StuGs and 8-Rads

Continued from Fallschirmjagers.

I've been working on my Fallschirmjagers quite a bit lately, including some of the vehicles I plan to use to support them. As you can probably tell from the title of this post, those will include some Sturmgeschutz IIIG assualt guns (StuGs) and SdKfz 231 armored cars (8-rads). The 8-rads are purely a point-filler for my 800 point Infantry League force. Ninety points for a pair of 8-rads is a cheap way to give my force another platoon, plus some much needed mobility. By saying that they are a point filler I mean that the choice to add them to the force was based on game rather than historical factors.

The StuGs won't see use until I expand to a full 1500 or 2000 point army. Unlike the 8-rads, the StuGs are a solid historical choice for supporting my fallschirmjagers. They were often attached as support throughout the war, and in the late war period there were at least two fallschirmjager sturmgeschutz brigades.

Unlike my Soviets, which are based on forces that fought in a specific battle, my fallschirmjagers aren't based on a specific unit or point in time. Rather, they are meant to serve as any fallschirmjager unit in a European setting (east or west) from '43 to '45. More specificaly, I want them to be able to serve as both a reasonable op-force for my Soviets on the Eastern front during the mid-war, and as any of the fallschirmjager units fighting in Normandy or during Market-Garden during the late-war period.

For my vehicles this means a dunkelgelb as opposed to a dunkelgrau paint job, or so I thought. When it came to the 8-rads things actually become a bit more complicated. Whenever I start to paint a new type of unit or vehicle I try to do some research to find out the best way to do this. Most of the time this involves some web searches and the purchase of an Osprey book or similar book. In exploring 8-rads I ended up getting both and Osprey book on German armored cars and a Military Vehicles in Detail book specifically on 8-rads.




I had two main concerns, The first was whether or not to put the cow-catcher like device (called a pakschutz) on the front of the vehicle, and the second was how to paint the vehicle. My initial research based on the web and the Osprey book indicated "yes" to the pakschutz and a dunkelgelb paint job, so that's what I started with. Unfortunately, after I got the book specifically on 8-rads I discovered a few things. First, the SdKfz 231 that is sold by BattleFront actually stopped production in 1942. After that only the command model, the SdKfz 232, was produced, and that most of these appear to have been produced with thicker armor instead of the external pakschutz.

While early versions of the SdKfz 232 featured large wire frame antennas, advances in radio technology meant that later versions were very similar externally to the 231 and identical in combat performance (the difference was the better radio). As a result, it would appear that the unit in Festung Europa is actually meant to represent this model rather than the one actually listed in the book.

After finding all this out I realized that 8-rads probably either had the pakschutz or were painted dunkelgelb, but that it's quite possible that there was never an 8-rad with a pakschutz painted dunkelgelb. By the time I figured this out I had already painted the base coat on the models with the pakschutz attached, so I just decided to go with it instead of starting over. My story is that these are older 8-rads that were re-painted dunkelgelb.

As for camo, despite these being used as reconaissance vehicles, I found few pictures showing them in camo, so I decided to leave mine plain dunkelgelb.



The StuGs were a different matter. Since I plan to eventually use them as support in Normandy, I tried to find out what paint job the fallschirmjager StuGs used there. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find any definitive sources. Instead, I ended up doing a variation on a couple different '43 and '44 camo schemes that I saw in books and photos. I also took inspiration from a picture I've seen of tank camo being applied with a mop. I figured the brush I was using was pretty close in scale to what was actually used to paint the tank, so I didn't worry too much about cleaning things up.

I don't like to do much weathering. It's probably more realistic to paint on a lot of dirt and mud, but I prefer a cleaner look to my models for the tabletop. I limited the weathering to a bit of dirt drybrushed onto the tires and mudguards. The final detail was to apply balkenkreuz decals to the sides of all the vehicles.

That should do it for my vehicular support for my fallschirmjager. Now to continue on with the infantry. I'm almost done with the first two platoons. Next up is assembling and painting a mortar platoon, probably followed by either an MG platoon, AT platoon, or 3rd infantry platoon. My goal is to eventually have all combat, weapons and non-divisional support options available for both mid and late war.

Book Review: War Without Hate

War Without Hate: The Desert Campaign of 1940-1943 by John Bierman and Colin Smith (also published as The Battle of Alamein) is the best single volume book on the war in North Africa that I've read. The title refers to the air of chivalry that still existed between British and German forces during this phase of the war. The authors are British journalists, and the focus is naturally on the British side of the conflict.

The book covers from the entrance of Italy into the war until the final capitulation of Axis forces in Tunisia, but the primary focus is on Operation Crusader and the battles around El Alamein. Around a dozen maps do an adequate job of illustrating the actions described in the text.

From the gamer's perspective there's probably not much to gain here other than a good general knowledge of the history of the conflict. The focus is at too high a level to provide much in the way of inspiration for a company level game like Flames of War. There are a few good photographs, but not that many.

I still recommend the book as a well-written primer on the military aspects of the war in North Africa.

Fallschirmjagers

A while back our group started talking about doing an 800 point infantry league, so I decided to start looking at what kind of force I could put together. Of course, I could continue my Soviet force, but this was an opportunity to get another army started.

I was very resistant to the idea of doing an elite force, but the more I looked at it the more I thought that doing that kind of force would be the best way to go. So, that meant probably SS, Fallschirmjagers, Rangers, or Parachute Infantry. Since I was still looking for an opposition force to my Soviets, I ruled out doing another allied force early on. That left the Germans. A Waffen SS force might have been interesting, but there are a lot more resources for the Fallschimjaegers that are readily available, plus they don't have the same kind of political overtones that the SS obviously have.

Later, after doing some more historical research, I discovered that while there were no Fallschirmjagers involved in the Second Battle of Kharkov, there were some involved in heavy fighting further north near Leningrad just a week prior to the fighting around Kharkov. So, while whatever force I end up building won't be an accurate opponent for my main force, they would be one for a similar force from the same period.

The idea now was to create a force that could be used with reasonable accuracy both on the Eastern front in mid-war, especially mid-1942, and preferably also in late-war Normandy and Market-Garden since at least one member of our group is working on a late war allied force.

Of course, that dictated a european as opposed to a mediteranean color scheme. I decided that the majority of the models would be wearing the european splinter camo jump smocks and helmet covers but with a few scattered plain green smocks and covers since my sources indicate that they were used throughout the war by some individuals and units. One of the photos I have even shows a full squad in Normandy with the old smocks.

The next thing to do was to come up with a paint scheme. There are three published painting guides from Battlefront for fallschirmjager, all three of which differ to some degree from each other. In addition to those, I looked at a couple Osprey books and an old squadron/signal book for color scheme ideas.

I ended up using mainly the first and second Diving Eagles books with some supporting evidence from the Osprey book German Airborne Troops 1939-45, and came up with the following scheme:

Basecoat: spray black
Helmet: German Grey (995), Green Grey (886), or splinter camo
Smock: Green Grey (886) or splinter camo
Pants: German Fieldgrey (830)
Faces and Hands: Flat Flesh (955)
Boots: Black (950 or just the undercoat)
Rifle butt, canteen, helmet band: Beige Brown (875)
Gun Barrels: Gunmetal Grey (863)
Ammo Pouches, breadbag: German Camo Beige (821)
Webbing, Pistol Holster: Chocolate Brown (872)

Splinter Camo
Base: German Camo Beige (821)
First Color: German Camo Medium Brown (826)
Second Color: Reflective Green (890)

The webbing was actually the hardest color to pin down. The first Diving Eagles lists Chocolate Brown, the second lists Black, and the latest in Ostfront doesn't list anything. The Osprey book mentions that Luftwaffe forces regulations called for brown leather while Wehrmacht called for black leather. As a result, Fallschimjaeger used mostly brown webbing, with an increasing amount of black Wehrmacht gear mixed in as the war went on. Since my force is based primarily on an early-42 force, I decided to go with the brown webbing for the entire force.

I use the techniques described in the second Diving Eagles book for painting the splinter camo. The base coat over the whole smock/helmet cover. The German Camo Medium Brown in geometric shapes on top of that, with Reflective Green geometric shapes on top of that with some green lines in the spaces left.

So far I've only got a dozen finished soldiers (seen above), but I plan on making them my primary painting project now, so I should be able to get some more done soon. First up is the rest of the fallschirmjagerkompanie box, and a couple of 8-rad armored cars. That will give me enough to field a force supported by the Italian carri platoon that I painted up years ago.

Continued in StuGs and 8-Rads.

The Horde Grows

Continued from Painting the Hordes.


It's been almost a year since I've updated the progress on my Soviet forces. Since then I've established a pretty solid core force and am continuing to add additional options to it.

I can field a two to three thousand point mixed tankovy batalon, or an 800 to 1500 point guards strelkovy or motostelkovy batalon.

I still don't have the sheer number of infantry stands necessary to field a regular strelkovy batalon, except maybe at 800 points.

Here's the armory as it currently stands:
T-34 obr 1941: 10
T-60: 7
KV-1e: 4
KV-2 Turret: 1
BA-64: 4
Tankodesantniki: 9
ZIS-5 Trucks: 6
37mm obr 1939 Guns: 4
Katyusha: 2
Rocket Loading Teams: 2
ZIS-3 Guns: 4
Command Stands: 4
Komissar Stands: 3
Infantry Stands: 21
AT Rifle Stand: 1
MG Stands: 2
Observer Stands: 2
Staff Team: 1
Dismounted Cossack Command Stands: 4
Dismounted Cossack Komissar Stand: 1
Dismounted Cossack Stands: 8

There's still a lot I want to add to this, especially more infantry stands so I can field larger strelkovy companies, but with the completion of the ZIS-3 gun teams my Soviets are moving to the back burner as I work on getting my Fallschirmjaeger ready for battle.

Next up, once I get back to the Soviets, will most likely be an SMG platoon and some heavy mortars. Other possibilities are a pair of SU-152 assault guns (currently waiting on some hatch covers from New Zealand), and a platoon of KV-1s tanks (also waiting on some hatch covers).

Further out are some 45mm obr 1937 AT guns and some more infantry teams to let me do larger strelkovy batalons.

Finally, I also managed to paint up one of the objectives I've been using:

Rules Changes for Soviet Armored Forces in Flames of War

Before getting into why I think changes are needed in the way that Flames of War handles Soviet armored forces, I want to first say that I think Phil Yates has put together a wonderful game. It got me into the WWII miniatures gaming hobby and has brought a lot of other people into it as well. It's a fairly well balanced, playable game that does a decent job of simulating many historical factors.

Unfortunately, I have come to think that the representation of Soviet armored forces in the game is probably the poorest in terms of historical accuracy. Instead of trying to accurately represent the way that Soviet tanks were actually employed at the tactical level, the game instead attempts to create the perceived historical flavor of the army at the strategic level: an army of huge numbers but little skill.

It does this through two methods. First, the Hen and Chicks rule which simulates the lack of command and control ability in Soviet armored units. Second, through the army lists which encourage the purchase of large tank formations.

The problem is that the Soviets rarely fielded their tanks in large formations at the tactical level. At least not until late in the mid-war period, although such formations appear to have been more common as the war transitioned into the late-war period.

Historical Evidence

I am going to digress here for a moment and discuss the German army lists. If you get the chance to read the Panzer Truppen books by Jentz you will easily recognize them as the source for much of the way that the German armored lists are put together. Both the organization charts and the combat records demonstrate this. The latter in the way that you can take different tank types in a single platoon. The combat records often describe situations where one PzIV and two PzIIIs are tasked to operate as a single combat element, and similar situations. The army list was obviously built to accommodate this kind of grouping in addition to the formal paper organization that grouped all tanks of a particular type together.

The problem is that as you read those German combat records you'll notice something else. The Russians fielded their tanks in the same way. The game forces you to field homogeneous units and encourages that they be large in size, but the German accounts usually describe small units of mixed tanks being fielded. Not just different kinds of medium tanks together, or different kinds of light tanks together, but often a mix of medium and light tanks. A large homogeneous unit was most definitely the exception rather than the rule, if you go by the available records.

Several of the German accounts basically describe a situation where small units of mixed Soviet tanks have to be dealt with in turn. Fortunately for the Germans these tanks aren't employed en mass so that while they might be outnumbered in total, they are able to outnumber the enemy in each individual combat.

Problems With Current Rules Defined

In some ways the current rules create the same result but through different means. When dealing with one large unit of tanks, on a table with a reasonable amount of terrain, it becomes difficult to bring all of your weapons to bear on the enemy. This somewhat recreates the Russian problem of bringing all their forces to bear. It does so in a completely backwards way though, by replacing several uncoordinated smaller units with one huge unit that simply is too big to maneuver.

So, what I want to do is come up with a different set of Soviet special rules that recreates the way that Soviet armor was actually used while maintaining overall game balance. The goals are as follows:

1) Allow for mixed units of armor.
2) Allow for the employment of multiple small units of armor, and even encourage it.
3) Somehow take away the advantage that multiple small units have over single large units under the core Flames of War rules.

One and two are pretty easy to manage. They simply require a reworking of the army lists to allow tanks to be taken together. Take away the multiple tank cost discount.

The last one is a bit more difficult. Perhaps alter the Centralized Control rule to allow Soviet tanks to be fielded as actual platoons. Alternately, come up with some variation on the normal command range rule mitigating some effects of being out of command, but within certain limitations. The result would allow for some maneuvering but without the flexibility of having separate units. Part of this could result in separate sections having independent break points. Perhaps a two stage command system where the second, longer, command range forces any section outside of that range to have separate break points.

These are all solutions I considered before coming up with something a bit more simple and which wouldn't require any reworking of the army lists.

Proposed Rules Changes

Be aware that these changes only apply to Mixed Tankovy Batalons, not regular Tankovy Batalons or any other forces that happen to contain tanks. The regular batalons represent the changes that were made in mid-43 in part to fix the problems that these rules are meant to represent. I may also propose a change to the hen & chicks rule for these later batalons, but if I do that it will be in a later article.

The solution I finally decided was worth playtesting goes like this:

1) Pick a Mixed Tankovy Batalon as normal from the existing mid-war list
2) Select your commander as normal and remove him from his company
3) Divide each company of tanks in your force into four equal parts, or as equal as possible.
4) Combine parts from different companies to come up with four mixed units that are as equal as possible in number (not including the commander).

For example: if you have 7 T-60, 10 T-34 and 3 KV-1e tanks, and you took one of the T-34 tanks as your commander, then you'd do the following:

The T-60 tanks would be divided as follows: 2/2/2/1
The remaining T-34 tanks would be divided as follows: 3/2/2/2
The KV-1e tanks would be divided as follows: 1/1/1/0

The final four groupings would be as follows:

Tanks: T-60/T-34/KV-1e
Group A: 2/2/1
Group B: 2/2/1
Group C: 2/3/0
Group D: 1/2/1

5) Those four units are now treated as separate companies in your Tankovy Batalon.
6) Ignore the Hen & Chicks rule, and instead replace it with the following:

Roll four skill tests at the experience level of your armored units. Each successful check results in one group of your choice that is able to move that turn. The remaining groups may take any action except moving, which means they can still shoot. The commander can always move and shoot, and does not require an activation to do so. The commander can also attach himself to any of these groups as normal, and if he does then they activate in addition to any activations that you rolled.

The result should be a more accurate representation of how Soviet armored forces operated prior to Kursk. You will now have to choose between slowly moving your forces up in pieces as you get the necessary activations, or sending only a fraction of them in quickly.

The only thing that really concerned me is that the 5+ activation for conscript units might be too harsh, but the ability of the commander to activate one unit for free should balance this out. If it does still prove too harsh, then it might be worth trying a flat 4+ activation number, but for now I want to tie it to the current skill/motivation system already in place.

If having the commander be able to automatically activate a unit proves to make the Soviets too powerful, then try taking that ability away from him. He can still move and fire as much as he wants on his own.

I have not yet had the chance to playtest these changes, but would love to do so, and would also love to hear from anyone else who decides to give these changes a try.

Book Review: Russian Armour Volume 2: Light Tanks

There are several sources out there now for most armoured fighting vehicles of WWII. Osprey and Squadron/Signal between them cover most of the vehicles used. The more famous, like the Tiger and Panther tanks, often have multiple books available covering their statistics and history in extreme detail.

Despite those sources, there are still some holes to be filled in the available reference material, and Light Tanks does a decent job of filling some of them.

First the good stuff. This book covers the light tanks and tankettes that the Soviet Union produced prior to and during WWII. These include the T-27, T-38, BT, T-26, T-40, T-50, T-60, and T-70 tanks. Many of these haven't had much coverage in other readily available books.

The book begins with a short overview of the history of light tanks in the Soviet Union, then proceeds with more detailed descriptions of each series in chronological order of development. In addition to the text, each section features period photos, photos of surviving museum pieces, profile line drawings, cut-away line drawings, and profile paintings. The resulting combination provides a lot of interesting information in a compact package.

As a personal note I have to mention that there is a picture included of a T-60, along with KV-1 and a T-34 all from the 121st Tank Brigade in May 1942 "before an attack". This photo was almost certainly taken just prior to the beginning of the second battle of Kharkov, the conflict that my personal miniature force of soviets is modelled to represent. The KV pictured appears to be a KV-1 1941 with a welded turret. It is not a KV-1e, KV-2, or KV-1 1940, and the welded turret would seem to rule out it being a KV-1s or a KV-1 1942. While not a definitive answer to the question of what kind of KV my own force was likely to have fielded, it certainly provides some useful clues. In Flames of War game terms, the KV-1 1941 and the KV-1e (which is what I currently use) have identical stats, but it's still interesting.

Now the bad stuff. First, it suffers from a lack of editing. There are several typos in the stats, such as using 1978 instead of 1938 at one point, using mm instead of m at another, and using T-24 instead of T-34 more than once. Also, it would appear that the author wrote the text directly in English, and that English is not his native language. While it is generally readable, there are several places where his unfamiliarity with English sentence structure shows through.

The worst aspect of the book is one that it shares with other books of this type and that's a complete lack of citations, either in the form of footnotes or a bibliography. There is nothing to indicate where the author is getting any of his information from. It could be from archival research, interviews with survivors, or he could be just making it up. We simply don't know because of the lack of citations. This seriously limits the usefulness of the book for any serious purpose, which is a shame because there are some interesting bits of information here.

It's a bit unfair to criticize this book for failings that exist in most books of this type, but it's become something of a pet peeve of mine so I feel that it's necessary to point out.

If you have any interest in the Soviet light tanks of WWII, then you shouldn't let any of my criticisms prevent you from reading this book as it does a good job of describing the development of Russia's light tanks, as well as providing several good photographs and illustrations.