Panzer Reinforcements For Kampfgruppe Von Topper

Here are five new tanks for the early WW2 Wehrmacht force I am slowly assembling.  These are the excellent Plastic Soldier Company 15mm PzKpfwIV models made up as AusF models, suitable for Barbarossa.    I really like the PSC philosophy. which allows you to make different variants of the same basic tank in the same kit.  Very clever.  Likewise, their T34 kit contains two turret variants, for the 76mm and 85mm guns.   Nice.  Sadly these don’t have any stowage or decals yet.  The models don’t have much room for turret numbers.  I suppose a cross on the top of the turret might not go amiss.

I’ve dry brushed them liberally to suggest the dust of the summer/fall of 1941, though it turns the panzer grey almost green, which I’m not sure I like.   Otherwise no weathering, other than a little rust on the tracks and the track sections used as frontal armour.  I have glued them to the magnetized bases I like to use for storage in cookie tins, which keeps the models from getting bashed around.  The bases also look sharp, in my humble opinion.

 

These platoon had its introduction to combat the other night, when I was pushing them around the table to try and understand the mechanics of Flames of War 4.0.   Please don’t judge me harshly on this, it’s what the WW2 guys play at the club and it’s that or nothing, right now.   

I put them under the command of the household’s junior member, Leutnant von Topper, who has volunteered to command all Wehrmacht forces in future, though he wants to call them “Purrmacht”.  Here he works on digging the Soviet defenders out from cover.

                                                                                             Come out, little red mice!

As an exercise, I put the PzIVs up against four KV1s that are almost ready to roll of the Red Banner Workbench.  The Germans were rated Confident Veteran, the Soviets were rated Fearless Conscript.  I quickly learned that with KV1’s front armour of 9 and a side/rear armour of 8, there is no chance of a PZIV’s 75mm gun being able to knock out one of these monsters.  The best one can hope for is that the Soviet rolls a 1 on his armour save on a side/rear shot against the 75mm gun’s AT rating of nine, meaning that 1+8 ties the AT rating and causes a bail.  So basically the KV1 doesn’t get knocked out, it just fails a morale check.   Meanwhile the PzIV has a front armour of 5 and a side armour of 3 and while the Conscript Soviets are crap shots, it’s bad when they hit.

 

                                                      These comrades will ruin a tanker’s d

I think Kampfgruppe Von Topper will be asking for 88mm AT and Stuka support in its next requisition.  I think in the short term they will have to settle for some infantry support to go close assault those beasts.

Blessings to your brushes!

MP+

These figures bring my 2017 totals to:

15mm: Vehicles: 8, Foot Figures: 4, Scenic Pieces: 7

20mm: Foot figures: 18

28mm:  Foot Figures: 86;  Mounted Figures: 11; Terrain Pieces: 17

 

 

 

 

First German Units Report for Barbarossa

So the good news is that Madame Padre is back home and doing well.   And there's also some less important hobby news to report.
Amidst my Tolkien-inspired efforts of late, I took a small sideroad to get a start on a German early WW2 force in 15mm to oppose my Soviets.

These three models are by the Russian manufacturer Zvezda, sold as part of their Art of Tactic series.  They were kindly given to me by Steve Whitesell, the proprietor of an excellent blog with a WW2 and WW3 theme.

Zevezda kits are compatible with other 15mm models, and while they are less detailed, they are easy t assemble.  For these two tanks, the track and road wheel assembly is all one part that glues onto the bottom of the hull.  Easy peasy.



These two PZ 38s and the tiny tank (sorry, the SdKfz 222) armoured car make the nucleus of a recce unit (sorry, aufsklarungsgruppe) suitable for early war.   I was pressed for time, as I wanted to get an entry into the Armor theme bonus round of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  There were some fifty entries riffing in various directions on this theme, and it is well worth your having a look here.  If you look at nothing else there, go admire the talented Michael Awdry's wonderful Grail Knights homage to Monty Python.

My effort was paltry by comparison.  The German Gray is a base of  a Vallejo primer, brushed on as I did not have time to break out my airbrush.  When dry I hit them with Citadel Nurn Oil or whatever it is called (I far prefer Army Painter Strong Tone but am currently out) and then did some rust and chipping.  Most of the weathering got obliterated when I drybrushed on some craft store tan paint to suggest the dust of the Russian roads.  Bases are MDF, handcut, with some plastic wood texturing and then flocking.  The crosses are by Battlefront and the Pz38 turret numbers are by Dom's decals.

I have five Plastic Soldier Company early model PZIIIs assembled and painted, another pack of five PZ38s with the option to build as the Marder variant, also from PSC, so I may build a zug of three Marders for later war and give two of the 38s to this unit.

It's a start.

These figures bring my 2017 totals to:

15mm: Vehicles and AFVs: 3

28mm:  Foot Figures: 29;  Mounted Figures: 2