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The 2. Panzer-Division that will be added is the one of the Wehrmacht not Waffen-SS, right?
Yes, the "Wien Division", not "Das Reich". Heer, not SS.

But what astonishes me is that there is a unit called "Sturmführer". Sturmführer was the officer rank of the Waffen-SS.
(...)
Or are they just named Sturmführer /-grendiere to make a connection to the Sturmgewehr 44?
Yes, the squads armed with StG are called Sturmgrenadier. Sturmführer are the corresponding leaders.
It doesn't imply a SS rank, but Sturmgrenadier-Führer.
Maybe we should name them Sturm.Führer to avoid confusion? SturmGr.Führer seems a little too cryptic and unreadable ...

the guy with the StG 44 on the artwork is wearing a camoflage called "Platanentarn" which was only used by the Waffen-SS.
Couldn't it be the Wehrmacht "swamp" camo, which I have forgotten the name? But you obviously know more than I do on the military fashion topic ... :)
If so, it is an oversight on our (well, my ... :( ) part. I can confirm that it is not meant to represent a SS-Man.

Will the Sturmführer and Sturmgrenadiere definetely in the 2. Panzerdivision or will they only available in the coop missions for the "LSSAH" (1. SS-Panzerdivision) and "Das Reich" (2. SS-Panzerdivision)?
Sturmgrenadier/Führer will be restricted to 2. Panzerdivision.

Feldgendarmerie: a command recon? Recon would make some sense since they acted in small groups and knew the roads very well. Command also makes sense because it was literally their job to prevent desertions and surrenders.
Not recon, but definitively command for they are meant to make sure other troops around them fight "without giving a thought to falling back". ;)

KM Marineinfanterie: if they are the security units of KM HQ in Paris, they'd be quite regular infantry. Perhaps some different equipment like older MGs.
They are scratch/alarm units formed from KM desk soldiers up to that point well settled in Paris ... :)

ROA: I assume they are the precursor to the Russian Liberation Army (ROA) but how would they differ from the Osttruppen? Or am I completely wrong here?
Not at all, you are mostly on tracks ...
Although not "precursor", they were full-fledged Russian Liberation Army used in France mostly to destroy Resistance groups. They differ from Osttruppen by being more willing to fight and equipped entirely with Soviet weapons.
There was a full ROA company in Paris during the battle for the city. Historically, they emptied the prison and executed the political prisoners held there rather than take a real part in the fight

Lehr-Pionier: some variation of the Pionier units, but I have no idea what exactly.
That name was actually a placeholder. You'll see what they really are at release ... ;)

Landesschützen: weaker Grenadiere essentially. Worse equipment, disheartened? The 325. Sicherungsdivision is the core of Festung Paris thus perhaps they don't get the disheartened trait.
Mostly right. :)

Strafgruppe: felons, resistance members, deserters... generally unreliable (disheartened?), ill-equipped, and used as cannon fodder but not necessarily bad in combat performance as some really wanted to redeem themselves. Could do anything with them.
Resistance members? Definitively not, those would have been executed by the Gestapo, or send to a concentration camp after torture in the best case.
Bewährungstruppen (ingame name) are the military personnel condemned to prison time by a military tribunal. By transfering to a penal unit, they are given a chance to redeem themselves and regain not only their rank and awards but also their civilian rights. And that last point mattered more to most than the former, hence those units usually fought ... at least regularly.
Only lightly equipped, they were given the "suicidal" missions, such as clearing minefields, stopping tanks with hand explosives, ...
People usually pictures penal units as a Soviet thing, but the Germans created them and used them in a more cynical way than did the Soviets with their own (which were actually inspired by the Germans'!).

What an intriguing division...
It is. Actually, my favorite of the four. :)

7th Armoured & 2. Panzer are the "conventional" divisions ; DBSAS & Festung Gross-Paris more like patchwork/original ones.

The Russian Liberation Army was founded months after the battle of Paris. I don't think that Eugen means with ROA the Russian Liberation Army.
Avtually, we do.
The ROA was only officially integrated as a unit in the German army in late 1944, but it existed as a propaganda tool way earlier than that.
Either referred as ROA or more commonly before that as Vlassov's Army, they are present in France from mid/late 1943.
 
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Thanks for the info MadMat, sounds good!


7th Armoured & 2. Panzer are the "conventional" divisions ; DBSAS & Festung Gross-Paris more like patchwork/original ones.
I like the less conventional style, too, pepresenting the full plethora of armed forces and the ad hoc-nature of some combat formations. They are imo a lot more fascinating than the glamerous elite forces.
I mean fighting with the Panzer-Lehr is fighting with the army you want; but fighting with the Festung will be fighting with the army you have.


Yes, the squads armed with StG are called Sturmgrenadier. Sturmführer are the corresponding leaders.
It doesn't imply a SS rank, but Sturmgrenadier-Führer.
Maybe we should name them Sturm.Führer to avoid confusion? SturmGr.Führer seems a little too cryptic and unreadable ...
Imho: "Sturm. Führer" or "Sturm-Führer" to put a greater emphasis on the Führer part. And that should be enough since there was no SS-rank of Sturmführer during WWII. The rank was given up in 1935 and replaced by Untersturmführer and Obersturmführer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untersturmführer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obersturmführer
(The SA still had a Sturmführer, but I think that's negligible in a Normandy 1944 game)

I mean we are dealing with an in-game term loosely based on historical terms, which should be more descriptive than academically accurate.

PS: the camo in the image is indeed an SS-pattern.


Resistance members? Definitively not, those would have been executed by the Gestapo, or send to a concentration camp after torture in the best case.
Not necessarily. If they were "Aryan" they could be a given the choice to serve in a penal unit, or be send to a concentration camp. Some of the penal units thus included members of what the Nazis considered opposition.
Most famous would be the Strafdivision 999 (aka Afrika-Division 999) with about 30% of its soldiers being former prisoners who had been sentenced to prison for political reasons. The most notable individual is probably Falk Harnack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falk_Harnack
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/999th_Light_Afrika_Division_(Wehrmacht)
The German penal units were extremely heterogeneous, as was the opposition to Nazi-Germany. You have to keep in mind the Nazis were extremely prejudiced; people were imprisoned for backing the wrong kind of fascism for example.
 
Not necessarily. If they were "Aryan" they could be a given the choice to serve in a penal unit, or be send to a concentration camp. Some of the penal units thus included members of what the Nazis considered opposition.
Most famous would be the Strafdivision 999 (aka Afrika-Division 999) with about 30% of its soldiers being former prisoners who had been sentenced to prison for political reasons. The most notable individual is probably Falk Harnack.
I know about Strafdivision 999.
Yet, no, Resistance members weren't "given the choice". They were interrogated, tortured if needed be. Then survivors were either executed or sent to concentration camps if they were big fishes, given to Vichy police if small ones.
A few ones, who willingly or were coerced to betray their comrades, would switch sides. A handful ended up with the "Carlingue" (the French Gestapo) and some were recruited by the Abwehr either as agent or as Brandenburg operators.
But those were a handful: none were given a nice choice to serve in a Strafbat, unless they were Alsacians or Mosellans "Malgré-Nous" having committed a crime under German uniform.
 
It seems you mean the French Resistance. I was using the word resistance in a more general sense - as in case of Falk Harnack (hence the link) who was with the German resistance, as were many others in Strafdivision 999. As I said, some 30% of this unit were former political prisoners. Whether or not they were 'true' resistance is an old and frankly unpleasant debate but the fact remains that the Nazi regime imprisoned them for political reasons and allowed them to serve in a penal unit.
 
@MadMat
MadMat"Couldn't it be the Wehrmacht "swamp" camo, which I have forgotten the name?"

Is this the sumpfmuster (swamp camo) you were thinking of?
painters guide 1943 German Sumpfmuster.gif


painters guide 1944 German Sumpfmuster.gif
 
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But what astonishes me is that there is a unit called "Sturmführer". Sturmführer was the officer rank of the Waffen-SS and even the guy with the StG 44 on the artwork is wearing a camoflage called "Platanentarn" which was only used by the Waffen-SS.

I do not know which KStNs MadMat will be using; KStNs 1114a(there are multiple a types of panzergrenadier companies :) ) 1.4.44 or 1.8.44 or 1.11.44 but a proper term would be Sturm-Zugführer I believe :) (could be mistaken).

Edit: Oh "Platanentarn" do you mean this -
painters guide 1937 German Plane Tree autumn.gif painters guide 1937 German Plane Tree spring.gif
?
 
Imho: "Sturm. Führer" or "Sturm-Führer" to put a greater emphasis on the Führer part. And that should be enough since there was no SS-rank of Sturmführer during WWII. The rank was given up in 1935 and replaced by Untersturmführer and Obersturmführer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untersturmführer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obersturmführer
(The SA still had a Sturmführer, but I think that's negligible in a Normandy 1944 game)

Yes there wasn't directly the rank of a Sturmführer in the SS, but all ranks of the SS officer line had something with Sturm and Führer, except of the "Standartenführer" (Oberst in the Wehrmacht). Officers of the Waffen-SS were just called Sturmführer in the population. That's what I meant. The term Sturmführer is associated very closely with the Waffen-SS. Therefore I wans't sure which division is meant after I took a look over the units list.
 
Nothing done about the awful new crit system? Everybody hates it...but it is still there making AT-guns worthless. For how long are we have to wait or are you never going to fix it?
 
And yet, when we asked that same everybody its opinion, a clear majority vouched for it ...
There wasn't enough time to test it and there was no statistics to learn the chance percentages. So now we are stuck with 20% kill chance on the direct frontal penetration instead of 80%. And there is no point to play infantry divisions right now.

Don't tell us the new crit system stays, please. Make it go away.
 
Where are balancing tweaks for existing divisions? You know, game balance is pretty messed up after Santa Claw update (it wasn't normal even before it)...
Hence why I and everyone I'm friends with stopped playing for now.

But the DLC looks alright regardless, one thing this game has is sufficient content.
 
So majority liked the crit system? I find that very hard to believe. I'll restate my last question, "will there be a patch to accompany the new content?"

Exactly, I have seen ONE person has written anything positive about it in this forum...I have seen that some said that he voted for the change but not if the crits replaced kills. Very well, Eugen seems to have decided to not listen to the forum.
 
I researched a little bit and find out something very interesting. 25 of 101 built Sd.Kfz. 234/2 Puma were sent to the 2. Panzerdivision. Panther, Sturmgewehr 44, Borward, clusterbombs, Puma.... The 2. Panzerdivision will become definitely my favorite tank division.
 
I'm looking forward to the new divisions! I hope the new German ones will be competetive in 1v1 play. The Festung division with its cheap(?) infantry sounds promising.

From the sound of things I don't think 2nd Panzer will be a 1v1 division. Pumas, Wespes, Hummels, JagdpanzerIVs, Panthers, half-tracked Panzergrens, even if all available early, these things aren't cheap. Panther A with recon trait easily will be @300 points a piece. I'm afraid this is going to be closer to Lehr than any other Panzer div.