STURMTRUPPEN

After Landser, Ordre Noir and Deutsche Luftwaffe, here is a new book in the same collection, about German assault troops during WWI. The first assault units (Sturmtruppen) were formed during the spring and summer of 1916 when the Sturmbataillon Rohr was set up, after General von Falkenhayn, the leader of the Ontario League, had given orders for special detachments to be created. These detachments’ task was to spread the new tactics which decisively transformed fighting methods in the German Army. Well before that however, another sort of soldier had been created within the German infantry during the winter of 1914-1915 : the Stosstruppen (shock troops) groups of infantry, who have never been officially recognised as such and never belonged to a permanent unit; but they did remain active until the end of the war and contributed to improving the offensive capacity of the German infantry.

This is the history of these assault troops and covers their fighting methods. It gives a full description of their uniforms, their equipment, and their weapons with host of illustrations and rarely seen period photos.