Early War Germans

Throwback Thursday

German force

When I got into early war, I decided to create two armies that would face-off against each other.  I built a French and a German tank company around forces from the Battle of Hannut.  The German forces were from the 3rd Panzer Division.  

German tank list from "Blitzkrieg" can take hoards of light tanks.

Panzer IV D.

At the time of the invasion of France, most German tanks were painted with a brown camouflage scheme.  Unfortunately, the correct shade of brown does not contracts very well with the grey color.  Overall, these models look rather dark.  If I had to go back and do it all again, I would probably make them a few shades lighter.

This guy looks like he's using an iPhone for GPS.  Guess he got lost in the Ardennes.

I bought a box of PSC Panzer III.  These, along with the three from the German Army Box set gave me enough to field a Panzer III company.  Never did try it though.

The only way I can deal with Char B-1s.

Once "Barbarossa" was release I got a few more reinforcements.

This was the third time I had painted up nebelwerfers (Already had winter and desert bases) so I wanted to try something different.  I based crew on separate bases in foxholes to look like they're getting ready to fire.  Command Team is also in a foxhole to match.

Bunker flaks were hard to come by at the time.  I finally found a pair on eBay and got around to painting them with the Barbarossa reinforcements.

I spent some time on this recovery vehicle to make it look a little more interesting.  Guess it's only good for towing 88's now.

Panhards!  Love these little guys in EW. 

I went for two patrols.  The decals for each platoon were subtly altered to make telling them apart easier.

Transports for the nebelwerfers.

Here they are with the reinforcements.  As you can see, the paint scheme I used for the newer models didn't really match the old one.  You might also notice it was around this time I started using color modulation.

Later on, I added these Flammpanzers.

...and T-34

...with both turret options!