Hey, I have a question. In militery history, how often does a formation gets wiped out? And what size? A squad? a platoon? even a regirment? How often does it happen? And what's the biggest formation known to get wiped out?

That would depend on the definition of the term "wiped out". Could you clarify that?

Entire armies have been decimated beyond operational ability, it's a fairly common occurrence through the history of warfare.

By wiped out I mean the formatoon gets disbanded due to severe casualties or that everyone in it dies.

Regularly in war.
If wiped out was to mean combat ineffective, then at section level all it takes is 1 or 2 wounded to become combat ineffective.

Yea, but I mean more serius then that. I mean when basicly the formation sizes to exist, as in everybody dies or only a few surrvive. How often does that happen and to what sized formations, as in squads, platoons, etc.

Originally Posted by Comandos

Yea, but I mean more serius then that. I mean when basicly the formation sizes to exist, as in everybody dies or only a few surrvive. How often does that happen and to what sized formations, as in squads, platoons, etc.

I'm sure that on the Eastern Front in WW2, there were many formations, both Soviet and German, that were wiped out in the manner you dictated. However, it's probably not really helpful to include formations as small as squad/section sized as these are often wiped out in heavy warfare. More remarkable is when Regiment/Battalion and even Division sized formations are wiped out. I'm sure this happened a few times on the Eastern Front but currently have no data to hand, or the time to look it up.

If you look at the combat history of the Gross Deutschland division you can see they lost entire regiments at a time. By the time they reached Memel in '45 it looked as a strong force on paper, in reality it was a bunch of ragged soldiers with hardly any equipment left.

It happened often and on a large scale as well, think of Von Paulus' 6th Army. So it isn't easy to give a clean cut answer to your question.

Originally Posted by Ted

If you look at the combat history of the Gross Deutschland division you can see they lost entire regiments at a time. By the time they reached Memel in '45 it looked as a strong force on paper, in reality it was a bunch of ragged soldiers with hardly any equipment left.

It happened often and on a large scale as well, think of Von Paulus' 6th Army. So it isn't easy to give a clean cut answer to your question.

Großdeutschland (GD) was one of the finest German formations of WW2. Along with the premier Waffen-SS formations and other 'elite' formations like 1st, 2nd and 7th Panzer Divisions, GD was often used as a spearhead or as a fire brigade on the Eastern Front. For example, it was GD that Manstein used along with the II SS Panzer Korps to recapture Khar'kov in 1943. As a result of this, it sustained very heavy casualties at times, but I'm not sure whether it had whole regiments wiped out through irrecoverable losses (MIA and KIA). Certainly though, regiments were wiped out (more than a few times) due to wounded and some MIA/KIA.

I can quite believe that regiment-sized formations were wiped out during the Battle of Stalingrad though. BTW, and sorry for being such a stickler, it is Paulus and not von Paulus.

My grandfather was one of only six men to return from an attack on the German trenches in WW1 and that was out of a Regiment. In WW1 a Battalion raised on the Royal Estate died to the man in Gallipoi in an attack, apart from the odd few people that were on sick call that day, but no one from that assault ever came back. If I remember rightly it was the 13th Norfolk Regiment, but it is a long time since I read the story.

Originally Posted by Doppleganger

Großdeutschland (GD) was one of the finest German formations of WW2. Along with the premier Waffen-SS formations and other 'elite' formations like 1st, 2nd and 7th Panzer Divisions, GD was often used as a spearhead or as a fire brigade on the Eastern Front. For example, it was GD that Manstein used along with the II SS Panzer Korps to recapture Khar'kov in 1943. As a result of this, it sustained very heavy casualties at times, but I'm not sure whether it had whole regiments wiped out through irrecoverable losses (MIA and KIA). Certainly though, regiments were wiped out (more than a few times) due to wounded and some MIA/KIA.

I can quite believe that regiment-sized formations were wiped out during the Battle of Stalingrad though. BTW, and sorry for being such a stickler, it is Paulus and not von Paulus.

The discussion of particularly WWI or WWII losses and replacements is an important one. I want to raise a couple of points. First a primer, however: (I use the WWII German Army as an example)

Quick List of Military Formations: (reverse order with English equivalent)

Lower:

a. Trupp, Gruppe or Section (10-20) [composed of several men]
b. Zug or Platoon (30-40 men) [composed of several Sections]
c. Kompanie or Company (100-200 men) [composed of several Platoons].
d. Bataillon or Battalion (500-1000) [composed of several Companies].
e. Regiment (2000-6000 men) [composed of several Battalions].
f. Brigade (5000-7000 men) [composed of several Battalions].*

*normally attached independently to Corps or Army HQ, although not the case in later years.

Upper:

g. Division (10-20 thousand men) [1-4 Regiments or several Brigades].
h. Korps or Corps (40,000 or more men) [2 Divisions and higher]
i. Armee or Army (60,000 or more men) [1 Corps and higher]
j. Armeegruppe or Army Group (60,000 or more men) [Multiple Corps, etc]
k. Heeresgruppe or Army Group (Large) [Multiple Armies]

http://www.feldgrau.com/org.html

(1) The separation into lower and upper is important. A Division represented the first formation that contained all of the things necessary for fighting purposes. This does not just include artillery, flak, or the weapons and fighting men themselves. A division also included other things of extreme importance...like cooks, doctors, engineers, truck drivers, mechanics, general staff officers, quartermasters, etc. "Good food", a friend of mine and retired officer of the British Army once said, "is the most important requirement". For these reasons, a division was not just a bunch of guys with guns or dudes in tanks. The actual number of men directly involved in the fighting was (unless we are talking about the Soviets) surprisingly low.

Here is the breakdown of the 12th SS (22,000 men in total)

25.SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Hitlerjugend (mechanized infantry)
26.SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Hitlerjugend (mechanized infantry)
12.SS-Panzer-Regiment (armour)
12.SS-Artillerie-Regiment (artillery)
12.SS-Kradschutzen-Regiment (reece)
12.SS-Aufklarung-Abteilung (reece)
12.SS-Kradschutzen-Regiment (reece)
12.SS-Panzerjäger-Abteilung (anti-tank)
12.SS-Werfer-Abteilung (artillery)
12.SS-Flak-Abteilung (flak)
12.SS-Pioneer-Abteilung (engineer)
12.SS-Panzer-Nachrichten-Abteilung (signals)
12th SS Divisional Support Units

It is interesting to note that this armoured division only included one tank and two mechanized infantry regiments. In WWII, for obvious reasons, these types of regiments took the highest losses when in extreme battle conditions. When historians write that the the 12th SS was bled white at the Falaise Gap (1944), they are generally referring to these regiments. Therefore, the fighting strength of a division could "disappear" even though the bulk of the men involved survived and retreated. Replacements then fleshed out the core fighting regiments and the division reappeared. [The regular Wehrmacht had an excellent replacement system developed on regional structures or "Wehrkreise"].

It should be borne in mind that regular losses were part and parcel of the war. If a German company of 120 men lost 1 man per day, it was theoretically replaced three time a year.

Encirclements were the exception to this trend. When the Soviets encircled the 6th Army in Stalingrad, for example, the Germans faced the loss of entire divisions. These types of losses could not be easily replaced. Not only did all of the equipment vanish in the fires of war, but the necessary specialists (most of whom were killed by the Soviets) were gone as well. New divisions had to be created...an expensive undertaking.