Some pics of my Fallschirmjager

 

A few shots of my Fallschirmjager platoons.  I've been sitting on these for about 4 years and got a notion to paint them at the end of last year.  Unfortunately I haven't quite worked out the best settings for my camera so the pictures didn't turn out brilliantly.  Following is the best 5 shots from about 80 that I took.

 

This force consist of 2 platoons of rifle/MG, 9 stands per platoon with commander, overall company commander and company 2IC, a platoon of 4 HMGs with commander and a platoon of NbW35 10.5cm mortars with commander and spotters.  I bought the mortars by mistake thinking they were ordinary infantry mortars.  All figures are Battlefront Miniatures.

 

The camo pattern is my interpretation of Splittermuster 31, splinter pattern.  One thing I noticed when researching this force is that most painters paint headbands on the helmets however I could only find 1 picture in hundreds that actually showed it in real life.

 

 

Heavy machine guns

The best picture I took was of the backs! 
No, they are NOT retreating!

Mortar commander

Some SS I painted for Richard

Richard had asked me to paint a company of SS for him in pea-dot camouflage.  The figures are Battlefront and Command Decision and took a hefty toll on my eyesight.  Each figure has in excess of 250 dots!!  I ruined the tips of 3 00 brushes painting these guys.  NEVER AGAIN!!!!

I think they turned out rather nicely though.  Sadly, my photography skills are lacking, these pictures were taken on my mobile without any staging or pre-arrangement.  Hopefully you'll be able to get a sense of the work involved.

Another game of Blitzkreig Commander

A 4 player game this time, again US against Germans in an encounter scenario.

Mark H with the US left and me with the US right against Michael on the left and Richard with the right.

I like Blitzkreig Commander, I find it a lot more playable than Flames of War.

After some massive artillery bombardments by the Americans the axis was defeated but it was a close run thing.  The Americans made the mistake of breaking cover in front of the German left and paid a very hefty price.  The Shermans in the centre got caught in the open and decimated by the long range guns of the Jagdpanthers then after a short fight what was left were destroyed by SS assaulting with Panzerfaust.  American AT guns managed to halt the panzers on the left but after a command blunder early in the game were severely hampered by attrition.  The pesky American artillery observer managed to call in a very effective bombardment, Calliopes coupled with a battery of 105mm managed to wipe out several PzIvs and most of the SS. 

Some valuable lessons were learned in this game:

Artillery is too potent and we will limit the amount in future games,
Too many points per side make for a frustrating game,
NEVER crest a hill in front of any type of late war German tanks,
Sherman tanks are rubbish against any late war German tank, the figure of 30+ American tanks was quoted at one point as needed to make a difference.





American off table artillery.  Very effective when it came to it.



German right wing, beautifully painted
PzIV and Konigstigers supported by SS.



German left wing, Jagdpanther supported by
 Heer troops and some towed artillery.



On the American left wing some M10 tank destroyers
and towed AT guns.



German right advancing along the road.



Logjam or "blocage"

American left crests a hill to stop the panzers. 
This tuned out to be a disastrous move as most of these tanks
were destroyed by opportunity fire as soon as they came into view.

American right, 101st Airborne dig in to wait
for the Jagdpanthers.

The FAC calls up some support in the form of a P47 armed with rockets.



Damage done by the Jagdpanthers.

Some Shermans in the centre manage to catch some
SS in the open. Looks like a bloodbath is likely to ensue!

Shermans assaulted by some Heer that had
been hiding in bocage.



The SS join in the assault but come off worst. 
This fight didn't last much longer than this!