Infos about early/mid eighties Bundeswehr

[carlos marighela]

Oh and for uniform colours I have gone with Vallejo Field grey with a grey-green dry brush on mine. It looks about right.

[Jemima Fawr]

This is, because there is no Y in any registration, which identifies regions or cities on civilian license plates. X is the same, but reserved for German military vehicles under direct NATO command.
Heraldics were not uncommon, but officially not part of any paint scheme (not allowed, but accepted). Tactical markings on front and rear were always on the driver's side (left hand drive in Germany). The MLC markings were on the front right and on the right door (tanks only on the front right).

Iron crosses only on armoured vehicles left and right side, never on softskins! Here is a little celection of some from that era which I've painted:


All above explained here:

https://www.panzerbaer.de/colours/a_relaunch/bw_tarn_fz_mark-a.htm

Hi Wellington,

what you are looking for is the Heeresstruktur IV. Google it in addition with the units you want to know about (e.g. Panzergrenadierbataillon, Panzerkompanie, Pionierzug, Jägergruppe, Sanitätstrupp etc.):
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliederung_des_Heeres_(Bundeswehr,_Heeresstruktur_4)

Cheers

Michi

Excellent!  Thanks for the explanation re the 'Y'.  I've never seen the 'X'.

And yes, I should have stipulated ARMOURED vehicles with crosses (and AFV numbers) and that the unit badges were unofficial markings and weren't universal (I was writing in a hurry).

One I forgot was the bridge-class plate always painted on the front.  During the yellow-olive era, this was a golden/orangey-yellow disc with the weight class in black (much like WW2 British).  During the three-colour camo era it became a low-vis version; typically a black disc with weight class number in light grey.

[Jemima Fawr]

Quite right. Lots of misinformation and 90% of Google searches in English comes back with some nonsense from Team Wankee. As someone who has been searching on and off for a long time for platoon and company level organisations under Heerestruktur 4 I feel your pain.

The Gliederung for the Heer as a whole is readily accessible, albeit it changed significantly across the decade. STANS for all types of unit down to company level are easily found, there's an amazing number of ex-comrades sites that go into meticulous detail about which units were part of which brigade/ division.

It's below company level that it all gets a lot harder.  There's also quite a bit of variety between various types of units, panzergrenadiers in Marder, in the MTW (M113) and the various jager units. Much of the info supplied in the other thread is correct but my research (and I don't claim to be an expert on these things) suggest that there is quite a bit of misinformation around the Marder borne panzergrenadiers.

Many of the more accessible sites just show, if they show them at all, an organogram displaying the vehicles. In the case of the Marder zug, this is 3X Marders under HS4 , ie from 1980 through to the early 1990s. By the start of the 1980s the Marders had been fitted with provision for Milan. This was one per platoon at first but by the end of the decade, it had risen to two per platoon (I have seen no evidence that 3 per platoon was achieved in this period). The inclusion of the Milan reduced the available seating space in the Marder and the number of potential dismounts went from seven down to six.

As far as I can tell, the six dismounts were the assistant gruppe commander, an MG-3 gunner, a number 2 for the MG-3 with additional ammo and/or the spare barrel, a Pzf-44 rocket launcher and two additional riflemen. All save the machine gunner being G-3 armed, although several MP2 (Uzi) were available as weapons that could be fired from the ball mounts in the Marder or potentially used in the dismounted role.

From what I have found the platoon itself consisted of two such squads (gruppe) and a command squad (zugtrupp). This is clearly marked on period STAN diagrams, a copy of one such I will link to, in this case the example is the PzGren company of 361 Panzer Battalion. The command squad itself seems to have consisted of a Platoon commander, assistant platoon commander, two marksmen with G-3s and mounted optics, a radioman/signaller and and additional chap who is either the platoon medic/ supernumary or a spare rifleman depending on your source.  As you can see the infantry dismounts were fairly small in number. If the squad was carrying the Milan, the number of pure riflemen diminished even further and for this reason an additional panzergrenadier truppe was held at company level to bulk out the numbers.


Oddly enough, all this digging and diving merely brought me full circle as I was keen to test the credentials of the organisation provided in the Cold War supplement  to Force on Force., knowing that some of their info in other supplements was decidedly wrong. Pleased to say they seem to have been right all along. 

I'm still researching the Pzgren/jaeger company mounted in MTW but it's fair to say it was a larger organisation with 3 squads of 8-9 and three MTWs per platoon and yes Milan could be mounted on the MTW/M113:



Organisational chart for 361 Panzer battalion, a mixed battalion with a Panzer Grenadier company.

http://www.traditionsverband-kuelsheim.de/attachments/article/213/Chronik%20PzBtl%20361.pdf

Some useful footage in your period of interest:



If you want further detail you could try asking on this forum: https://www.cold-war.de/

Or you could send through a query to the state archives in Frankfurt for the relevant training manual(s). I don't know if this sort of info is in the 1980s version of Der Riebert but if it is there are any number of copies of the mid-80s version out there on ebay etc.

Hope that helps.

I concur.  There was also a 'Reserve Squad' in the Company HQ's second Marder.  This was apparently there to make up the numbers, due to the low dismountable strength, but could also serve as a recce element.  The MTW Companies had a larger dismountable strength and therefore no Reserve Squad or second MTW at Company HQ.

[FinnN]

Tankograd has been mentioned, another German language publication is “Fahrzeug Profile” some of which have really diagrams representing Heeresstruktur notional organisations. Here’s an example:

https://www.panzerfux.de/Modellbau-Neuheiten-2022/Fahrzeug-Profile-97-Panzergrenadierbrigade-13-Wetzlar-1959-1993.htm?SessionId=&a=article&ProdNr=UNI-9097&p=14971