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Bing -> (12/28/2002 3:38:27 AM)
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Questions about TO&E are certainly not stupid - check the usual sources; for the Wehrmacht yoiu ought not to have a problem locating the information.
As has been pointed out, the TO&E is often not anything more than paper. When the Tigers were newly delivered, many broke down on their first sortie. There is a famous story in which a couple T-34/85's took out some new Tigers - Ferdinand Porsche's son was not killed during this action, but the myth persists to this day apparently - "The unit had disembarked earlier at Kielce with 45 King Tigers but by the time it had reached the vicinity of Ogledow ... it was down to only eight tanks. The rest had broken down during the 45 km road march, mainly due to reduction gear failures." (That is less than thirty miles - source as usual is Steven Zaloga, his book on the T-34/85 - New Vanguard Osprey.)
Soviet tank units were often sent into combat with a fraction of the necessary spares and replacement parts - Zaloga quotes one unit as having only three per cent of organizational quotas. Soviet tank losses due to actual combat were on the order of 30% of total during the heavy action in 1943, the remainder were hors de combat via simple breakdowns, lack of trained mechanics in the field and nothing with which to fix them. Supply and support were not a feature of the Red Army, nothing like the Wehrmacht, until later in the war.
If you can find unit level field reports, the actual force composition might be known. I have the feeling you would need a morning report for the day of the battle - or the equivalent for whichever nation you were fighting with - for the personnel plus a motor pool report to determine truly functional equipment.
Tricky subject, very much so - there are no easy answers. Best guess will do for our purposes, I feel. We do our best.
Bing
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