"Tank organization of the NVA 9th Panzer Div.?" Topic

I'm starting an East German force for Team Yankee, and I want to have some element of accuracy to my force. My main opponents will be the USA and UK (BAOR) so this indicates that I'm looking at the Northern army group and the 9th panzer division.

I have been trying to find what the division would be equipped with as far as tanks since I have read simultaneously that there were both T-72(M) and T-55(AM) and that the division was fully upgraded with T-72s and did not have T-55s at all.

I suppose it might depend on the specific year which I imagine is around 1985, although possibly later as I know that the USA player has the M1A1 Abrams and the UK player has Challengers and Warrior IFVs (which I think went into service in '84?) and if I want to include any Soviet forces they can now have T-80s and BMP-3s (which came out in '87?) so there is some leeway historically.

Can anyone help clear this up since I am finding it rather hard to get information online (as most of it doesn't go into detail about the NVA, just general Soviet forces in East Germany i.e. GSFG)

Thanks,

Wayne

Here you have good replays and links:
link

Enjoy :)

As I noted in my response to that original thread, in 85 Challengers and Abrams were pretty rare, despite what wargamers like to think. Mainstay of the US and BAOR were M60s and Chieftan.

As also noted, 9th Panzer had T72s in its tank regiments by 85 (but may well still have had T55 in the Mr Regiment). T72s are fine to fight M60s with.

@Perun That link was very helpful, thank you!

@Martin True, but I know for a fact the US player will field Abrams because they can (thanks WW2 GW--I mean Battlefront). The UK player I think is going to focus on Chieftains, mainly because Challengers are too expensive in-game. So from a pure gameplay perspective due to how Team Yankee's rules are the T-55 is much more efficient than the T-72 (since neither can match up against Chieftains/Abrams, let alone Challengers) because it's a good deal cheaper in points. So decisions, decisions…

Thanks,

Wayne

9th Panzer Division had 260 T72s and 60-odd T55s in 1985-6. One of the best trained and led formations in the entire WP. But morale and motivation would have varied quite a lot by time and circumstance I would have thought.

Almost all of the T72s East Germany had were in that Division at the time. They only bought a very few T62s (50 or so IIRC) but decided that they didn't offer much capability above their upgraded T55s so saved their Ostmarks and waited for the T72. The T62s were all in 4th MSD I think.

The vast majority of E German tanks were T55s, but they had much of their Soviet componentry- optics, fire control, radios, electrics, etc stripped out and replaced with home built kit which they felt was higher quality. Lots of WP countries did similar things of course- which made their real level of interoperability about as good as NATO's…..

Helpful, thank you. It sounds like I have enough leeway to do what I want, given that it was already varied in real life and likely would have changed had war really broken out then. I just did not want to do something completely anti-historical when building my force because I like some semblance of accuracy.

Also, the DDR NVA followed the Soviet organization, right? So did they have tank battalions in Motorized Rifle (Mot-Schutzen) divisions as the Soviets did? I know they only had the two actual panzer divisions, but I can't find out if that was where all their tanks were or if they divided them up so you had tank divisions backed up by motorized rifles and motorized rifles backed up by tanks.

Like the Soviets had tank battalions (with the lower-end tanks) attached to the rifle divisions as well as having their own full tank divisions (which had a rifle battalion). Did the East Germans follow that same organization?

Thanks,

Wayne

Happy wargaming- should be interesting to fight with. EG Division/Regiment/Battalion organisation was very similar to the basic Soviet pattern, so whatever goes for the Soviets goes for the EG too.

From its garrison location (Baltic coast back near Polish border), known pre-war deployment areas and likely line of advance, 9th Panzer would have been a second echelon formation.

In that case its probable main opponents would have been Dutch, maybe some Bundeswehr as their 3rd Panzer was detailed to assist the Dutch at least in initial phases.

The 3rd Brigade (Forward) of the US 2nd AD (and possibly other units of US III Corps) were also potential opponents. This Brigade was, by 1985, fully equipped with Abrams/Bradley I believe.

BAOR possible opponents depending on how the first days went but there were a lot of other EG and Sov Divisions to the South of the 9th Panzer's area who would have been closer to the Brits.

Wayniac, I was doing a bit of checking re comparative Soviet/EG Divisional orbats. I noticed that both the 7th and 9th Pz Div both had about 140 BMPs in 1985 (about 25% BMP2). By contrast most Soviet Tank Divisions in GSFG at that time had about 230-240 BMP.

I extrapolate that in this period the EG Pz Div Tank Regiments each still had only a Motor Schutzen Company. The GSFG used to have that organisation too, but in the ?c mid-1970s had expanded the Infantry complement of their Tank Regiments to a full Battalion. Looks like the EGs didn't follow suit.

Also for UK I don't think Warriors came in until 1989.

Challenger 1s were introduced starting in 84.

Battler-good points but dates actually slightly earlier- Challenger 1983 (Royal Hussars, 7th Armoured Brigade), Warrior 1988 (1st Bn The Grenadier Guards in 4th Armoured Brigade).
Challenger deliveries were slowed because of gearbox problems and the RH didn't get their last tanks till 1984 however.

You have all been very helpful, thank you! I'm not too worried about accuracy since battlefront has kind of thrown that out the window anyway but I don't want to deviate too much if you get what I mean.

Now it's just a shame that there is no good plastic T-72M. Battlefront's model is not accurate at all and rather poor quality and Zvezda has the T-72B which wasn't used by EG. Alas.

Thanks,

Wayne

" from a pure gameplay perspective due to how Team Yankee's rules are the T-55 is much more efficient than the T-72 (since neither can match up against Chieftains/Abrams, let alone Challengers)"

Nothing like kicking NATO with a bunch of T55s :)

In my 1981 set WW3 (I have peculiar love for the bizarre TF organisation of the BAOR) my NVA units mainly seem to end up fighting the BW. A real grudge match. I use the SPI board game BAOR to regulate the action.