This is all extremely interesting and I am impressed my the level of the discussion. If I can add a couple of points. The first is that the German army considered that most Waffen SS divisions were not as of a high standard tactically as their Wehrmacht counterparts in Normandy. There were exceptions, notably 12 SS Panzer Division, but in the case of the Hitler Youth division that may have been because of Kurt Meyer's unique ability to read a battle and show up at exactly the right place at exactly the right time.
Second, there has been a double standard applied to Normandy for far too long. The Germans, including 12 SS, did some very tactically unsound things on occasion that would have been trumpeted far and wide as examples of Allied tactical incompetence had a British, Canadian or American formation done the same. Instead, these lapses are often explained away or obsfucated with references to the differences in casualty rates.
An example - at about 1230 on 8 August 1944 12 SS Panzer Division launched a deliberate counter-attack up the Caen-Falaise Road in an effort to regain the key terrain around Point 122, The operation, which included a battlegroup made up of a battalion of panzer grenadiers and another of tanks as well as the divisional panzerjager battalion and the escort companies of both the division and 1 SS Panzer Corps as well as seven Tigers from 101 SS Heavy Tank Battalion was defeated with heavy losses. It was in this battle that SS-Captain Michael Wittmann of the heavy tank battalion was killed, probably by A Squadron of the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment. More important, the failure of this operation doomed the German hold on the ground south of Caen.
Meyer had misread the approaches in his estimate and that night the remnants of his counter-attack force was forced to withdraw in some disorder from the blocking position they had occupied by the advance of 10 Canadian Infantry Brigade. All this seems to have escaped the notice of the fans of the German forces in Normandy, and this is not the only occasion. Another, again using 12 SS as an example, was the counter-attacks by that division against 3rd Canadian Infantry Division along the Bayeux-Caen railway on 8 June. There was some local success at Putot-en-Bessin, but every other attack failed miserably and the Canadians regained Putot later on the same day. One could argue that the Hitler Youth failed in their most important operation of the war - the defeat of the bridgehead - primarily because of faulty battle procedure and inept all arms cooperation.
If this sounds like a rant, I apologize, but I have just spent a few years working on a book on the First Canadian Army operations south of Caen in August 1944 and was struck by the apparent double standard.
Second, there has been a double standard applied to Normandy for far too long. The Germans, including 12 SS, did some very tactically unsound things on occasion that would have been trumpeted far and wide as examples of Allied tactical incompetence had a British, Canadian or American formation done the same. Instead, these lapses are often explained away or obsfucated with references to the differences in casualty rates.
An example - at about 1230 on 8 August 1944 12 SS Panzer Division launched a deliberate counter-attack up the Caen-Falaise Road in an effort to regain the key terrain around Point 122, The operation, which included a battlegroup made up of a battalion of panzer grenadiers and another of tanks as well as the divisional panzerjager battalion and the escort companies of both the division and 1 SS Panzer Corps as well as seven Tigers from 101 SS Heavy Tank Battalion was defeated with heavy losses. It was in this battle that SS-Captain Michael Wittmann of the heavy tank battalion was killed, probably by A Squadron of the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment. More important, the failure of this operation doomed the German hold on the ground south of Caen.
Meyer had misread the approaches in his estimate and that night the remnants of his counter-attack force was forced to withdraw in some disorder from the blocking position they had occupied by the advance of 10 Canadian Infantry Brigade. All this seems to have escaped the notice of the fans of the German forces in Normandy, and this is not the only occasion. Another, again using 12 SS as an example, was the counter-attacks by that division against 3rd Canadian Infantry Division along the Bayeux-Caen railway on 8 June. There was some local success at Putot-en-Bessin, but every other attack failed miserably and the Canadians regained Putot later on the same day. One could argue that the Hitler Youth failed in their most important operation of the war - the defeat of the bridgehead - primarily because of faulty battle procedure and inept all arms cooperation.
If this sounds like a rant, I apologize, but I have just spent a few years working on a book on the First Canadian Army operations south of Caen in August 1944 and was struck by the apparent double standard.
, And you are right about the size of Soviet units, Thouugh the '45 TOE for a Soviet rifle Div called for 12000 men +/- they rarely exceeded 4-6000, and the German units were the same if not worse.
Does this mean you have to give your degree back?
