 Platoon blocking the road to the south HERE

1 Platoon advance to find the building is a group of 3 farm buildings, well occupied

2 Platoon find the wood has been felled and the ridge gives no safe cover or a view of the buildings to give covering fire

3 Platoon find the road blocked and cratered beyond all possible use

How do the 'eyes' communicate with the head (the OC) and decisions get made and relayed?

Most of us have to put up with 'eye of god' techniques because there are few practical alternatives - one character can see a target so it is put on the board for all to instantly respond to, a possible representation of instant, perfect, radio chatter. Radical solutions (I have participated in all of these) are;
to play on a master board with no players in the room but having 'reports' relayed to them by radio or telephone (baby alarms in our case!). You can succumb and allow them the occasional random 'fly by' or polaroid (now digital) photo recce.
to play with loads of people commanding sub units thus introducing mis understood commands, personal traits. etc.

Otherwise, in my experience, reality must be sidelined for a playable interesting game. I am not a fan of innumerable rolls for 'does the radio work' the CO can only interpret one waved signal per 1/4 turn' etc, etc. I have a life to get on with.

Hi. German field radios/trancievers during ww2 is a very neglected and mostly forgotten theme of ww2. The main reason for this is that very few of these radios have survived the 40's and 50's, as the allied orders was to destroy, and dismantle ALL German radio equippement after the war. This was done partly to use the radio-parts to build civillian radios, and partly of the complete de-militarisation and down-arnament program of post war Germany. It is true that they have a limited range, and that they are vounerable to obsticles, but this goes for all ww2 transportable field radios. The main reason for this is that the radios at the time was amplitude modulated and not frequenzy modulated, as in modern radios.
The first mentioned tranciever in this thread - referred to as late '44 IIRC - It's real name is Kleinfunksprecher d, or as the Germans nick-named it - Dorette. This was the smallest two way wireless developed by the Germans during ww2. It came to Infantry service in october 1944, and was produced until may 1945. These radios are actually WERY reliable, and have a effective range up to 2 kilometers. I just traded away a kleinfunksprecher in working condition just before christmas for a Feldfu b
Here's a couple of links to pictures of the Kleinfunksprecher that I traded away:

picture

picture

picture

The Feldfu series of radios was the smallest of the back pack radios, that the Germans had. (They were made to be mounted on the D-rings on the Y-strap)These radios were issued in large scales to all parts of the German Wehrmacht, and SS. I have now 2 original un-messed with Feldfu b's, both in very good working condition. The Feldfu b tranciever transmitts and recieves from 90 mHz to 110 mHz, and have a effective range of 1,2 kilometers. it's output effect is 0,15 Watts. Here's a list of the Feldfu series frquenzies:

Feldfu.a 120...156MHz
Feldfu.b 90.....110MHz
Feldfu.b1 90...110MHz
Feldfu.b2 90...110MHz
Feldfu.c 130...160MHz
Feldfu.e .........75MHz
Feldfu.f 27,8.....32,2MHz
Feldfu.f1 27,8...32,2MHz
Feldfu.h 23,1....25,0MHz
Reference: Kommerzielle Nachrichtengeräte von 1914-1945, Heeres Dienstvoerschriften D 998/1 und D 998/5

The Feldfu b frequenzies was designated for the infanterie.
Here are a few links to pictures of one of the Feldfu's that I have (I havent had the time to take any photos of my newest Feldfu yet)

picture

picture

picture

picture

picture

Anyway Speaking from my own first-hand experience with these over 60 years old radios, I can reassure you that They are surprisingly stabile and does not resemble anything like the "junk" as described in previous posts in this thread.
I even use the original German ww2 issue 2,4 Volt NiCa wet-cell batteries (!) to power these radios. These batteries seem to last for ever, when treated right (change of electrolyt) and recharged.
If anyone are interested, I can provide pictures of these batteries, and the electronics inside these radios as well. I have also complete scans of the original German ww2 issue instruction books and workshop manuals for them. (these scans are of such high resolution, that they have to be sendt via e-mail, if someone are interested)
Best Regards
Björn
Norway

Björn, Thanks for sharing those pictures and the information.

Bjoern, thanks, those are cool. I did not mean to make the Dorrette sound like junk (heck, Arts radios all worked after all those years), only that compared to a Feldfu it didnt have much range, though I am surprised that it could go 2km. Thats actually not too bad for such a little package. My own faulty memory had them with a range of about 1km or so.

I suppose that would be a fairly easy thing to convert on a 28mm figure, some headphones and a small box/antenna on the front of a y-strap. :-)