"WWII Orders of Battle and Organizations " Topic

Of posible interest?

link

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

Quick glance at things I know a lot seems to be missing or in error. How certain are you of the accuracy of this information??

Leo's site is one of the most well known and oldest sources for orders of battle (and more recently unit organization) on the web. He's worked for a long time in German archives in particular and has a series of books published by Military Press. If anyone has any queries with the information he'll usually respond to an email, just click on his homepage and then the email link to contact him.

Gary

I'd be very surprised to find that there are major errors in the information. The site has been around for a fair while and has generated discussion on many forums – often resulting in discussion and explanation or updating.

I'm sure that there will be gaps and there will always be differences between sources, even at this late date that is inevitable.

The problem comes when people using incorrect but familiar sources start to challenge those that have been well researched and documented. Which do you believe ?

Where are the errors, exactly?

Yes, I'd like Lee494 to list the errors he has found during his quick glance.

When you produce that much information there will be errors certainly, even if it's just plain typos, but I'd be interested to see a more detailed critique too.

Gary

The owner of the web site that you linked is Leo Neihorster, who published a series of books on the German OB's of W.W. II, as well as one on the Hungarian armed forces. His research is top-notch, and he often sites the original source documents (the KsTN's, in the case of the Germans). Leo freely admits that some of the org charts, particularly from the early part of the war, are not available – apparently it was German Army practice to discard the old KsTN tables once new ones had been issued. But that said, I believe his information to be reliable, making allowances for lost documentation and the errors that inevitably show up in records of that size.

Very useful site, especially now we've lost Bayonet Strength to the ether.

I'm getting bayonetstrength resurrected, it's just taking me a while. I'd considered doing a few things in a more cheap and cheerful format, just to get them back online, but I'm trying to avoid repetition and double handling, and I'm happy with the format I've laid out for the various infantry battalions. The German Inf/Gren Bn is largely done and fingers crossed will be up in a few weeks.

Gary

…a lot seems to be missing or in error.

Having dabbled* in the fields of historical research and writing, I might share my pretty strongly held belief that it is simply not reasonable to expect any published source to be fully complete and fully accurate.

That doesn't mean it's not a reasonable thing to strive for. But don't expect to hit that target. Just get as near as you can with the time and resource you have available to devote to the task.

Among the interesting aspects of online publishing (vs. old school printed books and such) is that you can, with relative ease, add new information, or correct mistakes, oversights, or mis-interpretations with relative ease. The downside of that, is that people seem to expect, as their birthright, that you WILL be adding and correcting information to anything you have ever published, FOREVER. It's a strange new social contract that authors never really endured in the past, as the work was "done" when the book went to print (unless you got a forward for a reprinting and updated version).

I hold Leo Neihorster's work in very high regard. And I have told him so in correspondence over the years.

I also hold Gary's work in high regard. To my discredit, I don't think I have ever before told him so. So, to remedy that failing, let me offer this posting as a testimony, or perhaps just an example of fan mail (fan post?).

Gary, the fact that you had the bayonetstrength site up as long as you did, with as much information as it had, places you in the annals of military history's dot-com wunderkind. I appreciate what you have done, and will be even more indebted to you if you succeed in creating a bayonetstrength 2.0 site. There is value in what you do, that is extracted by people you may never meet or even know of. So multiply my thanks by at least a 3 or 4 digit number to get any sense of the reality of the gratitude that follows your efforts. It is a great service to the military history and wargaming communities.

Now, can we badger you on your schedules and extract promises of publication dates that we can criticize you for missing later, or shall we just wait until you actually post some data that we can pick apart?

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

*Note: Dabbled only to the smallest extent compared to some of our esteemed cohorts here.