Sorry if this is not the right place to post this, but I had a question about the way German Wehrmacht and Soviet Red Army companies were organized/structured. There isn't a lot of info readily available that I could find below the division level. Basically, were the companies in those armies organized similar to how U.S. companies were in WWII? For example, I would presume each would be commanded by a captain with several platoons commanded by lieutenants, etc. Plus there would be a first sergeant serving as the chief NCO for the company, etc. However, I did see somewhere that a Red Army regiment just had platoons within it, not companies. Am I off the mark?
I'm afraid I can't answer for the Red Army, as it's not something I know well. But the Wehrmacht (and to a lesser extent the Waffen SS) were actually fairly similar in structure to a US or British company structure, although with the leadership appointments commonly one rank more junior than in Allied forces:
On paper, an infantry company would normally be composed of three "regular" platoons of infantry, each with a nominal strength of 30 men, plus a heavy platoon, which included HMGs, AT guns, and Mortars. A tank company would normally have four platoons of four or five tanks each, plus a two-tank command element, all equipped with the same model of tank, giving a nominal company strength of 22 tanks. In practice, of course, available strength varied hugely.
Each platoon would be led by a Leutnant (2nd Lt) or Oberfeldwebel (Staff Sgt/Warrant Officer equivalent), with the Company led by an Oberleutnant (Lieutenant), assisted by a Hauptfeldwebel (Company Sergeant Major), colloquially known as "Spiess" (literally derived from a term for spear or pike, but analogous in usage to "Top" in US military parlance).
For initial reading, I'd recommend something like the Osprey Series (Elite 105 is World War II Infantry Tactics, Squad and Platoon; Elite 122 is World War II Infantry Tactics, Company and Battalion). For more further reading, my interest is more toward tanks, and for that you can't go wrong with Thomas Jentz's two-volume Panzer Truppen.
Thanks for the reply! I'll check out your suggested reading.