Manda (Amachan) goes to the Eastern Front

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.