New German Jagdkampf units idea(and flavor background)

[misty chasm]

Jagdkampf in the Bundeswehr of 1985-1990 was a demanding infantry capability within Cold War defense, not a marginal niche. In a NATO-Warsaw Pact war, West Germany was expected to be a main battlefield, and Jagdkampf was meant to strike the enemy in his rear rather than fight only at the front. Its aim was to disrupt command posts, communications, supply lines, reserves, and other key installations through surprise, covert movement, raids, and ambushes. Jagdkommandos were intended to deny the enemy any sense of security behind his own lines and force him to divert substantial troops to rear-area protection.

A key strength of the German approach was that Jagdkampf was not reserved solely for elite special forces. It was rooted in the infantry arm and could, in principle, be carried out by regular infantry formations led by specially trained commanders. This gave the Bundeswehr depth, flexibility, and a broader force base for such operations. Jagdkampf depended on resilience, initiative, fieldcraft, and tactical maturity, allowing small units cut off from support to create disproportionate operational effects.

The rear area was also seen as decisive. Roads, bridges, depots, communications nodes, and critical infrastructure were vital targets and vulnerabilities. Jagdkampf therefore included both offensive action in enemy rear areas and defensive action against enemy raiders, airborne forces, or special operations troops in one's own rear.

A Jagdkampf platoon could include sniper team, and up to four infantry squads, supported by specialists such as medics, signals, engineers, fire support, air defense, dog handlers, or documentation teams. In practice, German infantry battalions could muster such commandos;
So each division should field them!
The new unit would be a larger rear-area security commando of roughly 16-18 men, with traits MP, security, dog, and reservist , likely drawn from Wehrbereichskommandos, to hunt SOF, raiders, saboteurs, and spies.

The "dog" trait would be like sigint but with a smaller radius but better as it could trace special forces and false flag

[regal patio]

this squad sounds like something i would dream up while on mushrooms

[lyric patio]

There's already a trait that's got a dog on the icon, do you not think that would be relevant? 😆

A few 10-man HEIMAT-JAGDKOMMANDO with G3A4, 1x MG-3, PzF 44, smoke grenades and the Security trait, tasked with hunting down enemy infiltrators.
Anyway, WBK provided Jagdkampfer are coming with Nemesis 8

[misty chasm]

But it's not stronk enough with 10 man! Then they lose everything against special forces AND airborne because of shock. Especially against spetsnaz.

They need to have a big ass number ... 16 man...

[maiden hare]

I sense Isby’s Armies of NATO’s Central Front pulled here and I’m all here for it

[misty chasm]

And you didn't catch my other take.. all German divisions with infantry elements (irl atleast) should have some sort of jagdkommando... But ok... Let's forget that for division uniqueness

[lyric patio]

We're seeing more task organised infantry teams now, so more Jagdkampfer are a possibility

(although I would potentially argue that Jäger-Aufklärer are already representing a Jagdkommando team in the offensive patrolling role)

[misty chasm]

Then I would argue against it ..
First, you think Germany had no "normal" recon unit? Or dismounted troops of the Panzeraufklärer?

Second the Jäger Aufklärer is recon!

Jagdkommando is not recon, it can be recon but it's more , literally translated, "hunting-fight"

So an active engaging force hunting high value targets or objectives being super high lethal and evasive and doing direct action.

Recon can be fought offensive due to German training but the small infantry units are not meant for this.

This is the reason a real German jagdkommando would be a a roughly 40 man platoon wrecking havoc in ambushes , surprise atacks and coup de mains and vanishing again

[left parcel]

I'm sure a platoon-sized squad would be good for balance, as clearly demonstrated in the Spearhead Reforged mod ||/s||

[misty chasm]

Therefore i said 16 man for the "passive" one... And they have reservist!

The platoon sized active combat one is my wet dream ! Non the less , I would hope for for additional jagdkommando units in the other German divisions!

[lyric patio]

A platoon sized unit is a platoon, not a squad. If you want a platoon of infantry in your opponent's rear areas, dismount your Jaegers and walk them there.

[misty chasm]

We have half platoons in-game already on atleast 3x occasions?! You know as well as I do thats also an cost factor

[maiden hare]

Eugen allows you to make platoon-sized elements if you want, you just need to merge 3-4 squads into one bloc

this was actually the default when buying multiple units in WGRD, you can have it that way in this game too if you like. Most people, however, appreciate having more precise control nowadays

[spare yarrow]

Jagdkampf again.

[misty chasm]

Yeah, and 12 man is not big enough for the rear area group ... And not even close for the active part .. but 12 is better than the 11 we ve got now.

So 16plus man with g3 for rear area without AT

And 12plus man with g3,g3z ,mg3 and Carlgustav for a future jagdkommando would be great

[spare yarrow]

To bring back the nightmare of Jagdkampf in SD2, I suggest a free vet , Shock equipped with 4 MP5s, 6 G3A3s, 2 MG3s, and 1 PzF 3.

Jagdkampf again.

Actually, what I said above was more of a joke. The background of Jagdkampf in SD2 is that it was a special operations unit made up of veterans, created to carry out guerrilla warfare against the encircled Western Allied forces in Dunkirk (which was under German control at the time).

[quasi skiff]

Does 2nd Panzergren really need a stronger opener?

[misty chasm]

May be a joke to you... But it would very fit well in a Fallschirmjäger jagdkommando without the special forces trait.

For non airborne you would choose another AT weapon instead of he pzf3.

[misty chasm]

There is still 5th pz, TKS and 6th pz without a jagdkommando... So we don't need to make the 2nd pzgren more realistic - which I still would like

[spare yarrow]

If you’re actually going to carry over the SD unit, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to carry over its loadout and background as well.

It would create a similarly compelling setting—remnants of German forces, encircled by a Soviet offensive, forming special task units to conduct guerrilla operations—much like the situation in Dunkirk.

[misty chasm]

I mean they are encircled but THEY meant to be encircled ...so yeah totally plausible scenario

"zu Beginn der heißen Phase des Kalten Krieges eine Strategie der Raumverteidigung. Diese sah unter anderem vor, Verzögerungsgefechte zu führen und eigenen Raum preiszugeben. Jagdkommandos sollten dann den Kampf gegen den vorgestoßenen Gegner mit Mitteln des Kleinkriegs fortführen.//a divisional defense strategy at the beginning of the hot phase of the Cold War. Among other things, this provided for delaying battles and giving up one's own space. Jagd Kampf commandos were then supposed to continue the fight against the advanced or advancing enemy using small-scale warfare.

[lyric patio]

Where are you quoting from btw?

[misty chasm]

E.g. this https://www.hartpunkt.de/maritimer-jagdkampf-seebataillon-soll-auf-eine-offensivere-gefechtsfuehrung-ausgerichtet-werden/

Its about nowadays Maritim jagdkampf but has a short passage about the history of jagdkampf

[mellow stratus]

You got any good English language stuff on jagdkampf tactics or typical task orgs? Always seems like one of those topics where there’s very little English writing on it

[misty chasm]

There is even very little German writing on it 😄

[mellow stratus]

I’ll take literally anything beyond the very vague descriptions I typically find