[Paul Goldstone]

I’ve got an Austrian army I really enjoy playing with. There were three main differences from their French opponents:
1. For various reasons (social, political, inexperience…) the Austro-Hungarian generals tended to be cautious. So we play it that most Austrian generals are Staff Rating 7 or Cautious.
2. Avant-Garde brigades of light cavalry regiments and infantry battalions. Usually supported by Wurst mounted artillery (which functionally is no different from other horse artillery but looks cool).
3. BIG infantry battalions, usually much bigger than French battalions. So the Austrian battalions are mostly Large.

[Paul Goldstone]

Initially, the German units in North Africa used the standard organisation for motorcylist/schutzen/motorised MG battalions. However, German infantry units on the Tobruk front in late-41 began to adopt a ‘stutzpunkt’ organisation of platoons with a very high proportion of MGs and ATk guns. The reason given for the extra ATk guns was that in North Africa more of the fighting was in mobile, small Kampfgruppen, often without tanks in support. Platoons would often find themselves out of support and needing an all-round defence against British armour.

This was embodied after the Winter battles as KStN 1114 Afrika. Initially the organisation called for each platoon to have an ATk rifle and a ATk gun, but from 1942 this was increased to a ATk rifle and two ATk guns. The usual ATk guns were PaK38 5cm guns, but as 1942 went on large numbers of ex-Russian 7,62cm guns became available.

Examples of the Africa Korps infantry organisation in 1942 are: http://www.niehorster.org/011_germany/42_organ/kstn_1114(Afr)_23-04-42.html
https://www.wwiidaybyday.com/kstn/kstn111423apr42.htm

[Paul Goldstone]

PanzerGrenadier Platoons in the Africa Korps were organised in a rather unique way for desert fighting. A Platoon had three Squads, and each squad had 2 LMGs and its own ATk gun! A Platoon bristled with three ATk guns. The light mortars proved to be useless in the open desert and were quickly discarded.

[Paul Goldstone]

Ian Fletcher’s Galloping at Everything is a very good source.
British ‘light cavalry’ rode horses as big as their so-called ‘heavy cavalry’ counterparts. 10th Hussars in 1813, for example, rode horses averaging 15 hands high.

Feed/forage is also very important – and British were feeding their horses oats etc shipped from North America. Horses quickly lost condition if they relied on locally requisitioned hay/straw. One reason why British cavalry may have charged at the gallop and pursued so far, is because, quite simply, their horses could do so.

It should be noted that size/condition of horses is very important in combat – a smaller/weaker horse will naturally shy away from the larger, and the rider will be at a major disadvantage.

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