Panzer Lehr on June 8th

[John McGillivray]

The Panther Battalion organization you gave dates from 1943, with four platoons in each company. By the time of Normandy the companies were reduced to only three platoons. Therefore this reduced the size of the company from 22 down to 17 tanks, and the size of the battalion from 96 tanks down to 76 tanks. Georges Bernage gives the make up of I./Pz.Lehr-Regt. 6 on page 42 as followers:

“The 1st Battalion (l/Pz. Lehr-Rgt. 6) was commanded by Major Markowksi and equipped with Panther tanks. His staff had a signals section with three command Panthers, a reconnaissance section (five Panthers), a motorcycle reconnaissance section, an engineer section mounted on armoured cars, and a section of armoured anti-aircraft artillery (two Type « H » Flakpanzer IV's each mounting a four barrelled 20 mm canon). The four companies were each equipped with 17 Panzer V's (Panthers) to which should be added a workshop and a quartermaster supply company.”