How many German troops wasted in Tunisia?

[ljadw]

The Soviets had more equipment and training than the Taliban .Who won ?
US had more equipment and training than the Taliban .Who won ?
FYI ( you need a lot of it ) : in both cases it was the Taliban .
In 1941 and 1942 the Italians received more fuel than the Germans in NA (Source :Christos :Ultra Intelligence and Rommel's convoys ),thus your claim that the Italians had no supplies is wrong, as are all your other claims .
The only thing you are looking for are excuses for the defeats of Lewinsky .

[Aida1]

The Soviets had more equipment and training than the Taliban .Who won ?
US had more equipment and training than the Taliban .Who won ?
FYI ( you need a lot of it ) : in both cases it was the Taliban .
In 1941 and 1942 the Italians received more fuel than the Germans in NA (Source :Christos :Ultra Intelligence and Rommel's convoys ),thus your claim that the Italians had no supplies is wrong, as are all your other claims .
The only thing you are looking for are excuses for the defeats of Lewinsky .

What a load of the usual insane nonsense. Seems to me Manstein did not serve in North Africa . And given examples that are irrelevent and wrong. The italian troops were badly fed.

[ljadw]

How do you know that the Italian troops in NA were badly fed ?

[Aida1]

How do you know that the Italian troops in NA were badly fed ?

Stated by Rommel who would know.

[ljadw]

Rommel knew how much calories each Italian soldier received every day ?
Nice .

[Von Bock]

Interesting observations by Robert M. Citino about the German losses in Tunisia.

And so this attenuated campaign had finally come to an end. Some 250,000 Axis prisoners of war fell into Allied hands, including Generals Messe and Arnim and a host of other high-ranking officers. The three divisions of Rommel’s old Afrika Korps—15th and 21st Panzer and the 90th Light Division, formations that had written an epic in the annals of German military history—went into captivity wholesale. Already there were some in the ranks who were speaking of a “Tunisgrad” in North Africa, a catastrophe equivalent to Stalingrad, and the term appears commonly in the literature even today. Equating the two requires a certain amount of nuance, however. At Stalingrad, the Wehrmacht lost the principal field formation in its 1942 battle array,
the 6th Army: 330,000 men at the start of the campaign, along with almost all the heavy weapons and combat engineers in Army Group South. It was an operational defeat, but also a strategic catastrophe. Tunis, by comparison, was merely a disaster. Perhaps one-third of the quarter million total were fighting troops; indeed, a short time before the end, Rommel had estimated the total Axis fighting strength in Africa as 120,000 men, and there had been serious losses and only meager replacements since then. Of those fighters, let us estimate that about half had been German. A great deal of the manpower scooped up at “Tunisgrad” belonged to the detritus of the Italian administration in the African colonies, possessions that Italy had now lost forever.

Again, some rough estimates here. (When exactly did Rommel estimate this?)

[Cult Icon]

There was sufficient personnel left in 21st Panzer to rebuild it though...

[Richard Anderson]

There was sufficient personnel left in 21st Panzer to rebuild it though...

[Urmel]

There was sufficient personnel left in 21st Panzer to rebuild it though...

Tell me you don't understand how the Germans did things without saying "I don't understand how the Germans did things."

[Richard Anderson]

There was sufficient personnel left in 21st Panzer to rebuild it though...

Tell me you don't understand how the Germans did things without saying "I don't understand how the Germans did things."

Gee, whatever gave that away?

[Richard Anderson]

To get a little more specific, we can look at 15. Panzer/Panzergrenadier Division. when the first iteration was lost, Divisions Sizilien, the 10,359 O & EM of the Italienstau - AKA Division 999. - were renamed 15. Panzergrenadier Division. They then added six Marsch-Batallionen, so call it 4,800-6,000 more personnel, and the Genesene and Urlauber of 15. Panzer Division that were available. So around it was around 15,000 to 16,000 minus the 15. Panzer Division veterans. It's Sollstärke was 16,315 as of 1 November 1943, which was probably not far off what it was in July 1943. So there was room for about 1,315 veterans. I suspect the situation WRT to 21. Panzer was similar, although it was replaced using existing assets in France from gepanzerte Artillerie-Brigade (Sfl.) AKA verstärkte Schnelle Brigade West, along with bits and pieces transferred from other divisions in France.

[Von Bock]

To get a little more specific, we can look at 15. Panzer/Panzergrenadier Division. when the first iteration was lost, Divisions Sizilien, the 10,359 O & EM of the Italienstau - AKA Division 999. - were renamed 15. Panzergrenadier Division. They then added six Marsch-Batallionen, so call it 4,800-6,000 more personnel, and the Genesene and Urlauber of 15. Panzer Division that were available. So around it was around 15,000 to 16,000 minus the 15. Panzer Division veterans. It's Sollstärke was 16,315 as of 1 November 1943, which was probably not far off what it was in July 1943. So there was room for about 1,315 veterans. I suspect the situation WRT to 21. Panzer was similar, although it was replaced using existing assets in France from gepanzerte Artillerie-Brigade (Sfl.) AKA verstärkte Schnelle Brigade West, along with bits and pieces transferred from other divisions in France.

Wiki (quoting Samuel Mitcham, The Panzer Legions) says the following:

Survivors of the division who escaped the North African surrender by being in hospitals in Europe became part of the new 15th Panzergrenadier Division.

This makes sense, the only German troops that were evacuated from Tunisia were the wounded. (Among them Stauffenberg)

[Urmel]

Every subunit of 21. Panzerdivision colored in red in this graphic was destroyed in Tunisia. The blue and green ones survived and could be used for rebuilding.

[Urmel]

To get a little more specific, we can look at 15. Panzer/Panzergrenadier Division. when the first iteration was lost, Divisions Sizilien, the 10,359 O & EM of the Italienstau - AKA Division 999. - were renamed 15. Panzergrenadier Division. They then added six Marsch-Batallionen, so call it 4,800-6,000 more personnel, and the Genesene and Urlauber of 15. Panzer Division that were available. So around it was around 15,000 to 16,000 minus the 15. Panzer Division veterans. It's Sollstärke was 16,315 as of 1 November 1943, which was probably not far off what it was in July 1943. So there was room for about 1,315 veterans. I suspect the situation WRT to 21. Panzer was similar, although it was replaced using existing assets in France from gepanzerte Artillerie-Brigade (Sfl.) AKA verstärkte Schnelle Brigade West, along with bits and pieces transferred from other divisions in France.

Schnelle Brigade West -> 21. Panzerdivision
Panzergrenadier-Regiment 931 -> Panzergrenadier-Regiment 125,
Two Kradschützen-Kompanien -> Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung 21
Artillerie-Regiment 931 -> Panzer-Artillerie-Regiment 155.

Lexikon der Wehrmacht

[Richard Anderson]

This makes sense, the only German troops that were evacuated from Tunisia were the wounded. (Among them Stauffenberg)

Indeed, and that was part of the formation orders of the two divisions. The same was done with the reforming "Stalingrad" divisions. However, saying the divisions were "There was sufficient personnel left in 21st Panzer to rebuild it" implies something that was not the case, which was the new divisional strength was primarily sourced from those personnel. They weren't. At most, and this is probably an exaggeration, about 1,300 of the 16,000 were veterans, so about 8 percent. On top of that, while still rebuilding, the new division was thrown into the battle of Sicily and suffered somewhere around 4,000 casualties in the process (it had an Ist of 12,296 on 31 August 1943). How many of those were the veterans?

BTW, in the last year recorded, 1942, 27,218 German personnel were evacuated sick, wounded, and injured from North Africa, a portion of those died or were discharge, a portion were transferred to rear area duties as invalids, and another portion were returned to duty and became part of the Italienstau.