Hello All,
I wanted to share pictures of the project I’ve been working on for over a year now, wargame figures and vehicles representing Infantry Division (mot.) Grossdeutschland (and their Soviet opponents) in Summer 1942.
For anyone not familiar with Grossdeutschland, the Wikipedia page is a good overview:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer-Grenadier-Division_Gro%C3%9FdeutschlandMy primary resource for the project is the excellent book God, Honor, Fatherland: A Photo History of Panzergrenadier Division Grossdeutschland on the Eastern Front 1942-1944. There are many resources for GD on the web, this one is my favorite
http://members.shaw.ca/grossdeutschland/The figures are from Zvezda and organized for the Rapid Fire rules. The vehicles are a mix, but will be replaced later with Dragon Models (expensive but if you’re patient you can find them on sale). With a few modifications both forces will be usable for Battegroup Barbarossa or Battlegroup Kursk.
Rapid Fire uses a figure ratio of 1:15 (1:5 for guns and vehicles). The basic unit in RF is a battalion of 3 companies, each of 8 – 9 figures plus HQ of 6 figures. The Battlegroup rules, which are 1:1, use the same number of figures for a platoon (I suspect this was intentional).
Here is Battalion HQ (platoon command in Battlegroup). Clearly visible on the front two figures is the famous Grossdeutschland cuff title. I need to paint one more figure for this group.
First company, 1 LMG as per a Battlegroup squad.
Second company. Slight conversion on the running figure making him an ammo bearer (he and the squad leader make a nice mini-diorama).
Third company. Note that the entire battalion is on foot; in 1942 motorized infantry rode in trucks but disembarked before marching into the combat area. In the GD photo history, there are pics of GD soldiers riding on StuGs in Summer 1942 much like Soviet tank riders.
Support weapons. The tripod mount on the right has been converted to an upright position; the gunner is from the reconnaissance team AoT set. Grossdeutschland battalions had twice the number of MMGs and medium mortars of a standard motorized rifle battalion but for now I have just the standard amount.
Infantry gun from the heavy company. This is a great little model from Zvezda, I love how the figure in the foreground interacts with the gun. Needs a Kfz 69 prime mover.
Pak 38 from the heavy company. This is a kit bash of the Plastic Soldier Company Pak 38 and the Caesar Miniatures SdKfz 10 with 50mm Pak 38. The PSC gun is a nice model, but simplified, which is why I had the idea of kit-bashing it with the gun from Caesar (the SdKfz 10 will be the gun’s prime mover). The Caesar gun has a lot of detail but is way over scale. Some of the gun team figures have also been converted.
The Soviet battalion HQ (platoon HQ in Battlegroup) including anti-tank rifle team. The Soviets stopped development of anti-tank rifles prior to the German invasion because they believed the AT rifles would be useless against the heavy armor they expected to face. After the invasion they began producing large numbers of AT rifles and by Summer 1942 each Soviet rifle battalion had an AT rifle platoon, the parent regiment had a company (x3 platoons), and the parent division has two additional AT rifle companies. This is what led to the Germans adopting side skirts in Spring 1943 as these were meant to protect the parts of the Panzer III and IV still vulnerable to AT rifle fire. I still need a 50mm mortar for this group.
First company, I’ve painted the figures from the Zvezda big box to look like they’re wearing the m35 gymnastiorka without shoulder boards so that they are appropriate for 1942.
Second company.
Third company. Some of the figures are from the Zvezda small set 6179 but I have swapped most of the SVT40s for Mosin-Nagant rifles. In early 1941 the Red Army had plans to equip all riflemen with the semi-automatic SVT40 and there were large numbers in use during the German invasion but the weapon was difficult to maintain and therefore declined in use in 1942 while the number of PPSh-41 submachine guns gradually increased.
For a Battlegroup platoon I will need a fourth rifle squad.
Support weapons. These all need to be rebased, I’m not happy with now they turned out. The problem with working on a big project like this is that after a while you get a little burned out and start to cut corners to try to get things done faster. Lesson learned, better to take a break and come back to it later.
Next up, tanks. In 1942 Grossdeutschland had a Panzer battalion with one company of Panzer IV F1/F2s and two companies of Panzer III Js with the long barrel. I wanted to practice painting armor so I picked up some wargame kits to work on before I try painting the Dragon Models I have in my stash.
Fast build Panzer III Js by Italeri (two per box). These models have nice details for a wargame kit; the one negative is the lack of detail or guide teeth on the tracks.
Panzer IV F1 from Plastic Soldier Company. Not a bad kit, but a lot of the details are simplified and some of the variants covered by the kit are missing key details (such as the single baffle round muzzle brake on the F2). Nice tracks, much better than Italeri’s. The turret decals here are from PSC, this model was just for practice. I have decals from Echelon with the unique markings used by GD on their Panzer IVs in 1942 that I'm saving for the Dragon models.
There are three tanks in the box but only one pictured above. Initially I painted all three in panzer grey, but GD Panzer IVs in from June 1942 were painted in two tone camo (as were many vehicles in Southern Russia in 1942). I have a nice dual action airbrush but I couldn’t get the soft edge camo on the other two tanks to look right. I primarily airbrush with Vallejo Air, good for base-coating, but the overspray makes it tough to do soft edge camo. After repeated attempts I gave up on the other two, something to try again later using Tamiya.
Last (for now) a UM T-34 m1940 with F-34 gun, kit-bashed with the tracks and running gear from a Pegasus Hobbies T-34/76. I can’t recommend this kit – I got it on sale just to practice on a real model kit, but the details are a bit soft. Worse yet is that it is super fiddly to assemble and some of the parts just would not go together well. I got through the body and turret before I gave up on trying the length and link tracks and decided to use the parts from the Pegasus kit. For all the trouble it was to assemble, I think it painted up nicely.
Next up - back to work on two tone soft edge camo for the Panzer IVs, this time with the newer Italeri fast build kit. Then back to Soviet armor from Pegasus and eventually the Dragon Models kits.
Beyond that, I have plans for units from the GD reconnaissance battalion and sturmpionier battalion. After that, on to Summer 1943 for Battlegroup Kursk.
Thanks for taking the time to read this very long post, any feedback is appreciated.