How many soldiers were in a World War 2 German squad?

Answer 1

At full strength, usually eight. There were seven squads to a German platoon, and each had a machine gun, normally the MG 42. This was such an excellent machine gun that the US basically copied it after the war, as the M 60, and used it until very recently. The average German soldier was still armed with a Model 1898 Mauser rifle, but he was also carrying belts of ammo for his squad's machine gun.

A US platoon had four twelve man squads, and only two machine guns, which were nowhere near as good. The only edge the average US foot soldier had was his semi-automatic M1 rifle, which could fire eight shots as fast as he could pull the trigger.

Answer 2

It would vary depending upon what type of company it was, and of what organization it was a part. For infantry companies about 200, at full strength. But few companies, theirs or ours, were at full strength after the first contact with the enemy. Replacements never kept up with losses. The Germans did better at pulling units out of the line to "refit" and bring them up to strength. The US had created barely a sufficient number of divisions to fight a world war and so once committed to action, it was rare to get a respite out of the line, and divisions would rotate their three regiments to give one at a time a little break, if possible. US rifle companies, Army and Marine, had four platoons (three rifle, one weapons). The Marines were usually aiming at 250 in the four platoons (plus the HQ section) of a line company. The Army TO & E (Table of Organization and Equipment) called for about 225 at the start of the war, and 187 at the end (riflemen were in very short supply). A German company might have three or four platoons, but they were bigger - they had eight squads of eight men each, and each squad had one of the very excellent German machine guns (MG 34/42), and all squad members carried all the belts for it they could, and this helped offset their WWI model bolt-action rifles. US platoons had four 12 man squads, but only two machine guns, plus a few BARs. Each US rifleman had an excellent M1 rifle, but still the firepower edge went to the Germans. Their machine guns were so good the US basically copied it and used it until very recently as the M60 (still in use by the National Guard in some states). One thing the Germans were extremely adept at was reorganizing on the spot after heavy losses, into ad hoc "kampf gruppes" of various sizes, using whoever was still around, and under those conditions a "company" might have only two platoons, but was still hard to handle. US units were top heavy with officers, but a feldwebel (sergeant) in the Wehrmacht could handle what might pass for a company.