Manda (Amachan) goes to the Eastern Front

Today has been a field gun kind of a day for me, so over the time of the day I slowly put together 2 PaK 38s, 3 Nebelwerfers and 4 ZiS-3 guns. I will still have to drill out the barrels, but the smallest drill bit I have is as blunt as a dodo so I need to get some new ones.

While this might seem like the most unstable project I have ever created, it kind of isn’t. This project came forth in order for me to cope with a mental health breakdown and thus it hadn’t been thought out as much as I usually do.

Because of limited space after the renovations of my apartment, I can only have a 3×4 table setup rather than the 6×4 I had before. The 6×4 was actually already too big for my apartment before, but since things have gotten even smaller it pushes this fact out a little more. Now in order to make Flames of War still a great game to play with armies of like 100 points or so, I have decided to really focus on urban warfare. The close urban warfare from the battle of Stalingrad would still be great to do at 3×4. I also said that I didn’t want to do winter stuff and the battle of Stalingrad happened way before winter started in 1942. However the battle of Stalingrad is just 1 battle and doesn’t give me much options for moving forward. So I have decided to look into the many battles of Kharkov, none of which took part in the winter and are spread between 1941 and 1943 and thus will be a perfect focus for everything I want to do mid-war.

I am also making a small change to the German army list. I am changing the Panzer III (Uparmoured) Tank Platoon to normal Panzer III Tank Platoon with long 5cm guns. This would be equivalent to the Panzer III Ausf. J rather than the Ausf. L. These were a bit more common in the early parts of mid war and the only real difference for those equipped with the 5 cm KwK 39 L/60 gun is the spaced armour that the Ausf. L has. It also brings the point balance a little bit closer. Now I could have gone for 4 short 5cm ones rather than 3 long 5cm ones as it would make the point levels completely equal, but I really like the long 5cm guns. For those who don’t know, the Panzer III Ausf. L is my favourite German tank and this way I can still build an Ausf. L command tank. I’ll get more Panzer IIIs later most likely.

It’s been a bit too hot today for any painting, so I have been a bit of a Soviet tank factory today.

This is my first foray into 15mm wargaming, I know I did a pink tank once, but here is banana man for scale.

Cossacks…… Cossacks don’t always wear helmets as you can see in my reference from Steel Division II.

Now that means I am going to have to do some disfigurement to some of the models. By my maths with the models I have I can ruin about 10 rifle dudes to try and get this right. So…..

I’ll have to see after I painted him, but I think it will be fine.

So now that I have my starting stuff in and access to the rules what am I going to make? Even though my focus has shifted somewhat from doing winter 1942/43 I am sticking to 1942 for this. The battle of the Caucasus as part of Fall Blau is what I am centring my armies around for now. Now what armies am I building? Obviously Soviets and Germans for now, but what?

I am planning on doing the 9th Guard Cossack Cavalry Division for my Soviets, this is a very unique force by which I am already biting myself in the foot as I am going to have to convert some or most of the infantry to cossacks, not too big of a change luckily, just change the helmet to a hat.

Now for ze Germans I am focussing on the 20. Panzergrenadier-Division. Now this division was only formed in July of 1943 from the 20. Infanterie-Division (mot), which did exist in 1942 as it was formed in October of 1935. So for all intents and purposes I am painting them as the 20. Panzergrenadier-Division. This division also has a lot of interesting and weird equipment. I always like the weird, especially when it is historically accurate. They had an Elefant platoon led by the only Tiger (P) that ever made it on the battlefield. That and lots of other stuff that was kind of unusual on the battlefield is what drew me to them.

The excerpts are from Steel Division II, a PC game that I am going to reference a lot throughout this project. It may not be the most historically accurate source, but I do believe the developers spend a lot of time studying what they were doing and for tabletop wargaming it is probably more accurate than what some people come up with.

I have mentioned ‘for now’ a couple of times and as you can see by what I am planning I am not planning on leaving it at this. After I finish making the formations that I want to make for 1942 I am quickly moving on to 1943 around the battle of Kursk and then to the offensive in 1944. I am therefor planning on sticking with those 2 divisions for now, but I have desires of doing a Finnish force as well. But for now it is July to September 1942 on the Eastern Front.

I am going to start off with the formation included in the starter set and the models that I bought extra.

Hero Rifle Battalion

• Hero Rifle Battalion HQ consisting of 2 command M1981 rifle teams for 1 point.
• 2 Hero Rifle Companies each consisting of 10 DP MG & M1891 rifle teams of which 1 is a command M1981 rifle team, a komissar team and 2 Maksim HMG teams. This is 8 points a company, so 16 points in total.
• 76mm Artillery Battery consisting of 4 Zis-3 76mm guns for a total of 8 points.
• T-70 Hero Tank Company consisting of 3 T-70 light tanks for 6 points.
• T-34 (Early) Tank Company consisting of 5 T34/76 mod. 1941 tanks for a total of 26 points.

That brings the total for this formation to 57 points.

Again doing the same as before using everything in the starter set plus some models I got extra.

Panzergrenadier Company

• Panzergrenadier Company HQ consisting of 2 command MP40 SMG teams for 2 points.
• 2 Panzergrenadier Platoons each consisting of 7 MG34 teams of which one is a command team. Each platoon is 10 points for a total of 20.
• 5cm Tank-Hunter Platoon consisting of 2 PaK 38 5cm guns for a total of 8 points.
• 15cm Nebelwerfer Battery consisting of 3 15cm Nebelwerfers for a total of 9 points.
• Panzer III Tank Platoon consisting of 3 Panzer III (short 5cm) tanks for a total of 15 points and then I upgraded all of them with the long 5cm gun for +2 points a model for a total of 21 points. This would represent the Panzer III Ausf. J with the 5 cm KwK 39 L/60 gun.

This formation is then a total of 60 points.

We obviously have a winner, the base on the left is obviously the best.

But now my mind is going wild again and I am thinking of potentially not doing wintery bases. It would make it a lot easier if I want to extend into other theatres later on that aren’t set in the winter. Plenty of stuff on the Eastern Front was not fought in the winter. Now I have my wintery bases in hand, I am going to want to try some other things. The 2 bases on the top are coated with AK Interactive Diorama Terrains Muddy Ground (AK8017) and I carved tracks in them. The 2 bases on the bottom I have put on a thin layer of a basic structure paste and added a couple of rocks in it. I want to see if I can get these painted without using a primer, the pot it comes in says I can so we’ll see. It has been very hot outside today and I managed to keep most of the heat out, if I can do so as well tomorrow I may be able to do some more work.

So the last 2 bases have dried and I am liking the look of this much more. There is still a little bit of a frosty shine to it, but it doesn’t look like glitter anymore.

So for the next 2 tests.

Left:
I have used a bit of a thicker mix as before with the GaleForce Nine Hobby Round: Snow (GFS027), water and PVA. Spread that on the base and carved the tracks into it. I then applied a couple of drops of water on the sides where the snow would be less disturbed and smoothed it out. I then sprinkled a bit more of the snow on there, we’ll see what that looks like when dry, but I think this is the winner.

Right:
I went back to have a look at my old Wintery Basing Experiments project and tried to apply that to the base on the right. I made a mix with Vallejo Water Texture Still Water (26.230) & Vallejo Weathering Effects Snow (73.820) and spread that on the base. I then carved in the tracks and added a little bit more water texture in there. I then sprinkled some of the GF9 snow on the sides. I will have to see how this looks like when dry.

I also prepped 2 more bases in the same way as before.

So, the bases have dried and I don’t recall having ever seeing snow with glitter in it…. So much for this snow powder being realistic….

So I still had some Galeforce 9 snow stuff laying about, not sure if it is still available since I got it ages ago, but it most likely is. I tried to do a similar thing as before. The first mix (left) was a bit too watery to model anything into it so I just spread a bit more of the snow stuff over it to see how that turns out. The second mix (right) I mixed a little bit thicker, not really thick enough to make tracks in it, but I tried. We’ll see how it turns out.

I then prepped a couple more bases and put some tracks into the muddy ground texture beforehand.

I vaguely recall having done a winter basing project at some point, I am going to have to look at how I did stuff back then.