Panzer-Abteilung 211 | |
---|---|
Active | 1 July 1941 - 17 November 1941 |
Country | |
Branch | Heer |
Type | Panzer |
Size | battalion |
Equipment | 90 Somua S35, 82 Hotchkiss H38 total |
Engagements | Operation Silver Fox |
Panzer-Abteilung 211 was a tank battalion of the German army during World War II. The battalion fought during Operation Silver Fox which was a combined German and Finnish offensive attempting to capture the Soviet port of Murmansk. The unit was disbanded after this operation due to their outdated equipment.
World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.
Operation Silver Fox from 29 June to 17 November 1941, was a German–Finnish military operation during World War II. The objective of the offensive was to cut off and capture the key Soviet Port of Murmansk through attacks from Finnish and Norwegian territory.
Murmansk is a port city and the administrative center of Murmansk Oblast in the far northwest part of Russia. It sits on both slopes and banks of a modest ria or fjord, Kola Bay, an estuarine inlet of the Barents Sea. Its bulk is on the east bank of the inlet. It is in the north of the rounded Kola Peninsula which covers most of the oblast. The city is 108 kilometres (67 mi) from the border with Norway and 182 kilometres (113 mi) from the Finnish border. The city is named for the Murman Coast, an archaic term in Russian for Norway.
After the fall of France in June 1940 the Germans captured a large amount of French vehicles. Among those were 297 (varying according to sources) Somua S35 which was considered by many to be the premier medium tank at the beginning of the war. In addition to the SOMUA S35s there were around 550 Hotchkiss H35 and H38 tanks captured as well. The Germans used these captured vehicles to equip several smaller units which were then combined into Panzer-Abteilung 211 on 22 March 1941.
The SOMUA S35 was a French Cavalry tank of the Second World War. Built from 1936 until 1940 to equip the armoured divisions of the Cavalry, it was for its time a relatively agile medium-weight tank, superior in armour and armament to its French and foreign competitors, such as the contemporary versions of the German Panzerkampfwagen III. It was constructed from well-sloped, mainly cast, armour sections, that however made it expensive to produce and time-consuming to maintain.
The Hotchkiss H35 or Char léger modèle 1935 H was a French cavalry tank developed prior to World War II. Despite having been designed from 1933 as a rather slow but well-armoured light infantry support tank, the type was initially rejected by the French Infantry because it proved difficult to steer while driving cross-country, and was instead adopted in 1936 by the French Cavalry.
The Soviet port of Murmansk was a high-value target for German command in 1941. On 27 June 1941 they began Operation Silver Fox to capture the key port, Panzer-Abteilung 211 was tasked with supporting the combined German and Finnish force along with Panzer-Abteilung 40 which was equipped with Panzer I and Panzer II tanks. This force would participate in a sub-operation of Operation Silver Fox code-named Operation Arctic Fox which was a campaign against Soviet Northern Front defenses at Salla, Finland in July 1941. The offensive launched on 1 July 1941 ended on 17 November in a stalemate with German and Finnish forces advancing but not being able to capture Murmansk nor the railway at Kandalaksha.
Panzer-Abteilung 40 was the name of a tank battalion of the German army during World War II. The battalion fought during the invasion of Norway and afterwards during Operation Silver Fox, the German-Finnish offensive to capture the Soviet port of Murmansk. The unit remained in Finland until it was sent to Oslo and disbanded.
The Panzer I was a light tank produced in Germany in the 1930s. The name is short for the German Panzerkampfwagen I, abbreviated PzKpfw I. The tank's official German ordnance inventory designation was Sd.Kfz. 101.
The Panzer II is the common name used for a family of German tanks used in World War II. The official German designation was Panzerkampfwagen II.
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The 6th Division (6.Divisioona) was a unit of the Finnish Army during the Continuation War.
Operation Arctic Fox was the codename given to a World War II campaign by German and Finnish forces against Soviet Northern Front defenses at Salla, Finland in July 1941. The operation was part of the larger Operation Silver Fox which aimed to capture the vital port of Murmansk. Arctic Fox was conducted in parallel to Operation Platinum Fox in the far north of Lappland. The principal goal of Operation Arctic Fox was to capture the town of Salla and then to advance in the direction of Kandalaksha to block the railway route to Murmansk.
The Sturmpanzer was a German armoured infantry support gun based on the Panzer IV chassis used in the Second World War. It was used at the Battles of Kursk, Anzio, Normandy, and was deployed in the Warsaw Uprising. It was known by the nickname Brummbär by Allied intelligence, a name which was not used by the Germans. German soldiers nicknamed it the "Stupa", a contraction of the term Sturmpanzer. Just over 300 vehicles were built and they were assigned to four independent battalions.
Panzerjäger was a branch of service of the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. It was an anti-tank arm-of-service that operated anti-tank artillery, and made exclusive use of the tank destroyers, which were also named Panzerjäger. Personnel wore ordinary field-gray uniforms rather than the black of the Panzer troops; however, those Panzerjäger troops who crewed the tank-destroyers wore the Panzer jacket in field gray.
Sturmgeschütz meaning "assault gun" was a series of armored vehicles used by both the German Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS armored formations during the Second World War that primarily consisted of the StuG III and StuG IV. The more common of the two, the StuG III, was built on the chassis of the proven Panzer III. The StuG III was initially designated "StuG" but with the creation of the StuG IV it was re-designated the "StuG III" to distinguish the two. Initially, they were intended as mobile, armored gun platforms, providing close fire support to the infantry to destroy bunkers, pillboxes and other entrenched positions. As the war progressed, a number of aspects of the StuG series made them a valued supplement to the Panzer forces.
The 1st Panzer-Division was an armoured division in the German Army, the Wehrmacht, during World War II.
The 21st Panzer Division was a German armoured division best known for its role in the battles of the North African Campaign from 1941–1943 during World War II when it was one of the two armoured divisions making up the Deutsches Afrikakorps (DAK).
Operation Platinum Fox was a German and Finnish military offensive launched during World War II. Platinum Fox took place on the Eastern Front and had the objective of capturing the Barents Sea port of Murmansk. It was part of a larger operation, called Operation Silver Fox.
The 7th Panzer Division was an armored formation of the German Army in World War II. It participated in the Battle of France, the invasion of the Soviet Union, the occupation of Vichy France, and on the Eastern Front until the end of the war. The 7th Panzer Division is sometimes known by its nickname, Ghost Division.
The Battle of the Kerch Peninsula, which commenced with the Soviet Kerch-Feodosia landing operation and ended with the German Operation Bustard Hunt, was a World War II battle between Erich von Manstein's German and Romanian 11th Army and the Soviet Crimean Front forces in the Kerch Peninsula, in the eastern part of the Crimea. It began on 26 December 1941 with an amphibious landing operation by two Soviet armies intended to break the Siege of Sevastopol. Axis forces first contained the Soviet beachhead throughout the winter and interdicted its naval supply lines through aerial bombing. From January through April, the Crimean Front launched repeated offensives against the 11th Army, all of which failed with heavy losses. The Red Army lost 352,000 men in the attacks, while the Axis suffered 24,120 casualties. Superior German artillery firepower was largely responsible for the Soviet debacle.
The Battle of Hannut was a Second World War battle fought during the Battle of Belgium which took place between 12 and 14 May 1940 at Hannut in Belgium. It was the largest tank battle in the campaign. It was also the largest clash of tanks in armoured warfare history at the time.
The 14th Army was a field army of the Soviet Army, formed twice. The army was first formed during the Winter War, in which two of its divisions fought in the Battle of Petsamo. After Operation Barbarossa, the army fought against German and Finnish attacks in Operation Silver Fox. In the middle of July 1941 the army was able to hold its positions. In October 1944 it fought in the Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive and seized Pechenga. The army defended and guarded the newly captured territory until the end of the war. Its headquarters became the Belomorsky Military District at the end of July 1945. The army reformed in June 1948 from the 126th Light Mountain Rifle Corps as the 14th Army (Assault). Stationed on the Chukchi Peninsula, the army's mission was to invade Alaska in event of a war. It was disbanded in May 1953 after Stalin's death.
Lehr-Brigade (mot.) 900 was formed 17 June 1941 by the German Army from school units in preparation for Operation Barbarossa. As such it was considered an elite as many of its personnel were instructors in tactics from various branch schools. It fought in most of the battles in the central sector of the Eastern Front during Barbarossa, notably the Battles of Minsk, Smolensk, Operation Typhoon and the Battle of Moscow before its remnants were withdrawn in April–May 1942.
Though nearly obsolete by the beginning of World War II, the T-26 was the most important tank of the Spanish Civil War and played a significant role during the Battle of Lake Khasan in 1938 as well as in the Winter War. The T-26 was the most numerous tank in the Red Army's armoured force during the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The Soviet T-26 light tanks last saw combat in August 1945, in Manchuria.
The 653rd Heavy Panzerjäger Battalion was a tank destroyer unit of the Wehrmacht active during World War II. It was equipped with Ferdinand and later Jagdtiger tank destroyers. Elements of the battalion served on the Eastern, Western, and Italian fronts between 1943 and 1945.
Alfred Becker was a German engineer and artillery officer who served during the First and Second World Wars. He was born and raised in Krefeld. A mechanical engineer by training, he is best known as being the primary person responsible for taking obsolete captured British and French vehicles and refurbishing and redesigning them into useful instruments for the German army. With his engineering and organizational skills, he converted the Hotchkiss plant on the outskirts of Paris into a vehicle modification and fabrication center. He used the vehicles to mobilize German guns, rocket launchers and mortars. Working with Alkett, steel shielding was shipped from Germany to armour the vehicles. The men from his artillery command did the metal work and conversion on 1,800 recovered vehicles.