German Horse-drawn Equipment (Part One)

What, no horses?  Well, I’ll start my project with an Infantry Division.  Let’s call it ID 198.

It would not have been entirely mechanised.

I need quite a bit of ID 198 for the battle of Rostov scenario, and, in the past,  have drawn suitable components from my PBI company force (as shown in the pictures) … but I’ve added supporting equipment for the higher levels on a somewhat unsystematic basis (i.e. cobbled it together).

As I need to add some typical German horse-drawn equipment to my German collection (and some tows for my 105s), it seems sensible to flesh out a generic infantry division with artillery and supports.

I’m tagging it ID 198 as providing units for 198 will be part of its job, although my intention is something more generic than 198 itself (which was often chronically understrength) and it won’t exactly mirror any specific formation.  Even, say, at Rostov, 22nd Panzer was supported by around a division’s worth of ‘leg’ infantry (mostly 198) but it wasn’t exclusively from ID 198 and not all of 198 was there (reality being a little more ‘ad hoc’, sometimes).

(another way of looking at a German Infantry Division)

The footsoldiers notionally form 3 regiments of 3 battalions each … for 198, they were 305, 308 and 326 (although 326 was heavily depleted by 1942, and by the time the division was redeployed from Russia, all the regiments were down to 2 battalions).

The 3 infantry regiments were supported by Artillery Regt 235.

(the footsoldier bits of the Infantry Division)

At this scale, each battalion is represented by a command stand and an infantry stand, the regimental HQs have some support stands.

These paired PBI stands take up the same basic space (*wink*) as the wider stands Chris now uses in his NQM set up (so he would call this scale ‘1 base = 1 battalion’, counting PBI ones as half-bases).

So the next phase will involve me basing up lots of horse-drawn limbers and equipment to provide the guns, carts, ambulances etc. to allow all these soldiers to operate in the field effectively.  Hence the title of the post … German Horse-drawn etc. … that’s the job in hand.

Those of you who have followed this blog for some time, now, will know the one element already in place:

This will keep them in good spirits.  I’m planning to add a bakery and an ambulance to make 3 recovery stands.  But more of the ‘to do’ list will appear in Part Two.

Edit: I should have included that, for Fall Blau, the Divisional Commander was Albert Buck.  He sounds like a wargamer’s general to me: he was an internal promotion, previosly commanding Regt 305 … and he died in action in the Causasus battles in September 1942.

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Ostfront Nebeltruppen

German rocket launchers, basically … ‘smoke troops’, but offering lethal HE support from their towed, six barrel, Nebelwerfer 41s …

Surprisingly, my miniature Germans have not previously had this equipment.

The models and figures are by Peter Pig, assembled without and fiddling or adaptation.

(Peter Pig 15mm Nebelwerfers)

The crew are for reloading … the launchers were fully loaded, then remotely fired with a ripple salvo of all 6 barrels.  They would then often need to be moved as their firing location was visible for miles from the smoke trails …

So, in reality, you would be unlikely to have seen men with ammo standing around a nebelwerfer.  But PP do a nice pack of crew figures, and I will use them as ‘deployed’ markers in Operational Games.

(Nebelwerfer battery assembled and painted by Yesthatphil)

The rocket rounds I have seen seem to be a white-ish alloy colour (although internet searches do show variations) – anyway, I’ve gone with what I’ve seen.

The waffenfarbe for Nebeltruppen was ‘bordeaux’ apparently (a variation on the burgundy/murrey/wine colour?) and I will add some epaulette piping in due course.

(German rocket artillery on P.B.Eye-Candy)

The launchers are towed by a half track (Sdkfz 11, modified) and a captured Gaz 6-wheeler, both by Skytrex.  Depending on the game scale, there is a Zvezda Opel Blitz available for additional logistics.

(Skytrex, Zvezda, Skytrex)

 

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