I remember swearing blind that I was not going to deviate from WWII 20mm collection, that was hard enough to "cover" (and I literally meant cover in all nationalities 1939-45) and this resulted in a huge pile of plastic I admittedly enjoy making - more modelling than wargaming battles, although this is something I wish to change. I want all of my models to in effect fulfil their wargaming destiny and fight across the tabletop, even if in only the merest of skirmishes. I gave into scale creep madness many years ago and now sighed despondently as I found myself buying a set of 28mm Biltzkrieg Germans from Warlord Games (see below, beautiful artwork, beautiful models and a dream to put together - although I have sore hands after the end the assembly process):
So thinking that the early war Germans conformed to the later war formations I sketched out my platoon order of battle (OoB). No that seemed I could almost get a platoon out of a single box (see below, what could possibly go wrong?):
So I started assembly the Germans conscious that I would need a lot of rifles and few few SMGs (see below, the first one is just an experiment to get the rhythm of the factory process):
These Germans were "justified" in my mind's eye as "good opposition" for my Stalingrad Germans .. although the real reason was that everyone else [four unnamed people] who was wanting to play a 1940 Blitzkrieg Chain of Command Campaign wanted to be Belgians, French or BEF. At this point I have collected and painted a 1942 Stalingrad Russian force, I had some boxes of late war Brits and Yanks, but as of yet .. no Huns. So the time seemed right (see below, half a squad, or should I say the first sprue, one MG34 gunner and five rifles; I am consciously ignoring the sexy SMGs for the German NCOs):
Then comes the sting in the tail, I discover to my horror that there seemed to be no manpower shortage in the 1940 Heer organisations as that every platoon [unless you were designated "Second Wave"] had four squads (see below, I had to re-sketch my OoB - only to discover I needed another box of figures):
My first squad was complete (as in assembled) but instead of being a third the way hone I was only a quarter - akin to running a marathon uphill (see below, I am happy with the look and feel of these guys - even though there will be quite a lot of them):
The completed box almost got me three squads but I was two figures short in the end. This did give me artistic license in putting together the Platoon Command (see below, note the Platoon Command gave me an officer with pistol [Luger of course] and a senior NCO with "machine pistol"):
I have ordered and am now awaiting a second box ;)
