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.