Historical Resources Online

[samba_liten]

Oberst Klink has inspired me to start this thread. I intend to put all the links i can find here, organized by army and time frame. Hopefully it will be useful for aspiring scenario designers, and save re-inventing the wheel every time someone starts research on something. If you have something to add, please post it, and ill try to update the first post with it.


Pre WW I
WW I
Between the Wars
WW II
USSR
airforce.ru - info on the soviet air force
Statistics, OOB's for EVERY MONTH of the war, even exact numbers of aircraft for June '41 can be found here.
Engines of the Red Army in WW2 (Pictures of tanks and vehicles with data)
In Russian, with comprehensive OOB's for RKKA during the whole war
Pobediteli - Soldiers of the Great War (Among other things a flash animation of the fronts, and interviews with Russian soldiers)
Soldat.ru - Russian site with lots of various info on the WW2 period
Site in English with lots of info on the Red Army during the war, including maps and OOB's. Some material translated, much more in Russian
US
US OOB with lots of detail for the ETO.
Another free source of primary documents for the US Army WWII
African-American units WWII
Combined Arms Research Library - You can find a bit of everything here. Various essays and books on theory and operational reports, etc.
UK and Commonwealth
British and Commonwealth War Establishments for the Middle East and the Early Italian theater.
Then there are various threads. The following has some useful discussion for North Africa.
History of the Br. 7th Arm Div in WWII. A lot of info about various Regiments that were subordinated to the Division during the war.
RACA, Royal Canadian Armored Corp
Official Canadian stuff
Australian War Memorial. Official histories on line, and very detailed for Operation Exporter at least
Still good for the Commonwealth in the Levant/Med
Canadians WWII and later
Canadians -- Normandy
Excruciating TOE detail on the Brits in NW Europe 44-45.
Index of Royal Artillery Field Regiments 1939-45
British Artillery in WW2
The Official History of New Zealand in the Second World War 1939-1945
Many Nations on Same Site
Everyone should have a link to Hyperwar just to see which primary document they have published recently. It's an incredible resource from the supply situation in NW Europe in September '44 to the organization of landing forces in the Pacific
Air force losses and claims for various nations and fronts.
OOB's for many nations and dates, tactical signs explained and more- Dr. Leo Niehorster's site
Short biographies of many, many generals from most countries fighting in the war
The Nafziger collection of OOB's online in PDF format, free and legal
Battalion level OOB's for various nations, including the UK, the US and Germany from Bayonet Strength
Germany and the Axis Nations
History and specs of the Kriegsmarine
Basic Gliederung of Mountain units
German site with various fairly detailed TO&E's. Intended for the Europa series of board games.
Pay-site with very detailed kriegs gliederungen fo German divisiond. Free sample available for one division.
Another site with info on German divisions. History, commandes, some OOB details. In Geman.
German thread from panzerarchiv.de on late war divisions
History of the Berlin Flak towers.
Lots on Kursk, including maps, historical weather and units.
German page on Sturm-artillerie units.
This site is dedicated to the development of German motorcycle rifleman, motorized infantry, motorized grenadier and panzer grenadier during Second World War.
Handbook of German Military Forces, online edition
Oranisation of the Romanian army
Zollgrenzscutz - Info on combat units of the organisation
German military sybols explained by wartime US intelligence. Three .pdf files available, courtesy of the Combined Arms Research site.
History of the battle for the Seeloewe heights (in German)
Italian site for German oob's - similar to feldtgrau. Lots of oob's forspecific dates.
Official documents and maps from NARA regarding the LXXXVIII Corps 1944-45
History of Pz.Gren.Div "Kurmark" (in German)
Deutschen (Internet-)Marinearchiv
Küstrins Untergang im Jahre 1945 Eine militärhistorische Zusammenfassung
Wehrmacht und Niederlage: die bewaffnete Macht in der Endphase der ... By Andreas Kunz from google books
Same as the below, but for non pz. units. Not complete yet, and lacking .pdf summaries.
Scroll to the bottom for detailed info of number of vehichles and soldiers etc. in SS and Heer PZ. divisions 1943-45 - from Lexicon der Wehrmacht's forum
Things airborne from Sturmvogel.
Telumar's Swedish Normandy site, with German OOB, from the way back machine
Various OOB's, including excellent lists of minor Wehrmacht an SS units. From Panzerkeil
Engines if the Wehrmacht in WW2 - By the same man who brought you the Soviet site above
Zuweisungen von gep.Kfz. an die Truppe 1943-1945 - A last (in German) of the number of vehicles sent to each unit within the date bracket
History of the German WW2 Volkssturm
German Organization, Company to battalion level, detailed
Histor and Organization of Luftwaffe Field Divisions
Lexicon der Wehrmacht - Very good histories of practically every unit that took part in the war, in German
Axis History Factbook - Similar to the above, but in English, with a forum
Sturmpanzer.com - Info on Sturmpanzer units, along with downloadable original K.st.N.
WW2 Day by Day] Lots of info, including K.st.N.
Feldgrau.com - Unithistories and forums, as well as a useful dictionary of military german and abbreviations
Die Deutsche Wehrmacht - More unit histories in German. Can be hard to navigate
NATO-WP
NATO
A NATO OOB for 1989
WP
A WP OOB for 1988
General
Lots of USMC histories, including practically every conflict from Korea to Iraq
Same as above, but for the US army
Onwar.com - Among other things you can find a day by day breakdown of WW2 here
Military History Encyclopedia on the Web
Modern
OOB for coalition forces in Iraq June 2006-March 2011
Russian OOB for 2004 from GlobalSecurity.org
Maps
Full size Laage Ost maps for download!
Various
Amazing map of eastern front 22/6-41 including oob
http://militarymaps.org.ua/index_e.html
http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/web03/atlases/ww2%20europe/WWIIEuropeIndex.html
http://www.wwii-photos-maps.com/
http://igrek.amzp.pl/
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ams/western_europe/
http://hamster02.narod.ru/index3.html
http://english.mapywig.org/news.php
Laage Ost
HeeresGruppe-Weichsel nach Lage Ost_1.3.45
http://www.archiv-oberaussem.com/wiki_alt/heereskarten/karten.html
http://www.gutenberg-e.org/esk01/frames/fesk04.html
http://www.gutenberg-e.org/esk01/maps/
US Situation Maps
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/maps/wwii/date.html
Link Collection
Link collection of the 126th inf divisions website
A quite exceptional collection of links on Franks Netzeite, curtsy of Oberst Klink
Boonierat's excellent OOB link collection from the ACG forums.
Boonierat's extensive collection of links on the Vietnam war, from ACG.


EDIT: Updated with Oberst Klinks links, Secadegas link, and descriptions of everything except the maps.
EDIT TWO: Updated with Boonierat's links.
EDIT THREE: Updated with Telumar's links
EDIT FOUR: Clarified some descriptions, and added Colin Wrights links.
EDIT FIVE: Added link to Forum der Wehrmacht's lists of Zustandberichte.
EDIT SIX: Added more links for Germany in WW2.
EDIT SEVEN: Added miscellaneous links.
EDIT EIGHT:Updated first post with Central Blue's links.
EDIT NINE: More links from Telumar and ColinWright.
EDIT TEN: Added link to Barbarossa map with oob.
EDIT ELEVEN: Added more links from the thread, plus two more on Germany, and one for Laage Ost maps.
EDIT TWELVE: More links on Germany and one on the US added.
EDIT THIRTEEN: One more link for Germany.

[1_Lzard]

Good Job, Polar! [&o]

[secadegas]

Great list, no doubt.

But it wouldn't be completed without this: http://www.orbat.com/site/ww2/drleo/index.htm

[samba_liten]

Thank you, added it to the list!

[Boonierat]

Couple of links threads I've made some years ago for ACG, some of them might have died since then but here goes:

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/s ... hp?t=37721

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/s ... hp?t=24510

[samba_liten]

Merci! (and that's all that's left of six years worth of school French[8|])

[1_Lzard]

This set of threads should be added to Bob's tm.asp?m=2231803 thread, eh? Might keep it from fading.....

[8D]

[Panama]

Can someone please sticky this?

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: Panama

Can someone please sticky this?

Yes! And mirror the sites

There once was an excellent site on a swedish server about the Normandy campaign with very detailed divisional TOEs / OOB: http://web.telia.com/~u18313395/, but it's gone now - anyone knows if it still exists and if so where?

And i'd like to add something about the British Artillery in WWII:

http://www.ra39-45.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk ... index.html

and

http://nigelef.tripod.com/directory.htm - very detailed,

WWII Germany:

http://sturmvogel.orbat.com/Panzerkeil.html - various topics, OOB and tank strengths for Kursk; Wehrmacht and SS independent army units (Artillery, Engineers, Panzer-Abteilungen etc)

[samba_liten]

Thank you for those.
I managed to find parts of that Swedish site in the internet archives. Enjoy.

[1_Lzard]

Remember to check the TOAW ARTICLE INDEX available here: tm.asp?m=2231803

Lots of links!

[ColinWright]

Nafziger has a lot -- but it's often erroneous.

I tend to use it if there's nothing else. If it conflicts with something like Niehorster or Lexicon, though, it gets overruled.

As an aside, forums can be very useful. If the question just got asked at some point, someone with the right books is likely to have answered it, and someone else with other books to have critiqued the answer.

And finally, for matters Ost, Glanz is irreplaceable. His actual writing style leaves a lot to be desired, but his texts are data, TO&E, and OOB goldmines.

[ColinWright]

Two that are easy to overlook that I use a lot:

http://sturmvogel.orbat.com/Panzerkeil.html Panzerkeil and its sister site Sturmvogel. Matters German. They make no claims to be comprehensive, but focus on otherwise untraceable oddities like the location and equipment of independent Artillery Abteilungen over the course of the war. I'll often plug in the army I'm interested in into 'find' and see just what non-divisional artillery comes up for the dates I'm interested in, for example.

http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/ 'Battalion Organization during the Second World War.' What I like about this site is that the author indicates just how certain his information is, and focuses on what units actually had as much as on what they were supposed to have. Also, inasmuch as its focus is on small unit organization, it tends to pick up about where other sites leave off.

[samba_liten]

Just want to draw attention to the last link i added. Don't know if anyone else will find it as exciting as i do, but here is a sample:

Meldung vom 01.02.1945
Verband: 25.Panzer-Division
Unterstellungsverhältnis:
1. Personelle Lage am Stichtag der Meldung:
a) Personal:
Soll / Fehl / Ist
Offiziere: 359 / 40 / 319
Unteroffiziere: 2.271 / 346 / 1.925
Mannschaften: 8.945 / 1.984 / 6.961
Hiwi: 52 / -- / 52
Insgesamt: 11.575 / 2.370 / 9.205
(mit Hiwi): (11.627) / (2.370) / (9.257)
* Kranke und Verwundete innerhalb 8 Wochen = 39 Offiziere / 201 Unteroffiziere / 891 Mannschaften
Insgesamt: 1.131 Soldaten
b) Verluste und sonstige Abgänge:
In der Berichtzeit vom 01.01.1945 bis 31.01.1945
Tot / verwundet / vermisst / krank / sonstiges / Insgesamt
Offiziere: 13 / 30 / 4 / 7 / 3 / 57
Uffz. und
Mannschaften: 232 / 508 / 160 / 353 / 560 / 1.813
Insgesamt: 245 / 538 / 164 / 360 / 563 / 1.870
c) In der Berichtzeit eingetroffener Ersatz:
Ersatz / Genesene / Insgesamt
Offiziere: 33 / 13 / 46
Uffz. und
Mannschaften: 2.262 / 332 / 2.594
Insgesamt: 2.295 / 345 / 2.640
d) über 1 Jahr nicht beurlaubt:
insgesamt: -- Köpfe --% der Ist-Stärke
davon: 12-18 Monate / 19-24 Monate / über 24 Monate
-- / -- / --
Platzkarten im Berichtsmonat zugewiesen: ---
2. Materielle Lage:
Soll / einsatzbereit / in kurzfristiger Instandsetzung / Insgesamt
Gepanzerte Fahrzeuge
StuG 42 / 8 / 10 / 18
Pz III 22 / 5 / 2 / 7
Pz IV 4 / 1 / 1 / 2

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/thread.php?threadid=8099&threadview=0&hilight=&hilightuser=0&page=11

[Telumar]

ORIGINAL: polarenper

Just want to draw attention to the last link i added. Don't know if anyone else will find it as exciting as i do, but here is a sample:

Meldung vom 01.02.1945
Verband: 25.Panzer-Division
Unterstellungsverhältnis:
1. Personelle Lage am Stichtag der Meldung:
a) Personal:
Soll / Fehl / Ist
Offiziere: 359 / 40 / 319
Unteroffiziere: 2.271 / 346 / 1.925
Mannschaften: 8.945 / 1.984 / 6.961
Hiwi: 52 / -- / 52
Insgesamt: 11.575 / 2.370 / 9.205
(mit Hiwi): (11.627) / (2.370) / (9.257)
* Kranke und Verwundete innerhalb 8 Wochen = 39 Offiziere / 201 Unteroffiziere / 891 Mannschaften
Insgesamt: 1.131 Soldaten
b) Verluste und sonstige Abgänge:
In der Berichtzeit vom 01.01.1945 bis 31.01.1945
Tot / verwundet / vermisst / krank / sonstiges / Insgesamt
Offiziere: 13 / 30 / 4 / 7 / 3 / 57
Uffz. und
Mannschaften: 232 / 508 / 160 / 353 / 560 / 1.813
Insgesamt: 245 / 538 / 164 / 360 / 563 / 1.870
c) In der Berichtzeit eingetroffener Ersatz:
Ersatz / Genesene / Insgesamt
Offiziere: 33 / 13 / 46
Uffz. und
Mannschaften: 2.262 / 332 / 2.594
Insgesamt: 2.295 / 345 / 2.640
d) über 1 Jahr nicht beurlaubt:
insgesamt: -- Köpfe --% der Ist-Stärke
davon: 12-18 Monate / 19-24 Monate / über 24 Monate
-- / -- / --
Platzkarten im Berichtsmonat zugewiesen: ---
2. Materielle Lage:
Soll / einsatzbereit / in kurzfristiger Instandsetzung / Insgesamt
Gepanzerte Fahrzeuge
StuG 42 / 8 / 10 / 18
Pz III 22 / 5 / 2 / 7
Pz IV 4 / 1 / 1 / 2

http://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/thread.php?threadid=8099&threadview=0&hilight=&hilightuser=0&page=11

Great! Thank you very much! [&o]

[samba_liten]

Drawing attention again...
http://cgsc.cdmhost.com/cdm4/results.php?CISOOP1=all&CISOBOX1=German+military+symbols&CISOFIELD1=CISOSEARCHALL&CISOOP2=all&CISOBOX2=german+armed+forces+military+symbols+signs+and+symbols&CISOFIELD2=subjec&CISOROOT=all&t=s

German military symbols explained.

[samba_liten]

Some more attention drawing.
A goldmine for Russia in ww2.

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftashv.nm.ru%2F

[ColinWright]

ORIGINAL: polarenper

Some more attention drawing.
A goldmine for Russia in ww2.

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=ru&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Ftashv.nm.ru%2F

That is useful. The Russians are hard.

[samba_liten]

Did you find the list of every Soviet unit raised during the war yet?[8D]
I dont quite know what to do with it all, but its fascinating info.

[samba_liten]

Tiny bump for the new links, and because I'm falling off the first page![8D]