Stosstruppe

[Landsturm]

It so hard to get information about German units on the Internet...

Does someone have information about the 5th "Rohr" Sturmbattalion. Especially engagements. I heard that this unit didn`t take part in Kaiserschalcht since it was part of the 5th Army situated in the sector near Verdun...

[Robert Dunlop]

Sturmabteilung Calsow, which pre-dated Rohr, first saw action against a French sector. I don't know the location but it was June and July of 1915. Calsow was not aggressive in his handling of the formative stosstruppen, hence Rohr assumed command in August 1915.

Sturmabteilung Rohr first took the field on October 12, 1915. It attacked a French position known as Schratzmannle in the Vosges. A second larger attack was carried out on Hartmannsweilerkopf, a ridge in the Vosges mountains, on January 10, 1916.

From February 1916 until March, the unit fought piecemeal in the attacks on Verdun. Typically, small stosstruppe detachments were attached to other units.

On April 1, Rohr's unit was increased in size and became Sturmbatallion Rohr. Soon after, the Jaeger Sturm Batallions were created. Further expansion of the stosstruppen took place across the German Army, with Strurmbatallion Rohr playing an active part in the training thereof. By February 1917, there were 15 assault battalions and two independent assault companies, of varying quality.

At the time of Operation Michael, there were two companies of Assault Btn 5 (Rohr) attached to the German IX Army Corps and 2 companies attached to XVII Army Corps, both corps were in the 18th Army.

Hope this is of interest

Robert

[egbert]

If you can read German, this is a quite exhaustive document:

http://www.wdpi.de/andere_medien/sturmbataillone.htm

[Ralph J. Whitehead]

Looks like a great site. For those who cannot read German there is a simple way to get a rough translation. Go to http://babelfish.altavista.com/, copy the full address of the German page and paste it into the translation section for web pages and set the drop down menu to read from German to English and hit enter. While it is not perfect it does a credible job.

Ralph

[Ken S.]

I know this is over seven years old, but since the link is broken, I was wondering what exactly this was, if you can remember, and whether it is available somewhere else on the Net.

If you can read German, this is a quite exhaustive document:

<a href="http://www.wdpi.de/andere_medien/sturmbataillone.htm" target="_blank">http://www.wdpi.de/andere_medien/sturmbataillone.htm</a>

[Tom W.]

I know this is over seven years old, but since the link is broken, I was wondering what exactly this was, if you can remember, and whether it is available somewhere else on the Net.

Quite extensive coverage here:

http://www.kaiserscross.com/

Click the "Raiders" link on the left.

Chris Boonzaier is a member here, too..