As our campaign has been delayed for a little while I thought it would be nice to follow up from the US Army showcase with a look at the German forces which have stared in the Normandy battle reports!
The army is loosely based on Western Europe 1944 and could be used for Normandy, Market Garden or perhaps even later in the final days of the war in 1945. I have tried to keep the army diverse in unit types and they could be fielded as a inexperienced (Polish conscripts), Regular or Veteran force.
2nd Panzer Grenadier Division:
Let's have a look at the units:
Lieutenant and man:
I used a sprue from the SS infantry box to make my HQ. I've given the Lieutenant the broom handle mauser for the rule of cool and his man has a Stg44 so we just play it as 2 assault rifles. The peaked cap is iconic of WII German officers so I decided to not go for the helmet even though I usually try and give my guys helmeted heads.
Heer Grenadier Squad 1:
I have 3 identical squads for this army which are NCO with SMG, 4 riflemen (1 with panzerfaust) and LMG team. The NCOs pointing hand is from the US airborne infantry sprue and for this squad I decided to have the loader bending down and feeding the belt ammo to a standing machine gunner. I didn't like that the only option for the Grenadier sprue is having the gun slung over the shoulder.
Heer Grenadier Squad 2:
Next grenadier squad. I modeled this squad to be on the move with the MG team moving and the panzer faust holder on the run. The men are made from a mix of SS and grenadier parts.
Heer Grenadier Squad 3:
Final grenadier squad. For this one I had the NCO throwing a grenade and the machine gunner crouching while the loader runs over to him. Once again the men are made from a mix of SS and grenadier parts.
Veteran Squad with Assault rifles:
This veteran squad is fully decked out with assault rifles and SMG NCO. Not sure a full squad of assault rifles is historically accurate and I often break them up and scatter them throughout the grenadier squads when making lists. I like to imagine these guys are veterans from the Eastern front (hence the captured PPSh on the NCO) and have been sent to the West for leave or to train some new recruits who are taking it easy in France. The NCO was originally my 2nd Lieutenant from the original Band of Brothers starter set but I demoted him to NCO when I got the SS sprue.
Sturmpioniere:
This squad was made from my left over bits from the SS and grenadier squads. I wanted to have a squad of Sturmpioniere after reading about their role in the Battle of Stalingrad. I feel like the crouched and pointing position of the NCO and the bandaged head on the guy front left really sells that these guys are veterans. The backpacks are spares from the US airborne sprue and also help distinguish these guys from regular Heer grenadiers. The flamethrower team at the back are a mix of panzerfaust parts, a miliput sculpted flamer tank, paperclips and the 'loader' is carrying an MG42 barrel case but represents some kind of engineer explosives. I'm really happy with how they turned out.
Sniper team:
The sniper team is simply made from grenadier bits and the foliaged helmet from the SS box. The scope on the sniper rifle is a rifle grenade trimmed down and painted. I wanted to capture the scene that the spotter has called out the location of a target and the sniper is about to fire.
Medium Machine Gun Team:
This MMG team was a fun little project to put together and is made from a mix of parts. The 'spotter' is just heer grenadier with the ammo belt and binoculars. The gun team are firing from a position of miliput sandbags and the prone loader is actually the prone US airborne body and arms with an SS head and Grenadier webbing and breadbag. On the table they look the part and this MG team has shot down many paratroopers in the campaign so far!
Mortar Team:
Pak40:
The Pak40 is from Rubicon and was an absolute treat to put together compared to the metal US airborne 57mm anti tank gun. As always the Rubicon kits are a mile above Warlords! I painted the gun with a 'splinter camo' inspired theme and think it came out nicely. My only gripe is that the scale of the crew is slightly smaller than the Warlord figures and so the head swaps I did look a bit giant on the smaller bodies. Maybe one day I'll redo the crew when I have some spare Warlord German infantry bodies lying around.
Sd.Kfz.251 (Hanomag):
Sd.Kfz. 234 (Puma):
The Puma is a warlord kit and was terrible to put together. I just skipped all of the tedious suspension on the bottom of the vehicle as you can't see it anyway and it was very fiddly to put together. I painted the Puma with Tamiya XF-60 to get that dunkelgelb and then gave a 'splinter camo' type scheme to match the Pak40. The messy camo scheme is a result of my shody brushwork as I don't have an airbrush but I kind of like it as historically the camo was painted on the front by the crew using whatever mops they had handy (at least that's how I justify it!). The stowage on the back is an ammo box from the Rubicon Pak40 kit with a tissue soaked in PVA as a tarpaulin.
Panzer IV:
That's it for the German army, I believe the whole thing comes out to about 1200+ points depending on if you take regular or veterans. I still have a few things to add before it is complete such as a Stug III, a Tiger I Ausf E, another medium MG team, a Panzershrek team and a quad 20mm Flakvierling 38. Maybe even another Grenadier squad!
It's been a treat putting this army together and I've really loved jumping into the hobby both from a playing and painting/building perspective. Having both US and German armies also has helped break up the painting and made it easy to play some games with friends as I have everything at home ready to go. I'm looking forward to expanding this force out and, who knows, maybe even adding a 3rd army in the future(!!!!!).
Signing out,
Chewie
