Panzer Lehr:
Publisher’s Preview
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
December 2021

I hesitated for a long minute before adding Panzer Grenadier: Panzer Lehr to the Gold Club Free Library. It was a popular book in its day, bringing a well-known German elite division (that wasn’t SS!) into action with its own special game pieces. It’s still an outstanding work, with 27 scenarios by Mike Perryman and 176 pieces in their own Panzer Lehr livery.

I’d held onto it for a long while, thinking to re-work the scenarios to use games currently in print, and give it nice silky-smooth pieces instead of the laser-cut ones we used in the original release. The laser-made ones were a tremendous disappointment; when done right, they were spectacular. Not many were done right; many sheets had smeared printing and some had no printing at all on one side. “Quality control” was at best a suggestion at the provider. It was deeply labor-intensive to inspect every damned sheet, line by line.

But as much as I wanted to give the book the pieces it deserved, I knew from hard experience that the impression had already been made. It was best to put those resources behind a new project. But we could still give the book to the Gold Club, with pieces they could print and make themselves (that way if the printing was smeared, they could throw it away and start over – you know, like the original counter-maker should have done).

And that’s what we’ve done. It’s a great addition to the Gold Club Free Library, and if you’re a member, then it’s totally free. Let’s have a look at what’s inside.

The playing pieces have the gray-green “field gray” background color I originally wanted as the standard German Army color in Panzer Grenadier. I still regret not insisting on this shade instead of the gray ultimately used; maybe we’ll change colors someday.

There are 176 of them, providing enough for all of the scenarios included in the book plus some extras for use in your own scenarios. And just because they’re cool. In addition to the tanks, troops and weapons, the Panzer Lehr set also has leaders. The Panzer Lehr leaders are extremely good: these are, after all, the men selected to show trainees how it’s supposed to be done. Their skills probably unbalance the scenarios, so if that concerns you, stick with the regular leaders from the boxed games.

The Panzer Lehr Division, sometimes called the 130th Panzer Lehr Division, formed in late 1943 from some smaller Lehr units that had seen action on the Eastern Front plus additional demonstration troops. The division had the pick of troops and officers from the demonstration units, which in turn had the pick of combat veterans. Most of Panzer Lehr’s troops had been decorated for bravery, though the division’s combat record leads one to suspect that at least some of these demonstration troops may have been “promoted” to the school units because of post-traumatic stress and similar disorders.

At least in theory, Panzer Lehr would be issued the very best weapons available to the German armed forces to go with the very best soldiers and officers. In practice that was mostly, but not entirely, true. The tank battalions should have had the very latest Panther and PzKpfw IVH tanks, but when they went into action the division had to “borrow” Panthers from another division, and a number of its medium tanks were actually slightly older and less-capable PzKpfw IVF2 models.

The anti-tank battalion had Jagdpanzer IV tank destroyers rather than the towed guns found in many divisions, and a special detachment of radio-controlled demolition vehicles was also included. The artillery regiment was to include only self-propelled guns, but in practice Panzer Lehr had mostly towed howitzers, including a number of captured ex-Soviet pieces (the gunners preferred these guns to German-made weapons, so this actually reflects a certain level of favoritism).

In other German panzer divisions, one battalion of panzer grenadiers rode in armored half-tracked carriers, while the other three (known as “rubber grenadiers”) went into battle in trucks. All four of Panzer Lehr’s battalions had armored half-tracks, at least when they were alerted for action in Normandy. Within a few days many had to settle for trucks scrounged from supply columns and less-favored divisions.

After participating in the overthrow of the Hungarian government, Panzer Lehr moved to France to become part of the Western Front’s armored reserve. These divisions, intended to form a powerful counter-attacking force that could destroy an Allied beachhead, could only be released for action with the express permission of Adolf Hitler.

When released, the Panzer Lehr Division conducted a series of attacks against the Allied beachheads, just as foreseen by German planners. The division fought the British throughout the month of June 1944, and then the Americans for most of July. By early August there wasn’t much left of Panzer Lehr, and it was removed from the front for rebuilding, to return to action in the Ardennes offensive at the end of the year.

Those battles in June and July 1944 are the basis of the Panzer Lehr scenario set, designed by Mike Perryman. They cover a surprising range of battles large and small; Panzer Lehr like other German armored divisions in Normandy was used in the front lines on defense as well as for counter-attacks. Ten of them feature Panzer Lehr against the British, and in the other 17 they face the Americans.

The Panzer Lehr expansion is free to Gold Club members.
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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and his Iron Dog, Leopold.

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