Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "[Stalingrad] Was a Breakout possible? Some Numbers [Updated Version]" video.
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It depends on what type of Division (mountain troops, tanks, mechanized, infantry, motorized). And then it also depends on what year you talk about, since the German Army decided to make their Divisions smaller throughout the war. And also, Germany usally lost so many men between 1941 and the end of the war that most Divisions didn't have all manpower they were supposed to have.
Anyways, in 1939 did a German Division have 16.800 men. And in the later war years 12-14000 something I think.
So the size of a Division is often varied. In the late 1960s could an American Divison have more than 18.000 men while a Soviet had 13.000. Usally the number of men is between 10.000 and 20.000. And the firepower can be different between Divisions as well. An italian world war 2 divisons did not have much big guns and automatic weapons at all, while a German could be pretty powerful, and a french Division was something inbetween.
And to further confuse you more, so was not all men in a unit a man with a rifle in his hand.
For example, only 3000 out of the more than 10.000 men serving in the 173rd American Brigade in Vietnam was ready for combat, while the rest of the division was working in steakhouses and pizza huts, clubs headquarters, The Generals mess, artillery, engineers,
And when you also exclude people not directly assigned to combat roles such as guys who toted with radios, men who stayed back and typed, those who worked with the supplies of a company, or daily helicopter supply lifts... then you could only field about 800 men if you put all your five Battalions out to fight. So only about 6% of the men in Vietnam were combat personnel.
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