My question is this: would vehicles, such as halftracks, from different armored divisions, like the 4th, be attached to another AD, like the 6th AD? Or would this happen to with vehicles even within one armored division, such as from the 15th tank battalion to the 68th? Or from the 50th AID to the 68th TB? Reason I ask is because I will be starting to build a halftrack sometime in the coming year for the Halftrack campaign. I plan on making a diorama (much later) and put that in it along with a M4A3E8 I made of the 6th AD 68th Tank Battalion (what's the abbreviation for that? TB? BTN?) so I want these two to actually seem like they would actually be seen together. I've found a little information that confirms this, mostly looking on the Super 6th website with their reading material but I need to confirm it first.

Anybody have an answer?

While I can't say for certain what the "official" protocol was for updating unit vehicle markings, I can tell you that the US Army didn't uniformly change the markings on their vehicles for unit assignments when in the field, particularly when near or in transit to the front.

As an example, my father-in-law was in the 736th Field Artillery. Their battalion was temporarily and permanently reassigned multiple times but they were never given orders to repaint the unit markings on their trucks. On the other hand, when the anti-aircraft unit that basically followed them everywhere they went received a new CO, that AA unit received orders to clean up and rebadge their vehicles. However, this order came down on the same day they were ordered to the Remagen bridge area where they were kept busy shooting at Arado bombers and ME-262s trying to destroy the bridge. Their new CO was sent back to England after only two and a half weeks due to an ulcer, so the unit's vehicle markings never did get changed.

My father-in-law's truck had the same markings on VE day that it had in July 1944 when they landed in France. I think you will need to research the individual unit you intend to model to find the definitive answer to your question.

I guess there's been some confusion between what I said and what you interpreted. I'm asking whether vehicles and men from one armored division with travel with vehicles and men from different armored divisions. Not change their markings. So vehicles and men from the 4th AD moving with the 6th AD.

Sorry for not catching your drift, Michael. I don't know if they'd necessarily be formally attached in the 3rd Army's order of battle but they definitely intermingled - particularly where roads were limited and multiple units were moving in the same direction - such as when Patton turned his units north during the Bulge. I spoke to my father-in-law about your question. His unit (736th FABn HQ) worked with the 6th AD (they were both part of XX Corps under General Walker). When the Germans broke through in the Ardennes and they were ordered north, things became a little chaotic as organization sometimes took a back seat to the need for haste. Multiple units commonly travelled, bivouacked and stood watch together. (My father-in-law said that was the only time he ever felt sorry for the MPs who were tasked with restoring order.) The lead elements were squared away prior to engaging the Germans but the support elements remained tangled together for quite a while.

It wasn't only US units that were mixed together. My father-in-law's unit actually transported a unit of French-Algerian infrantry who had been with them since the siege of Metz. I've never been able to find a single reference to this odd amalgamation in any of the history books, so, if the units you're modeling were roughly in the same area at the same time, you'll be more than safe showing them together.

Does this help?

Yeah it does help. Thanks. Unfortunately as I plan on doing this as though near the end of the war, I'd think that things would've gotten orderly again.

Vehicles can stray outside their division area for all kinds of reasons but best bet is to make the half-track from the 6th AD's organic Armored infantry. Unless the dio is about meeting by accident.

Were the 4th and 6th AD anywhere near each other during the time you're setting the dio?


Or just leave the bumper codes off the half-track. Not every vehicle in the ETO had all the codes all the time. Then there's operational security in front line units where codes would be painted out or never even added.

I'm not sure whether the 4th and 6th were near each other at the time I want to make. I'll check on that. And no this won't be about meeting by accident. It'll basically be just a patrol through a city mopping up whatever resistance is left.

And I suppose all I really need to do is put the stars onto the Halftrack and call it done.

Within US armored divisions the armored infantry and armor battalions would cross attach companies to form teams. In the official US Army history of the Ardennes Campaign, there is a description of the attack by the 4th AD to relieve Bastogne. It describes the combination of 37th Armor Battalion tank companies with armored infantry companies from one of the infantry battalions as they moved north.

So your combination of a tank and a halftrack from within the same division would be within tactics of the time.

Jeff

US armor assets and infantry, all combat branches for that matter were cross attached as needed. Shellby Stanton's book on WW2 US Army units lists alot of these cross attachments. Authority for attaching who to what is more of a function of how far up the chain of blame you have to go. A company commander can cross over who ever he wants of assets in his company, unless this effects the battalion commander's intent/plans. So to have two units from the same corps operating together would not be unusual. The other would be like a relief in place in which some times a unit would be left on the line while the rest of the unit was withdrawn, and the left unit was attached to the replacing unit. Off the top of my head I recall for the US Army, after Market Garden alot of cross attaching, Hurtenvald, Pre and post Watch on the Rhine (Bulge).