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Organizational/Authorization (TO&E-type) documents for the countries in 2GM

jwsleser

Administrator
Staff member
During my research, I have at times needed to understand the organization of the various armies/units that are involved in the event under study. I am not talking about Order of Battles per say, but how the units of the combatants were organized and equipped. What I want to achieve in this thread is provide a resource for researchers needing to seek out this type of information. My hope is they can read these posts to discover what the documents were called and whether there might be a good location/source to find them.

I don't have all the answers to this question. I am hoping for a community effort to fill-in the missing pieces. A plus would be pictures/copies of a page or two of the document so the reseacher has an idea of what information the documents actually provide.

Pista! Jeff
 
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jwsleser

Administrator
Staff member
Italy

I have seen both Nozioni di Organica and Tabella Organica used. I have not seen an actual Tabella Organica, only seen them reprinted in other sources.

Edit: Maurizio provided a copy of a tabella organica. It has been added in a separate post.

The Specchio di Caricamento details the components of an end item. An end item is a piece of equipment that has sub items. A M13 tank is an end item and there would be a Specchio di Caricamento listing everything that belongs to the tank.

Here is the specchio for a coppia cofani di sanità (modello 1929) [pair of medical cases]
SpecchioCofaniSanita.jpeg


Here are two pages listing the items/components that are part of the medical cases.
SpecchioCofaniSanita2.jpeg

And another two pages lists which items go in which case.
coppia cofani di sanità3.jpeg
 
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jwsleser

Administrator
Staff member
United States

The United States has Tables of Organization & Equipment (TO&E). These documents identify the personnel and equipment for each type of unit. Normally the lowest level addressed is company. You can find pretty much all the 2GM TO&E HERE

Here are two pages of a 1944 Medium tank Company TO&E.
17-27 18Nov44.jpg

17-27 18Nov44a.jpg
 
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jwsleser

Administrator
Staff member
Italy

There are also documents titled Costituzione di [reparto]. These memorandums provided organizational and manning information of the units formed. This one is from Gli autoveicoli da combattimento dell'Esercito Italiano volume secondo.
CostituzionediReparto.jpeg
CostituzionediReparto2.jpeg
CostituzionediReparto3.jpeg
 
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jwsleser

Administrator
Staff member
United Kingdom

The UK used a document called a War Establishment. This document is similar to the US TO&E, presenting the personnel and equipment organization by subunit of the unit identified in the document. I had to use the Wayback Machine to find an example of a War Establishment on the net. War Establishment has many of the UK and Commonwealth War Establishment, mostly WW2 and a few that are post war.

Here is an example of a war Establishment for an Armour Regiment, Middle East August 1942.
 

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jwsleser

Administrator
Staff member
Italy

Maurizio provide this copy of a tabella organica. It is for a provisional battaglione Territoriale Mobile tipo A.S. dated 30-1-1941.
BnTM 1.jpeg
BnTM 2.jpeg
BnTM 3.jpeg
 
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Eugen Pinak

New Member
Jeff - I thank you for the great idea.
Here is what I can help.

Germany:
Kriegsstärkenachweisung (KStN) - tables of war organization.
Kriegsausrüstungsnachweisung (KAN) - tables of war equipment.

KStN example can be found here: http://lexikon-wehrmacht.de/Gliederungen/DivisionseinheitenPanzer/KSTN/971-R.htm

USSR:
Shtat - tables of war organization.
Tabel k shtatu - tables of war equipment.

Shtat example can be found here: https://photonoid.livejournal.com/53221.html

Japan:
編制表 (Hensei-hyoo) - tables of war organization.
兵器表 (Heiki-hyoo) - tables of war equipment.

Hensei example can be found here: https://akabasa.blogspot.com/2019/03/blog-post.html
 

jwsleser

Administrator
Staff member
Thank you for adding those. Now we need to find France and a host of smaller nations.
 

Lusitani

New Member
Thank you all for the information, very interested in the organization at the Platoon | Squad levels. Do we know if the Italian Army went through any reforms in the structures of these squads during the War? Where could I look/dig through to find out about something like a squad manual?
 

jwsleser

Administrator
Staff member
You must remember that the organization of the infantry squad differed by type of infantry. Regular infantry had one squad, the bersaglieri another, the alpini a third. The squads themselves underwent little modification during the war. The 18-man regular infantry squad added two scouts in 1940-41, the others remained unchanged AFAIK.

See the other threads in this topic (Regio Esercito) for more detailed discussions. Sources are listed in those threads.

v/r Jeff
 
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