Since 1872, the Ludovica Military Academy had been turning out competent and efficient officers and graduated the majority of officers for the Hungarian Army. A core of competent and educated officers struggled to handle the large expansion of the Hungarian Army to meet the needs of the Eastern Front. The Hungarians enjoyed a professional and experienced core of staff officers.
Although the majority of infantry forces fielded by the Royal Hungarian Army in 1944–45 were not combat hardened, there were some experienced units after 3 years of fighting on the Eastern Front. Infantry Divisions of the Hungarian First Army had recently fought in the defence of Galicia in early 1944, and would put their experience to good use, like the 25th Division at the Battle of Tordá and the 10th Division inside the Budapest pocket.
The armed wing of the Nazi Party, the extremely well-equipped Waffern-SS were rightly feared by their opponents – both for their fighting ability and uncompromising ferocity.
The Fallschirmjager instead acted as elite infantry serving in all theatres in which Germany fought. Supported by two weapons with a high rate of fire – the deadly MG42 general purpose machine gun and the Granatwerfer 34 8cm medium mortar – they were respected by the Allies for their fighting ability and honourable actions.
German officers were capable and often experienced leaders. Junior officers were trained to undertake the role own immediate superiors, enabling them to use their intuition to take control of situations when necessary.
German officers were capable and often experienced leaders. Junior officers were trained to undertake the role of their own immediate superiors, enabling them to use their initiative to take control of situations when necessary.
German officers were capable and often experienced leaders. Junior officers were trained to undertake the role of their own immediate superiors, enabling them to use their initiative to take control of situations when necessary. An officer unit consists of the man himself and can include up to two other men acting as his immediate attendants.
German officers were capable and often experienced leaders. Junior officers were trained to undertake the role of their immediate superiors, enabling them to use their initiative to take control of situations when necessary. The Afrika Korps (DAK) proved this through consistent victories as well as elusiveness in retreat.
From the early stages of World War II, the German army began to equip their Panzergrenadiers with armoured half-tracks that would support their panzers in action. They developed the excellent Sd.Kfz 251 series, made by Hanomag, and steadily produced them in their thousands, with over twenty versions seeing service in most theatres of the war.
Originally developed as an anti-aircraft weapon, the Flak 37 8.8cm (or Eighty-eight as it became known by Allied troops) had a high muzzle velocity to allow it to reach the higher ranges modern bombers were capable of at the time. This would make it an exceptionally deadly anti-tank weapon as many Allied tank crews would learn to their peril. The 88 could also be deployed as a conventional artillery piece – as one infantryman noted, the 88 was 'anti-everything’…
The Sd.Kfz 251/7 Ausf D half-tracked engineer commonly known as the Pionierwagen. Based on the ubiquitous Sd.Kfz 251 Hanomag half-track, the Pionierwagen was a very useful vehicle for the assault engineers of the German Army, seeing service on all fronts, from the vast open areas of the Russian Front to the rubble-choked streets of Berlin in 1945.
Most commonly known as the Panzer 38(t), this light tank was originally a Czech design – the LT vz. 38 – which fell under the Third Reich’s control when Germany occupied Czechoslovakia in 1938. The 't’ in its designation relates to the German for Czech – tschechisch.