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| 15mm DAK ready for action in the desert! |
Continuing to work on some miniatures and models from the Western Desert/Africa theatre of WW2. Here is a platoon of Afrika Korps troops to go up against the Desert Rats from my last post. The figures are all Peter Pig, based individually for skirmish games such as Chain of Command, Bolt Action and our own Blitkzkrieg rules.
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| DAK squad with a pair of MG34 teams |
Different base shapes were used as before to denote different ranks. The hex base marks the platoon commander/senior leader, and the square bases are for NCOs/junior leaders. I tried to mix up the colours a bit on the figures, with some wearing more faded fatigues than others. I find that where the 8th Army soldiers have an orderly, button-downed look to them (even blasted in the desert sun), the Afrika Korps have a sort of mixed, almost slack/proto-hipster appearance.
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| The NCO is on the square base at the front |
This lot is based around a platoon pack from Peter Pig, which I augmented with some firing poses from their early war German line in order to get some fellows wearing helmets into the mix.
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| You can see a few other goodies in the back of this photo that I will deal with in a later post :) |
The platoon pack came with six (!) MG34 teams...although I suppose this would not be unusual for German platoons later in the war, I didn't realize they were handing them out like candy to Rommel's lads in the desert. I suppose this was a prelude to the situation the overall German army would face in Europe - the extra MGs were needed to make up for the fact that the smaller platoons could be otherwise short of firepower against bulkier/more numerous opponents. (
EDIT - see comments below - apparently this number of LMGs was much more common from the outset of the war, at least in mobile units - thanks Arrigo!)
Six LMGs is a lot of firepower...this would certainly be a tough lot to deal with in a Chain of Command game.
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| Platoon commander, spare NCO (who should probably get a hex base too, as he would be a senior NCO) and AT rifle team |
Overall, there are three squads, each with two MG34s, in this unit. There is also an AT rifle team, making 34 troops in all. As always, the Peter Pig figures are a real joy to paint. There is a ton of detail and character in these castings. I'm looking forward to a skirmish game set in the desert! Stay tuned for a few more desert-themed goodies up next.
11 comments:
Nice work Greg. Your mixed colours look great and gives a real feeling of experience, battle worn troops.
excellent work on the figures. You really do them justice.
Great looking Piggies there dude!!
Very nice work!
How do the multi-based figures work in Chain of Command and the like? I'm tempted to rebase my Flames of War stuff, since I'm not interested in it any more, and I'm curious how the skirmish games work.
Great colours nice to something other than desert yellow.
Cheers
Stuart
Fabulous looking DAK! I'm amased how many fine stuff in 15mm is out there...
Greg,
for motorized units two machine guns per squad were the norm from France onward. It is not a refelction of less manpower, it is a doctrinal approach that gave mobile troops more firepower by design (usually because they were expected to operate with large frontages once engaged in deep operations, thus in smaller packets). Until the arrival of the 334 infantry division in Tunisia (and possible the 164 Leichte division later in 1942) all DAK units were coming from the mobile troops so it makes perfect sense to have two LMGs per squad in the pack.
Now, I really like the pigges (great piggy fans myself) and your painting. I am also doing some Western Desert forces for CoC at the moment so it is a great inspiration. The only difference is that I have them on multifigure bases (to be used also for IASBM and Blitzkrieg Commander). I use casualty marker (again from PP) to indicate partial losses and I tend to operate my squads int he basic teams rather than in "custom group". I have Single based Squa leaders.
These are very nice and I like the mix of gear you have achieved
Ian
Thanks everyone for the comments.
@ Arrigo - thank you for the information!
@ Robert - my personal view is that Chain of Command would work very poorly with the group bases; you would need at least casualty markers. But YMMV - and as you can see in other comments some folks find it works just fine that way.
Greg these are some lovely looking figures! I've been tempted to rebase my Flames of War minis so I can play with them using the Battlegroup ruleset. May I ask what you use for your different shape and sized bases?
@ Jay - thanks very much. I take no credit for the basing system - it was inspired by my good friend Curt in Regina (you can find more info at his "Analogue Hobbies" blog). The intent was to make it easy to spot certain important types of figures in a relatively small scale (although I am now even doing this for 28mm :)
The regular fellows are on 15mm rounds. NCOs are on 20mm squares with rounded corners. Senior NCOs and officers are on 20mm hexes.
Sometimes, there will be a 15mm octogon to denote something that is importantly different, yet doesn't look too different on a small figured - for example an MP44 amid a group of Kar98s...but I haven't done that much.
I want to try the "Battlefront" rules - hopefully soon.
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