To Home Page World War II Armed Forces — Orders of Battle and Organizations Last Updated 29.06.2019
Under Construction why this site exists and is not finished
and other ramblings (well, you did look here, after all)
Under Construction
 
The past 40+ years' research indicate to me that this site will never be finished, as the amount of information available is so overwhelming that no one person will ever be able to compile all the material. In addition, there will always be gaps that can never be filled owing to the destruction of vital records. However, since I am a nut, I will keep on maintaining this site as long as possible. 

The information contained in this site is not creative (I certainly hope not, anyway). It is mostly compiled from original sources and documents. 

In some cases, I have found sites presenting the material as well as or better than I could have. So instead of reproducing the information here, I have merely inserted links to those sites at the appropriate points. This saves me a lot of work, plagiarizing, programming, and gives you the information anyway. A typical example is the The Luftwaffe, 1933-45 site, which does an exemplary job. 

As stated above, there is just so much material about WWII that one person could never ever even gain an overview of everything. Let alone pass it all on, in any form whatsoever. {I mean, they are still finding new stuff about the Napoleonic wars, for heaven's sake!} I have had lots of people help me, and have helped lots of people, (I hope). In the German WWII AFV &world", for example, or with the Hungarian Army. So WWII still has a long run in front of it, and lots of aspects still to be covered. (E.g., I met one guy in the Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv in Freiburg who was researching stamps issued to German POW's between 1945/47 in Western Allied prison camps. He had binders full of information.) 

Anyone who wishes to contribute is more than welcome — (I know you are out there!) — for the reason cited above, and will, of course, be duly credited, or linked. Please contact me regarding contributions of material. 

The same applies in reverse. If you think I can contribute something to your site or with other, similar projects, please contact me. I'll help if I can, time and material permitting.  

For those of you who want really detailed information about the organization of the WWII German Army, I recommend (with all due modesty) my books of the  "GERMAN WORLD WAR II Organizational Series"  Now available as PDF files for download. Free.

Originally, I had thought to publish a series of booklets similar to those of the GERMAN WORLD WAR II Organizational Series about other countries, but in light of my decision not to do any more manuscripts for publishing, I will present those other countries' organizations here on the site.

The Germans had at least 50 different types of non-mechanized divisions alone. Then comes the Waffen-SS, the Luftwaffe, yes, and even the Navy. Now start adding the mechanized divisions and brigades. Then the "General Headquarters" GHQ (Heerestruppen) units. Just as a further bit of info, there were about 200 separate Tables of Organization (T/O) for brigade and division headquarters, as well as higher headquarters; some 1800 different T/O for infantry inspectorate units. Then there are the other inspectorates, such as cavalry, artillery, rocket troops, engineers, signal troops, motorized transport troops, Panzer troops, supply, administrative, anti-aircaft, medical, veterinary, etc., etc., etc. I have not counted them all, and not all of them exist anymore. There is not even a complete listing anywhere of all T/O's that existed. Although one valiant attempt (Tessin) has been made to at least list all German T/O, it is far from complete. I have added the few KStN at the Tessin errata pages (in German) that I have found over the years.

This site is also an outgrowth of my craving for orders of battle and organization data, which I have been collecting for many, many years. Thirty+ years ago, I stopped gathering anything else besides WWII material. (Well ... maybe ... Russo-Japanese War naval stuff ... those pre-dreadnaught battleships just look great!)

Of course, I have a lot of stuff on the Hungarian Army, much of which was used for the now out-of-print book The Royal Hungarian Army 1920—1945, published in 1999.  Now available as a PDF file for download. Free.

Somewhere along the line, I started collecting the the organizations of all participants of the Pacific War (PTO). Just the 8/7 December 1941 part has had me going, on and off, since the 70s. What has been found it is presented here. You will acronym that for the navies, minor vessels, such as coastal vessels, yard craft and the like are very incomplete. In addition, with the exception of the  IJAAF and the USAAF, ground and service units (and their organization) for the other nation's armed forces are very difficult to locate. One of the reasons for this site is to get others to participate with their input, hopefully completing the picture somewhere along the line. This has been very successful in some cases, and only partially so in others.

As I mentioned, the idea is not to just put all data in this one site, (an impossible task), but also to create links to the other, similar sites within the framework I have planned (see Orders of Battle and Organization pages). Hopefully, others will join in or at least be linked in. Where there are no sites or persons willing or able to provide information, I will insert, little by little, what material I have gathered. Besides which, although now retired, I would like to maintain some kind of social life (see hobbies on my "about me" page).
 
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