Finishing Off My German Battle Group

In a recent post I showed the German battlegroup that was being put together to fight a campaign series of wargames.  Although nearly ready I had a shortfall of artillery units.

I have managed to acquire a second Roco 150mm gun, which now has an Airfix crew:

I decided that there would also be two units of Nebelwerfer (multi barrelled rocket launchers), that I sourced from my Memoir 44 equipment pack:

I also managed to get hold of a Roco 88mm gun, which will form a heavy anti-tank unit.  I am not too sure of the make of the crew, but they are metal from my spares box.  The Roco half track was in good condition and came as part of the group of vehicles that I have just renovated; merely painting it and adding a new windscreen:

Finally my SS unit has gained a command group and two 75mm anti-tank guns:

My German battle group is now complete. Next the Russians!

Battlefield Recovery - Roco Minitank Vehicles

One of the readers of this blog very kindly gave me a number of Roco Minitank vehicles which included three Schwere Wehrmachtsschlepper (SWS) hailf tracks.  They had clearly seen some action in the past, with worn paintwork and some battle damage.

I really need some vehicles as gun tractors and prime movers for my new Nebelwerfer unit. So, I set about seeing if I could bring them back to life.

This is what they looked like on arrival at my workshop (kitchen table):

Not a pretty sight, but I thought with a good clean up, some scratch built bits to replace the missing bits and, in the case of one, some new wheels and axle.

All three were missing the armour plate from the nose and one was missing the side panels.  With some plastic card I knocked up the missing items:

The new wheels came from the Airfix 88mm gun bogies.  I fitted a 20mm quad AA gun from my spares box to one:

Then gave them all a coat of dark yellow:

And finaly a quick paint job and added some loads to the open back vehicle.  The fourth vehicle (the one with the single fuel drum), is new and straight from the packet:

Now they can join my German forces.

Creating a German Battle group

I continue to reorganise my Airfix and other WW2 soldiers. This time I have re-based my Airfix German infantry and painted up some more of my Roco Minitanks to create a combined arms force. I have not given the elements a particular designation as in different scenarios they could be used for different size units. For example, a tank unit of 4 tanks could be a platoon, a company or even a larger formation.

Here is an overview of the whole force:

The battle group consists of infantry, three units, a unit of assault guns, two units of medium tanks and a unit of heavy tanks. In support is a recce unit, an artillery unit (I need more of these) an anti aircraft unit and finally some transport.

Here are the infantry units, mostly re-based figures:

There is supporting machine gun, mortar and anti-tank units:

Supporting the infantry is a unit of Stug III assault guns; the picture also shows one of the medium tank units equipped with Panthers:

The other medium tank unit is made up of Panzer MK IVs:

And the heavy tank unit is equipped with Tiger 1s:

Out in front of the battle group is my reconnaissance unit:

At the moment I only have one artillery unit; I probably need some more. This is a 150mm gun unit:

Also in support is a self propelled anti-aircraft unit with 20mm and 37mm tracked guns:

Transport is provided by a number of half tracks.

I plan to organise my soviet army along similar lines and I thought it might be a good idea to fight a series of actions as part of a campaign with the two forces spread over a map - more thinking required!