WWII AB Germans

 

Over the last couple of months, I have been painting new German and British platoons for Chain of Command. I had been using Plastic Soldier Company 1/72 figures and they have done great service, fighting many battles. They were getting damaged and there were a few things I wanted to change as I was having problems with transport as well as wanting no multi-based figures. When transitioning from a 28mm Napoleonic to new 18mmAB army, I decided to go with metal bases that could be placed in magnetic drawers and easily transported. The troops have travelled back and forth to Montreal several times now without any damage so I decided to transition my WWII figures to a similar system.

As AB Figures has an excellent selection of German and British figures in 20mm, I decided to go primarily with them. I find WWII much more interesting to paint than Napoleonics (and of course easier) so I decided to take on the project myself. I have finally got around to finishing the painting and basing so time to take some photos.

Rifle or Panzergrenadier Platoon with Supports

Basic Platoon for Late War (extra SL)-3 squads of 10 men each with a 3 man LMG team and a 6 man Rifle Team. The single SL has a PanzerSchreck team in the platoon. As you can see the Leaders are marked with red flowers but the SL's also have a clump of bushes on the base. The LMG teams are aslo marked with flowers to make it easy to distinguish them from the Riflemen. I also used different coloured flowers on each squad.

I suspect this may disturb some as I do appreciate that Early War Germans and Panzergrenadiers had some uniform variations from LW Grenadiers. But for me this is less important. I am more interesting in playing the game with easily identfible weapons and teams. So above we have the figures to turn the platoon into a PzG platoon (2 three man LMG teams with 3 riflemen) or an EW platoon (2 SL's and a 5cm Mortar team without the PzSck Team.

5 man MMG Team

FO, Sniper and an extra PzSck Team

Dirty Nazi Tricks for EW games

6 man Engineer squad with Flamethrower Team. I plan to upgrade this to a 16 man Pioneer Squad for EW games, so holding off on a JL for now until I have this sorted. I should also point out that these figures are from CPModels.

Late War AT Guns with gun team and JL. The gun is easily changed out. Mixture of PSC, EWM, and Zvezda.

Early War AT and AI Gun Teams.

CI marker system: SL, SL with 2 CI, Wounded JL with 2 CI (no activation this turn), JL with 1 CI, and a Gun team JL with 1 CI. These should be all pretty obvious on the table during a game and i hope unobstrusive. These are mdf with rare earth magnets embedded so they attach to the metal base thus quickly changed out.

And finally on to the actual transport system:

I glued some magnetic sheet onto the heavy card separator. It has a cloth tab that I can use to easily remove the separator from the box with out having to reach into the box and pull out each figure. You will note 4 rare earth magnets in each corner. I am pretty confident I will be able to fit in Squad 4.

The Test!

This is a large hard plastic box that are perfect for 1/72 figures. It comes with 2 cardboard separators with cloth tabs. They come from Chessex dice and are easily obtained on ebay. I have my British Paratroop Platoon in their smaller box. The separator is held in place by 4 rare earth agnets that I glued into the base of the box.

So a few additions still needed, I am working on a Bison now but I believe I have most of the necessary AFV's for both EW and LW. I plan to paint a 4th squad as a support but all in time!