The German Panzergrenadiers or PzG, were a the mechanized infantry branch of the German armed forces during WWII. They did not exist at the beginning of the war, at least not with that designation. Many of these units evolved from regular infantry, to mechanized infantry, and then in 1942, they were designated as Panzergrenadiers. The reason to do so, was to afford them greater status within the armed forces, as historically, particualrly during the times of Frederick the Great, grenadiers were regarded as the strongest and largest men, because of their role as assault troops. Pansergrenadier units existed within the German Army (Heer), the Waffen SS, and even the Luftwaffe. Some of these units were fully mechanized, and transported in halftracks (Sd Kfz 251) into battle, but that was only 11% of them. The rest were transported in trucks. Theoretically, a PzG division was supposed to have a battalion of tanks and six battalions of mechanized infantry, however in practice, given the shortage of tanks, many of them were equipped with mechanized anti-tank guns. Some famous PzG divisions were the Grossdeutschland (Heer), Brandenburg (Heer), Liebstandarte (SS), Totenkopf (SS), and the Herman Goring (Paratroopers). Several volunteer divisions of foreing troops were also raised to be PzG units, like the Wallonien and Nederland divisions.
Mars German Panzergrenadiers
If not because of the name, it is hard to tell that these guys were mechanized infantry. But they are still a nice set that could be used to augment your regular German infantry, or Waffen SS. The best pose is clearly the mg gunner resting his weapon on his mate's shoulder. Unfortunately, it is pretty hard to line up the figures. At best, the muzzle is right behind the front man's ear, which would have been terrible in real life. Also, this set does have a man 'running' which is better than some of the other sets in which everyone is standing, however the running pose could have been sculpted leaning forward a bit more in my opinion. Still a good set overall.
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