Captured wapons in France/Low countries. ?

[Agentorange]

I appreciate this really belongs on the CMBO forum but things are very slooooooow over there. I have run a search with nada results. So..can anybody recommend any decent books or sources about the use of captured weapons by the German forces in France and the low countries. I've got the 3 or 4 little volumes by Schiffer about captured equipment but they tend to speak in the most general of terms, and I was wondering if people had any more suggestions either online or book form.

I mention this mostly out of curiousity....the Germans had a lot of improvised SPG's in Normandy that never got into the game, and I've seen a lot of pictures of German troops in Dragoon using that Czech ZB lmg, old Schwarlose hmg's etc etc

[Scheer]

Well,

I´ve got Walter J. Spielberger´s

" Beute-Kraftfahrzeuge und -Panzer der deutschen Wehrmacht "

It´s in german, has 320 pages, has 160 pages alone on France weapons, 11 on the low countries.

It´s quite good and it should be aviable in english ( I think ).

[Agentorange]

Thankyou ! What does that translate to Scheer ?

[Scheer]

Sumthing like

" Captured enemy vehicles and tanks of the german Wehrmacht "

In germany its from the MotorbuchVerlag ...

[Akula2]

There was an entire division in Normandy on D-Day that was comprised completely of improvised and captured equipment.

I keep thinkin 352 Inf. but I'm uncertain. I've forgotten most of this trivia long ago.

I'll perculate on it and rummage 'round a bit.
If I find it, I'll email or post.

I'm not much for research anymore.

-EDIT
This division was a source of very exotic if not completely effective weapons.

I think they mostly converted French equipment to some semblence of serviceable weapons systems.
Their entire mandate to even remain a Division was to completely scrounge and improvise ALL their equipment.

Of course the mix included Chzech, Russian, Polish, and even Italian doo-dads.

Amazing.
Sun Tsu

[ October 26, 2004, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: Akula2 ]

[Brent Pollock]

Perhaps you're thinking of the 21st PD, which had a large number of captured French AFVs and some field-worked SPGs based on French halftracks & armoured tractors (the ASL HASL Pegasus Bridge represents most of them)?

I've also noted in pictures of D-Day beach pillboxes that at least some of the MGs were water-cooled, rather than the MG39 & MG42 air-cooled ones normally represented in movies (e.g. SPR).

[Akula2]

Aye.
Could be.
21 was tough though eh?

Somehow, I keep thinking infantry though.

356 Inf
465 maybe?
-EDIT
No, that can't be right either.

[ October 26, 2004, 04:45 PM: Message edited by: Akula2 ]

[Michael Emrys]

I can't remember the number either, though there was one such in the Utah Beach zone. I doubt that all of its equipment was of foreign manufacture, but it did have a lot, including some French tanks, IIRC.

Michael

[Brent Pollock]

From what I remember of playing The Longest Day, there were several independent panzer battalions using French mediums over near Utah & Omaha. Maybe that's why you associate them with the Inf. Divs.? There were no PDs in the Utah/Omaha zone until reinforcements showed up, and even then, most still ended up in the Commonwealth zone.

[Akula2]

Brent caught me. rofl. =D

My initial info was, in fact, from TLD.
Subsequent info corroberated these facts.

-EDIT
Thanks Brent.

[klapton]

What I remember from playing TLD is that lots of German artillery were in fact French and Russian.

[Michael Emrys]

A lot of the artillery in permanent emplacements was captured stuff. I don't think much of the field artillery park was though, except for a couple of the divisions on the Cotentin Penninsula that have already been mentioned. They seem to have been thrown together with whatever could be scraped up.

Michael

[Akula2]

Originally posted by klapton:
What I remember from playing TLD is that lots of German artillery were in fact French and Russian. Aye. They played very much the same though. That sorta got lost on me.

I do remember all those Ost Bn.
They died well too but they did have a knack for holding road junctions etc.
They slowed the Allies and basically enforced the attrition thing that the game eventual ground into.

Great game!