a german tank division in 1939 consisted of about 12,000 men
3,000 of them were signed to the tank Brigade
3200 to the motorized Infantry, Brigade and
1200 Artillery regiment the remaining
5,600 were signed to supply recon
engineering, anti-tank, signalling and staff units
Now let's take a look at the composition of the tank Brigade it consisted of 12 panzerbefehlswagen a command tank
90 Panzer II
162 panzer III and sixty panzer IV hence a total number of
324 tanks, but this was the intended composition, so let's take a look at the actual or composition
These are the numbers for the erste panzer division, the first tank division it had 93
Panzer one's a tank never intended for combat and only armed with machine guns
122 panzer twos a mere 26 panzer threes
56 panzer fours and 12 panzerbefehlswagen thus giving a total of
309 tanks slightly below the intended size
But numbers without context are like politicians quite useless and untrustworthy
so let's take a closer
Look on the left side the intended setup with a lot of panzer threes
Which was back in 1939 the main Battle tank of the German army but historically those positions had to be filled with a
significantly less combat effective panzer I and Panzer II
Now a closer look on the planned organization and structure of the panzer formations
The tank Brigade consisted of two regiments with two battalions each and each of two battalions and each of those batallions consists of a staff company two light
companies and a medium company
the stabskompanie or a staff company consists of a signaling platoon with two panzerbefehlswagen and a panzer III
Note that the panzerbefehlswagen looks like a panzer III
But it only had a fake gun and the turret was welded to the hull yet
This was crucial to the performance of the German panzer units because it provided important command and control
facilities furthermore the Company had one platoon of light tanks consisting of five panzer twos
So let's take a look at the two light tank companies or the leichte panzerkompanie they
Consisted of a company section with two panzer threes a light tank platoon with five panzer twos and three platoons of five panzer III each
finally the medium tank company or Mittlere
Panzerkompanie the company section with panzer fours and light platoon with panzer II are almost identical to the light companies
But the three main platoons all consist of four tanks each instead of five tanks
These four companies together made up one battalion with 71 tanks thus with four battalions for the brigade. There's a total of
284 Tanks for Frontline Duty
Note that this number is below the total number of tanks because some tanks are kept for reserve and command duties
This was the intended set up the number of available panzer threes was very low thus there roles needed to be filled by other
tanks like the panzer I and panzer II
Time to take a look at the division as a whole again the tank. We gave was supported by an infantry Brigade 90 armored cars