Road to the NZGT 2008: Ken Camel's Panzer Pioneers By Ken Camel My road to a Pioneer Company began about three years ago. It actually started with the US Combat Engineer Platoon attached to my 1st Infantry Division Company. I noticed when playing against German armour companies I was having good success with the Combat Engineers in taking out medium German Tank platoons. So when the big tanks started to arrive I decided to try and build an anti-tank force that still had some offensive punch.  I first tried, with some success, using three Hummels, three Brumbars, and two Tigers in support of a two platoon Pioneer Company.

It worked well against straight armoured companies but had a weakness against infantry and mechanised companies. I reworked the points seeing that I could use the pionier infantry with more options if I downgraded the armour to six StuG Gs and three Wespes. This worked well against everything against artillery armies as I didn’t have the speed to close in on them. With the additional 250 points allowed in this years GT I thought upgrading one platoon to mechanised would give me more speed while adding a supply truck for digging in/fortifications would help against both artillery and infantry. I also upgraded the Wespes to Hummels to enhance the killing capability on the big tanks. I also tested this force against the Shtraf during the playtesting of Stalin’s Onslaught and Firestorm and seemed to be able to hold its own against the massive ground assaults. Hopefully, it will hold its own against the new stuff at this year's GT.

Panzerpionier Company   Points Company HQ with Armoured half-track 75  with two (2) Panzerfausts 20  with anti-tank section 25 Armoured Panzerpionier platoon (3 squads) 375  with Panzerfaust 10  with Supply Truck 25 Panzerpionier Platoon (3 Squads) 195  with Panzerfaust 10  with Supply Truck 25 Assault Gun Platoon (3 StuG G) 285 Panzer Platoon (3 StuG G) 285 Armoured Artillery (3 Hummels) 330 Anti-aircraft Platoon (2 Sd Kfz 7/1 (quad 2cm)     90 Total: 1750

A Short History of the 92nd Panzer Pioneer Battalion The battalion was subordinate unit of the 20th Panzer Division. Their home station was in Gotha, and was comprised primarily of Hessians. It fought exclusively against the Soviet Union between June 1941 and May 1945. The battalion’s first combat action was in Army Group Center where it participated in the opening stages of Operation Barbarossa and remained in the front echelon of attack during the series of advances on Minsk, Smolensk, and up until Operation Typhoon and the failed attack on Moscow.

From there, it remained on the central front until July, 1943. As part of the northern spearhead commanded by Walter Model during the battle of Kursk, men from the 92nd were involved with clearing anti-tank mines on the night of July 4-5, as well as being part of the first wave of attack the following morning. The rest of 1943 was spent in a long retreat between Orel, Gomel, Orsha, and Vitebsk. At the beginning of 1944, along with the entirety of forces on the Eastern front, the 92nd Panzer Pioneer Battalion spent a hard winter of defensive fighting in the Polotsk, Vitebsk, and Bobrusik areas. In May of that year, it was rushed to the southern sector of the front to participate in operations inside the area around Cholm.

In June 1944 the battalion was assigned with Army Group Center and was destroyed at Bobruisk during the Soviet's Operation Bagration, The battalion was reconstituted in Romania in October as part of armored brigade 101. The battalion was sent to East Prussia, and then Hungary the following December. Finally, it retreated through Breslau, Schweinitz, Neisse, and Görlitz. The remainder of the battalion was overrun and destroyed by Soviet forces in May, 1945.