Okay. I was in serious doubts whether to make them or not, but these guys are such a meme that I've decided finally to do them. Maybe, the devs will add the Brandenburgers as a separate unit one day, but if you want to have them in your game today, let's take a look.
First and foremost — the Brandenburgers weren't a solid front-combat unit until 1944 when they practically lost all their special purpose tasks and status, becoming a usual mechanised infantry division. However, during its most notorious times, when the Brandenburg commandos performed their best-known operations, they were a tactical unit, which companies and even smaller task forces were deployed all over the world separately, from France to Russia and from Norway to North Africa. So both our templates (
Special Purpose Traning Regiment Brandenburg '40—41 and
Special Formation / Division Brandenburg '42—43) would be more hypothetical — you know, for a scenario where all the Brandenburgers fight together. For the
'44 Panzergrenadier Brandenburg Division the template isn't really problematic, but we won't describe it here since that was no commando/airbourne formation — Tank Grenadiers would be covered later.
GERMANY
Early Commando Template. "Brandenburg 800" Special Purpose Training Regiment — as of 1941
Brandenburger Commandos. Ukraine, Autumn 1941
As I've said before, it's really difficult to represent commandos, especially the German ones, in Panzer Corps. However, I have some methodic thoughts in that regard.
By the beginning of the Operation Barbarossa the Brandenburg special unit was of regimental strength and consisted of three battalions. I guess, we have the right, taking in account the diversity, flexibility and highest professionalism of these soldiers to take each battalion as a separate 10-strength infantry unit. The only problem would be their designation.
In my opinion, the best way to show all the spectre of Brandenburgers' operations would be to make three different battalions — motorised
Grenadier (to show their assault and takeover operations and taking in account that they would later become a Tank Grenadier entity) and
Gebirgsjäger (to show their light infantry task forces trained to fight in all kinds of terrain) and
Fallschirmjäger (historically the Brandenburg 800 unit had only one parachute company, but I guess it would be okay on the game scale. It's up to you whether to give these guys transport planes or not, right?).
And what, that should be all? Three battalions only? Well, I guess, not just.
This regiment also had a whole bunch of foreign national sub-units trained specially by the German intelligence service (Abwehr) in order to cooperate with the German special forces and provide all the necessary assistance to them. And if we're describing the Brandenburger organization by the beginning of Barbarossa, then it should also have two Ukrainian national battalions —
Battalion Group "Roland" and
Battalion Group "Nachtigall" (Nightingale) attached. Historically they were composed of mostly Polish nationals of Ukrainian ethnic descent and they took part in quite a few Brandenburg 800 operations. I guess, they would be nicely represent by the usual
Wehr Infanterie, since they were auxiliaries.
TEMPLATE TOTALS
1 x Grenadier + Opel Blitz (strength 10);
1 x Gebirgäger + Opel Blitz (strength 10);
1 x Fallschirmäger (strength 10) + DFS 230 or Ju 52 (optional);
2 x Wehr Infanterie (strength 10).
It would
15 core slots without planes and circa
980 prestige. Not so much for such a flavourous unit. However, its actual combat abilities in the game would be very limited unless these guys have a ton of experience
GERMANY
Mid-War Commando Template. Special Formation / Division "Brandenburg" — as of 1943
Brandenburger Commandos. Serbia, Summer 1943
In November 1942 the Brandenburg 800 Regiment grew into a division-strong unit named "Special Formation Brandenburg" (Sonderverband Brandenburg) and in April 1943 it was officially designated "Brandenburg Division". We would combine these both formations into one template to show Brandenburger Commandos at their peak strength.
Sonderverband Brandenburg consisted of 5 battalions, all of them turned regiments in 1943. I guess it would be a right thing to consider them regimental-strong for this template, especially if we take into account that 5th regiment was an Abwehr special training school and took no part in any combat missions. So, the backbone of the division are these four
Regiments.
By 1943 their main task was counter-sabotage and anti-partisan operations, so I guess it would be best to make at least
two regiments
'43 Gebirgsjäger — in my opinion, they portray best possible units for counter-insurgency operations in Yugoslavian mountains and forests. I guess, these should be the
1st and the
4th Brandenburger
Regiments, since they take the most part in this mountainous anti-partisan warfare. And of course one of them should be fast enougth and use
Opel Blitz for more operative mobility.
Other two regiments,
2. Brandenburg and
3. Brandenburg, could be '
43 Fallschirmjäger and mechanised
'43 Grenadier respectively as we did before. For the last ones I suggest using
SdKfz 250/1. This choice is, as earlier, to show the wide variety of special-purpose tasks of the Brandenburg Division.
There was also a definitely unique unit named "Küstenjäger-Abteilung" (
Coastal Jaeger Battalion). These were the naval arm of the Brandenburger, some kind of naval commando in cooperation with Kriegsmarine. However, I think it would be best to represent them as a well-experienced mobile
'43 Pioniere, because this unit initially was an engineer part of the Brandenburg 800, and this unit definitely needs some good sappers for overall game performance. We should give them a nice blue Marine uniform, nonetheless!
And, I guess, we could use another foreign volunteer unit. In this case that's
Sonderverband 'Bergmann' (Special Formation 'Mountaineer'). This unit was drafted from Caucasian ethnicities — both Soviet PoWs and volunteer collaborationists. These peoples were of great importance since they knew all the details of the landscape and were skilled in mountainous warfare. I guess, this national unit could be represented by a battalion (strength 10) of usual, not M43
Gebirgsjäger without any motorisation. You should also remember that this Bergmann battalion eventually became a regiment, so it could be strengthened up to 15 by mid-1943 or so. The flag I've decided to use for them is the 'Bergkaukasien' (Caucasus Mountains) armpatch insignia of the Wehrmacht volunteers, since there were plenty of nations in 'Bergmann' — Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijani etc. — and taking one of these nations' flag could be problematic.
And that should be finally it!
TEMPLATE TOTALS
1 x Gebirgsjäger '43, 1 x Gebirgsjäger '43 + Opel Blitz;
1 x Gebirgsjäger (strength 10);
1 x Fallschirmjäger '43 + DFS 230 or Ju 52 (optional);
1 x Grenadier '43 + SdKfz 250/1
1 x Pioniere '43 + Opel Blitz (strength 10).
Brandenburg Division at full strength would cost you
25 core slots if we don't count air transports and about
1735 prestige. Definitely costly, but elite is elite after all, right?
However, if we consider this circa-320-full strength, then, of course, 1:3 scale would be problematic, because 10 tank units are surely a lot for the game, it's going to be some kind of overkill... That's really a matter to consider. By the moment of Barbarossa the numbers were considerably less — 145 in the 1st, 215 in the 3rd, 166 in the 4th, 182 in the 10th, 143 in the 11th, 293 in the 12th and so on.