I can give you some information about the 4rth wave of the Wehrmacht which was established 1939 / 40.  These were the "white year" recruits, from before 1908. 

 

Formation of a Wehrmacht Infanterie Division:

 

Division Command, Krad Melder ( Motorcycle Unit )

 

- 3 Infantry regiments ( each has: )

 

3 Batallions  +  Antitank Company, Infantry Heavy-Gun Unit

 

1 Scout Batallion + Cavalry schwadron, Motorcycle schwadron, Heavy schwadron

 

1 Artillery Regiment which has: 3 light Units, 1 heavy Unit, motorised Scouts

 

Anti Tank Regiment,

 

3 motorised Antitank companies

1 heavy MG company

 

1 Pioneer Batallion (3 Companies, + bridgebuilder)

 

1 Radio and Information Unit

 

1 Reserve and Exchange Batallion with 3 reserve Companies

 

Support Staff Batallions include:

 

Staff Division supply

30 ton trucks

small trucks (running on any fuel)

Repair Company

Supply Company

Bakery

butcher Squad

Medical Squad

Health Inspector

Army Police

Post Office

 

Strengh:

 

Officers: 540

Corporals: 2700

regulars: 14400

 

In Total; around 17640

 

Equipment:

 

4842 Horses, 919 covered vehicles, 394 Cars, 615 Trucks, 3 armored scout vehicles, 527 Motorcycles

 

Weapons:

3700 Pistols

13000 Rifles

312 Machineguns

90 Antitank rifles

435 light Machineguns

110 heavy Machineguns

12 Flak 2 cm

84 light mortars

54 heavy mortars

75 Pak

20 Light Infantry Cannon 7,5 cm

6 Heavy Infantry Cannon 15 cm

36 Light Artillery Guns 10,5 cm

12 Heavy Artillery Guns 15 cm

9 Flamethrowers

3 Light Scout Vehicles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

US Squads tended to feature 12 men, mostly with rifles but one or two men with a BAR. Not sure on tactics. Support weapon crew were often issued carbines.

Airborne squads tended to feature a higher proportion of submachineguns and carbines, as these were easier to carry.

Funny, that seems to fit the organization of the basic Human neolithic hunting party that went after a water buffalo or a wildebeest on foot. Spears were good enough for  most of them when they chased and the best shots would be given the bows and arrows.

 

I guess you could call that the origin of the four man fire team?

 

Herald 

There's been some scientific research and writing concerning how infantry organization company-sized and below tend to reflect what appear to be set optimums hard wired into the human mind for group sizes.  I'm not sure if that has been pushed down to the fireteam level, but my vague recollection is that platoons and companies correspond quite well to what sociologists term Primary and Secondary Groups.

see www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/Tactics/Formations/rifle_squad.htm

 

As for US infantry tactics, the priciple was Fire and Movement.  From this website:

 

At the Squad level, this was practiced using the combination of the Rifle and Gun Groups.  The Gun Group provided the base of fire, targeting known or suspected enemy positions.  This enabled the Rifle Group to break cover and advance towards the enemy line.  Ideally, the Gun Group would maintain covering fire until the riflemen were right on top of the enemy line.  In practice, this simple formula was not always easy to achieve.

 

 

I beleive the US Army training advocated the laying down of covering fire while some part of the unit moved to the flank of the enemy.

 

I'm not sure of Germany tactics

 

For the U S Army in WW II you had to look at the company and platoon, not squad.

 

            The basis for all tactics for the US Army in WW II was something called the holding attack.  From platoon through division, the US Army infantry was organized into 3s (3 platoons per company, 3 companies per battalion, etc) with additional support units assigned as augmentation. 

            The doctrine was for one unit to maneuver to contact with the enemy and conduct a holding attack to fix the enemy into place. A second element then maneuvers and tries to find a flank in order to attack a weak spot. Finally the final third is kept in reserve to exploit success or to pass through and maintain momentum.

 

            This same concept was kept from platoon through division and corps. It was a simple doctrine which worked for a rapidly mobilized Army with a worldwide mission. It also lent itself well to an Army which, primarily, was designed to be offensive in nature.  

American Rifle Company (1944-45)

 Headquarters

 3 Rifle Platoons

    Headquarters

    3 Rifle Squads

      10 x M1 Rifle

      1 x BAR

      1 x 1903 Springfield Rifle or M1 Garand

 Heavy Weapons Platoon

    Headquarters

    Bazooka Squad

      3 Bazooka Sections

        1 x Bazooka

    LMG Squad

      2 LMG Sections

        1 x .30 cal LMG

    Mortar Squad

      3 Mortar Sections

        1 x 60mm Light Mortar

    HMG Section

      1 x .50 cal HMG

 

The research that I have seen indicates that the "secondary group" should consist of no more than 150 people.
This does indeed correspond well to most companies, especially infantry companies (there are some bloated support companies, sometimes with two or even three hundred personnel, in the US Army).  More than 150, and the average person "loses track" of who everybody is.

 

Of course, I would argue for not being too far below 150, either, given the likelyhood of casualties or other attrition.

Any organization calling for less than 100 men in a rifle company scares me, since that can be whittled down so quickly, and besides, a "flatter" organization allows for fewer headquarters /administrative personnel.

Understand that the HHC in a US Army maneuver battalion is large for a few reasons....but not as big as they used. to be.

 

When I commanded a mech battaolion HHC, I had 317 soldiers in my company...of which only about 15 worked directly for me.  Most were passed out and worked for others capatians on the staff.  The Scout platoon annswered to the S2 & S3, the Support Platoon to the S4, the maintenance section (104 strong) responded to the BMO, the medical platoon to the Surgeon and S1.  I was th ecomamdner for UCMJ and ration sin garrison.  Each of those staff and platoons had a SFC or MSG in charge of them with a platton leader in direct control.  In turn, that LT answered to a staff captain.

 

My job in the field was to run the field trains (the S4 ran the combat trains).

 

I know armored cavalry troops could get a bigger than a rifle company but not by much

 

You see even less of that now with the FSCs.

 

When I commanded my rifle company I had 108 assigned, but my usual task organization was 2 rifle platoons, 1 tank platoon, 1 engineer platoon, an ADA MANPADS section and of course my FIST.  This usually kept my manpower in the 130 - 140 range. 

 

 

German and American operational theory was similar but the devil was in the details. According to the stereotype Americans were wusses who couldn't do anything but dump "tons and tons of TNT", while the Germans were elegant experts in manuever who kicked around at foes like Bruce Lee. As with all such things there is some truth, but the German affectation is rather odd-besides the fact that they had no problem blowing up Poles, the idea is to make the other guy die for his country.
Americans trusted more to their rifles and were less centered around the squad machine-gun. This was because the M1 was quite good as rifles go.
The American Third Army had a fancy for what they called, "marching fire" which was a way of giving suppressive fire as one advances, rather then have one wing suppress while another advances which was more typical.
Neither army can be seen as a monalith. In 1942 the Americans were highly inexperienced. By 1945 there was little left of the German army but militia. So comparisons should be based on time.

 

 The US infantry in the ETO also suffered quantity as well as quality problems in 1944 1945. It was burdened by a chronic shortage of replacements, McNair?s  stupid individual replacement system and the siphoning off of quality personnel into more technical specialties (Air Corps ,communications etc.).

Added to this was the lost of the ?old? experienced infantry soldiers.    As the Army expanded many were given opportunities to transfer to other branches such as the Air Corps with a chance to immediate promotion to NCO or even to officer.

 So poor was the situation that one Infantry commander complained that he lacked qualified officers and NCOS because? everybody higher than a moron? had been pulled out of his unit.(The procurement and Training  of  Ground Combat Troops , by Robert  Palmer, pp 16-19)

?on 1 December 1944 the Third Army was under strength in infantrymen by the equivalent of 55 rifle companies. ?

?The crisis reached a peak in January 1945, when the full extent of the casualties resulting from the Battle of the Bulge were felt. Stringent economy measures and a reorganization of the replacement pool improved matters in February. However, it must be said that the only thing that finally solved the problem was the end of the war.? link

 

 General Patton even went so far as to complain that his Infantry units were incapable of any sort of maneuver bellow Battalion level due to the shortage of quality Officers and NCOs.  He recommended the use of only the most basic of tactics, the Marching Fire you speak of.  (War has I knew it, George S Patton, pp 293)

 Patton was so discouraged by their performance of US infantry  the he felt the French criticism of US infantry in WWI still applied in WWII (The poorer the infantry, the more artillery it needs; The American infantry needs all it can get?.  (The Patton Papers, pp. 521)

 

 

 

 

 

Actually I was referring to companies "further back", in the Corps Support Commands, for example.  From browsing through TOE's, I seem to recall some transportation or maintnenance companies being especially large.

HHC's in mechanized combat battalions were, as you said, essentially sub-divided amoungst the staff... kinda-sorta like "mini-companies"... I wonder how the mindset would change, if the larger chunks of an HHC were split and called companies?

 

Armored Cavalry Troops (when I was in) had 126 personnel, plus 3 medics and a 3-man fire support team (attachments beyond that were actually rare, but then again, a cav troop was rather self-sufficient to begin with)...  Maybe a Bradley Stinger vehicle with 4 crew....

Many of the US Army's most competant officers and NCO's were sent to the Pacific as it was seen as more of an infantryman's war. The US infantry performed as well as any other in Western Europe, and the Germans believed that of the allies they had the soundest grasp of mobile warfare. Criticisms of US infantry performance was when they were on the defense. The Germans could often push US infnatry back for miles, while they had a terrible time counterattacking the British. One false criticism is the US reliance on airpower. Post-war reports showed that airpower did not have nearly the affect on the German military machine that the allies thought it did.The bombings disoriented the Germans, and made them less mobile, but most of the killing (for the US) was done by the awesome US Army artillery.

 

WW2 critisicms that the US depended too much on artillery is unfounded also, as it wasn't an issue of poor performance of US infantry, but rather of the excellent performance of US artillery, which was, without a doubt, the best in the war. Almost all captured German soldiers stated that what they feared most about the western allies was American artillery. The US had good artillery, plenty of it, and used it to maximum effect. This does not mean that US infantry in western Europe was unwilling or incapable of closing with the enemy, only that US artillery did an excellent job.

The true strength of the United States in Europe during WWII was our logistics.  Most of the time we simply had more of everything to throw at the enemy than they had to throw back.  It's not elegant, but it works.

 

One of the big complaints that those German soldiers also had was that when they spotted US activity, they had to send out a patrol to see what we were up to.  When the US Army spotted German activity they tended to send an artillery barrage and then a patrol to see what they had been up to.  The German's thought we were trigger happy.