"The MP44" Topic

I would like to know how many MP44s were issued per squad near the end of the war. Any help would be appreciated.

As many as they could get is my first thought, but….

Would depend on the troops, ie: Panzer Gren, Volks Gren, Infantry, Waffen SS.

My understanding was that there were 2 issued to each squad in the Gren (panzer and volks) and Waffen SS units. Less so to regular infantry if any.

IIRC, I thought when this was discussed before TMP link the opinion was that it would tend to be by platoon?

I am under the impression that the Volkssturm, during the Battle of the Bulge, were completely outfitted with them, to bolster their perceived physical weakness.

The /intention/ was to form "assault" platoons outfitted with them, with one of the squads carrying the MG42.

Both fitting the offensive nature that the German army wished to have and the fact that for an inexperienced commander, commanding 3 blocks of troops was easier than potentially 6 individual teams.

In reality, many never received their equipment and others were outfitted with MP40 instead.

In general, the MP44/StG is one of those "more common than some gamers think, less common than others think" outfits.

As above, the intention was to group them into platoons, not dole them out individually.

The commentary here is useful:

link

indeed, more common than one would think, Danny Parker in one of his several Bulge books states that because of the immediate issue of the new weapon for the offensive, it was the single most common sidearm in that battle.
He doesn't provide a source for this, but he usually knows his onions.
I suspect that it isn't actually true if you include all the Kar98's in the hands of rear echelon and artillery men etc, but could be when applied to rifle companies.

They were far more common than I used to think. According to Wikipedia 424,000 of them were made by the end of the war. I always thought they were more of a novelty that saw some use by the end of the war but were far too uncommon to make a difference. But even with my extremely limited research I find it hard to argue against my opponent in Bolt Action fielding a couple in each squad.