Here Come the Heer : Recruiting a German Battalion

Yet again progress has been slow, with Real Life getting in the way of hobby time, but at least a few steps have been advanced:  I have an organised and almost-completed battalion of German infantry for my 'D-Day Dodgers'  WW2 Italian Campaign project. They have been recruited to fill an Order of Battle based on those specified in Rapid Fire and Rapid Fire Reloaded rules, and they currently look something  like this: 

 

Most of the figures are painted and based, but the transport is only primed and needs proper painting, so I will be getting busy with the sand/green/brown paints, probably over the upcoming holiday weekend.  We have, looking from front to back :

- Battalion HQ with Panzerschrek team and Steyr Heavy Car

- 1st, 2nd and 3rd Rifle Companies

- 4th ( Heavy ) company with 2 x MMG, 1 x 81mm mortar  with Steyr Heavy Car and Opel Blitz truck

-  A/T Company with  PAK40 75mm A/T Gun and Opel Blitz truck

- Infantry Gun Company with  iFH18 105mm Infantry Gun and Opel Blitz truck 

As you can probably see, most of the figures are my good old vintage Airfix WW2 German Infantry (1960s designs!). The heavier weapons are crewed by mainly Britannia Miniatures/Grubby Tanks, and a scattering of later Airfix and others. The Opel Blitz trucks (actually one is built as a Mercedes variant)  come from Plastic Soldier Company,  and the Steyr cars from Rapid Fire's own 'Ready to Roll Vehicles' range.  The infantry gun is  Zvezda ( bought before February 2022 - I'm not buying any more from Russian makers, I'm afraid ), and  the PAK 40 is by Revell.   These will be strong opposition for my West Suffolks ( see my previous post ), especially with the 105mm infantry gun and that 'Heavy Company' with the MMGs - the British battalion doesn't have an equivalent. So the British may require some support from 'Brigade' when it comes to a fight. 

With the potential British and Indian units in the same project I have been having fun coming up with 'fictional but plausible'  units names like the 'West Suffolks' - but the Germans give me a bigger challenge.  I would like to come up with a  fictional regiment name for these Germans, but I admit I am at a bit of a loss as to how to work something out - initial on-line searches give several pages showing lists of German WW2 Divisions ( of which there were well over 300! ) , but I haven't so far found a list of Regiments (of which there must have been many more!) - and am unsure of the naming/numbering convention used, though it looks like a simple regiment number was common. I suspect they will become 1st Battalion,  n+1th Grenadier Regiment,  and if anyone has advice on finding this sort of information, I'd be interested!          

A couple of the vintage Airfix figures brought back very nostaglic memories: as ever, 'Button-counters' should look away now ( You may cringe at  my rather basic painting style, but I'm happy it suits the nature of the figures - not much point trying 3-level highlights on these chaps,  and I couldn't do much better anyway!).   

The Panzerschreck** team strongly evokes what else but the 'Action at Twin Farms' game in Charles Grant's wonderful little book  Battle: Practical Wargaming, which is where 'My Wargaming Habit' (to quote the excellent blog by Richard!)  began, all of 50 years ago. My first wargaming book, and it's still with me:

My rather battered copy - c.1974

hmmm... Panzerschreck, surely?

 It really did all start here - this book may represent the best £1.50  I ever spent, in hobby terms at least!   Come to think of it. I was casting around for a scenario idea for my first Rapid Fire Reloaded game..

Now that is sadly about all the news I have to impart, but at least the holiday weekend may allow a little more hobby time,  and then next week I am lucky enough to be invited to another of Jon Freitag's remote games  - more Italian Wars action is in prospect.  I won't be a spoiler to what Jon will no doubt write about pretty soon, suffice it to say this looks quite an intriguing prospect. I hope to be able to say more next time; until then keep well, everyone.

 

** Update: it's been interesting that the close-up picture has made a lot of veteran gamers realise that the guy apparently holding a Panzerschreck missile is probably in truth carrying a Panzerfaust.   I hadn't really thought about it, to be honest - and interestingly I wonder if the source of the original confusion is the above picture from Charles Grant's book - note that he labels them a Panzerfaust team, even though the weapon being aimed is clearly meant to be a Panzerschreck.  I am keeping them as they are - they've been together for 50 years, after all! 

'West Suffolks' on Parade

It took longer than expected, but I have pretty much completed my first 'D-Day Dodgers' battalion, the (entirely imaginary) West Suffolks, in an OOB taken from the Rapid Fire Reloaded rules. The recent acquistion of vintage transport models a la Eric Knowles helped a lot, no need to paint those!  So here they are, on parade back in Blighty and ready  to ship out to Sunny Italy and go into action:

 

On the front row  Battalion HQ with Bren Carrier, PIAT and 2-inch Mortar team, and Carrier Platoon with PIAT team;  middle row A, B, C and D Rifle Companies; back row Support Company with 6-pounder AT Gun and Lloyd Carrier,  3-inch Mortar team with Bren Carrier.   All under the perhaps slightly eccentric but always well-meaning command of equally fictional Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew ('The Legal Eagle')  Phillips*..

Now the plan is that these will be part of the Nth  Indian Infantry Brigade, in turn part of the Nth Indian Division - all of which will of course be equally imaginary, but loosely based on the real OOBs of British Indian units in Italy.  In effect there would be 3 battalions in a brigade, one British and two Indian, and other elements such as MGs, Recconaissance, Artillery and Engineers would be a mixture of British and Indian. This should allow me to mix the vintage British figures I have with the Indians I have more recently acquired  ( perhaps unsurprisingly given the Imperial nature of the force, the senior commanders would have been  be pretty much entirely British ).  Now I can have a bit of fun dreaming up suitably Indian and British imaginary unit names..  This is starting to look like a sensible project - and of course they will need some German opposition!   There looks to be a chance to pick up some more ready-painted troops for both sides, courtesy of David Crook and the collection of the late Eric Knowles, Negotiations are in progress.. 

I would like to have more to report, but I will admit that since my last posting,  'real life' has reduced hobby opportunities - easily summed up in the following  picture..

..fortunately all has gone OK, and things look a lot nicer now.

But there has been some actual gaming, thanks once again to the excellent  Jon Freitag : I was lucky enough to be invited to command the Orsini faction against the Papal ( Borgia ) army at the Italian Wars period  Battle of Sanguetta (1497).  Jon has yet to report our game ( his third iteration of the scenario ), so I won't give any spoilers,  except to show this picture which he passed on after the event: 

 

My mercenary pikemen are on the right, at push of pike with the enemy Landsknechts - you can certainly see how colourful Jon's figures (28mm scale) are. It was great fun, though I confess my dice-rolling was considerably better than my deployment and tactical decisions!  I look forward to seeing Jon's report. 

I am hoping to get some more hobby time in the near future, and I had better try to keep up the momentum on the D-Day Dodgers project, so I will hope to have more to report quite soon. 

Until then keep well, everyone. 

* My imaginary battalion commander is a nod to the biggest character of recent years around my adopted home town -which I also imagine to be the home town of my 'West Suffolks' battalion - the late Lord Andrew Philips . I can't claim to have known him well, but did hear him speak many times, and exchanged pleasantries once or twice.   Whether he would have been a good soldier, or would have  even wanted to be one, I can't say!