ORIGINAL: JeffK
Note it is a Luftwaffe Field Rgt, not a Para Rg.
Be sure to rate its abilities correctly.
1) Task:
Actually, a "Flieger-Regiment" served as Replacement and Training unit for the Luftwaffe Field-Divisions. Its troops were not yet incorporated into a Field-Division or Field-Regiment, plus their personnel had differing levels of training, as it was a continual in and out: recruits who finished basic infantry training, some (short?) specialist training, or some re-training after they had recovered from wounds and who were then ready for transfer to the Division, or raw recruits who had just entered the training process.
That said, they were clearly not Field-Regiments. Also, these regiments were used to filter out potential pilots, who were then sent to the flight schools, which remained in Germany, though.
By the way, if I am not mistaken, the concept of the "Fliegerhorst" units or the Luftwaffe "ad-hoc" units in HTTR is somewhat of a misconception. These troops were neither paper-pushers nor pure mechanics, cooks, or security officers/soldiers without any infantry training. Given, in these cases, the level of infantry training involved didn't contain much info about coordinating attacks, it seems.
Now, regarding abilities/level of training:
2) History:
Initially, these Luftwaffe Divisions were assembled on direct order by Hitler, who had demanded (in 1942) to transfer 200,000 men from Luftwaffe to the Heer, to compensate the losses during winter 1941/1942 (advance on Moscow) and the following German "Summer-Offensive". The ground-array of the Luftwaffe indeed had a somewhat bloated organization, but it also had numerous units with fully trained (infantry training) personnel at its disposal.
Göring talked Hitler into bringing members of the Luftwaffe to the front (on the ground) in newly raised Luftwaffenfelddivisionen, where he maybe thought he could still remain in control of these forces, in fact, most (if not all) "Luftwaffen-Feld-Divisionen" (LW Field Divisions) were incorporated into the Heer (German Army) on 1st of November 1943, though.
Hitler agreed, so Göring gave order to raise 20 Divisions using Luftwaffe members. Officers were supposed to volunteer, while - to some extent - even full compliments of NCOs and men were taken from individual units. Airborne/aviation units provided the troops for the Jäger-Regiments, Flak-Artillery units provided men for Artillery and Flak-units, Luftwaffe signal units provided the signal Abteilungen, and Luftwaffen-Construction units provided troops for the Engineer battalions.
In theory, all the units would be filled with troops from corresponding branches of the Luftwaffe. In general, these units did have no
tactical experience - let alone infantry combat experience -, though, as even NCOs and Officers were from the Luftwaffe (with the exception of 1 or another Luftwaffe unit, IIRC, which was at least "pimped" with officers or even NCOs that had been transfered from the Army).
So with the "pure" Luftwaffe units, crash courses were scheduled to be held right after dismounting from the trucks (right behind the front) and right before being committed (partially at hotspots).
Accordingly, the losses of individual Luftwaffe-Field-Divisions amounted to up to 80% of their troops (units committed in 1942/43).
This, obviously, due to the lack of coordination and lack of knowledge how to concert an attack in the first place, not the lack of basic/infantry training. Also, the first set of Luftwaffe Divisions consisted of air-personnel, and also of ground-personnel that had been used for airfield duties, garrison duties or maintenance/protection on site, exclusively.
A Flieger-Ausbildungs-Regiment (later: "Flieger-Regiment") was somewhat better off at a later stage of the war, as some Wehrmacht (Army) personnel was placed to bolster its NCO/officer positions (my guess is reconvalescents or disabled officers, though), to some extent, IIRC.
In late 1944, the recruits were usually youngsters and men who were 40 and/or older without ANY combat experience, afaik. I am not sure about the composition (reg. age) of the
92. Regiment, I think Cole mentions it in his Army History report about the Lorraine campaign, though.
3) Now, the
performance of the particular Regiment 92:
On the map (I posted above), you can see that Flieger-Regiment 92 was placed on a height that dominated the area. It took the 319th Regiment 2 days and heavy fighting to dislodge this unit, plus they got dislodged themselfs, when the Flieger-Regiment mounted a counterattack. As the troops of a Flieger-Regiment were intended to transfer to their supervising ground-combat unit (the Field-Division) sooner or later anyways, either the training of coordination and command/control must have gotten better, or their youngsters were just tough and determined, as the 92's perfomance in Nancy wasn't anywhere near the performance of the first LW-Field-Divisions in November 1942. It seems like 7 of the 20 new Divisions were put on occupation duties and one was placed as rear-guard (security) behind the front, so that "regular" Wehrmacht units could be released from such duties and transfered to the front. In Nancy, though, this training Regiment seems to have put up quite some performance. Also, most of the German units in the (closing) pocket of Nancy escaped and were used in the Lorraine sector or in Germany later on. The Battle of Nancy delivered a communication (and probably a logistics) hub, but the pincer movement of the armored column did not have the desired effect, as the majority of the German troops pulled out. Also, the reserves of the German defenders around Nancy were moved to defend against XX. Corps up north, which explains the rapid progress starting on 12th of September, imho.
@ sweeteye:
I'm pretty busy, really limited time, sorry for not getting back to you earlier.
Anyway, after some more research, I have to tell you that you'll have to take away the 92's
third Bn, as that part of the Regiment actually consisted of a flight school, seperated into unit "A" and "B", which were both based at airports/fields in Germany. It seems that all Flieger-Regiments were organized like that, in an attempt to maintain a minimum pool of future pilots.
They also should have had a similar structure as an Army unit, especially since their superior units, the Field-Divisions, were incorporated into (and subordinated to) the Army (command). Afaik, they did have heavy weapons, not sure to what extent, though, plus i am not sure if they had mortar units ([s]an artillery-training Bn was stationed at the airfield or near Toul, along with the 92. Regiment before the Allied offensive, though[/s]).
EDIT2: The Artillery-training unit was indeed part of the airfield's garrison, but only until 1942 (it was disbanded in October '42). So, no clue about mortar/arty support. I could imagine that they had some organic mortar support, but it's also possible that the 553. Division had provided the support.
Fallschirm-Jäger-Ausbildungs-und-Ersatz-Regiment 3:
If I am not mistaken, I've read about reports (Cole?) from US soldiers, who describe the stubborn (and pretty much suicidal) determination of the young recruits of the Fallschirm-Jäger-Ausbildungs-und-Ersatz-Regiment near Nancy, where a team of 5 German Bazooka- or Panzerfaust gunners had to be scraped out of their foxholes, in order to silence those zooks, killing 4 of them, while the undetected 5th German soldier wounded 5 GIs before getting killed himself.
This episode stands for quite some of that unit's stubbornness and determination (despite its lack of combat experience). You might want to consider that in the unit's abilities tab.
EDIT: Sweeteye, I edited stuff here and there, so you might want to make sure you read the changes.
