Painting Challenge entries 11 & 12: German WW2 personalities and guards

I've been keeping busy with another two entries again. As they are similarily themed and due to Curt's holidays were posted just few days apart instead of the normal week I'll just post them here at the same time. I've been working longer hours since starting at a new job in the beginning of the month so no spectacular progress on the painting front, but still something to show for a few weeks of work. With these done I'm at 999 points with 1000 being my goal. The entry mini is still to be finished as are the 4 Infinity models that I started already in December so I'll be achieving my goal even though I didn't paint even half of what I had lined up in the beginning. Then again I've painted quite a bit of things I had no plans to do when the challenge started.

I painted these up for a club Bolt Action games day where I was hosting a game featuring a British assault on a German HQ and needed some guardsmen and other miscellaneous figures. The first batch is Warlord Games with their Feldgendarmerie and "Guarding the Chateau" packs both included here as well as some extras like the surrendering Jerry and Sgt Steiner. Quality wise these "new" packs are definately of a lower quality than some of the previous Warlord metals. The difference is very apparent especially in their faces. Might be a new sculptor or then these are some really old moulds that they've just dug up again.

The second batch is from Wargames Foundry. These are some of their older Perry sculpts and do include some wonderfully characterful poses. Especially the guardsman with his arms crossed, head held down with eyes almost closed while trudging along on his route, is just perfect and pretty much sums up what most soldiers feel when having to stand guard.

75 Anniversary of the end of Winter War

Not much hobby related again, but a short history session.

Today is the 75th anniversary of the end of Winter War, sometimes called 105 days of glory, between Finland and Soviet Union. The conflict had started in the end of November when Finland refused Soviet demands of land secession and destruction of fortifications in the Karelian isthmus. The official reason for war from the Soviet side was the alleged Finnish mortar attack on a Russian border post in Mainila November 26th. This gave Soviet Union a casus belli and a pretext to withdraw from the Russo-Finnish non-aggression pact and start offensive operations on November 30th. In later times the incident has been investigated by historians and it has been concluded that Soviet NKVD fired the shots from the Soviet side off the border. Later on Vladimir Putin has described the start of the war as justified in correcting mistakes made when Finland gained independence from Russia in 1917.

A Finnish machine-gun team during the war.

The Soviets expected a quick campaign with Finnish workers rising in their support against their capitalistic oppressors. There was still dissent in the populace after the Civil War that had ended only a little over 20 years before, but the Soviet attack ended that with the nation uniting against the attackers. A campaign that was planned to end in a few weeks with a victory parade in Helsinki ended up lasting 105 days. In the end Finland had to surrender and secede roughly 11% of the nations terrain with nearly 30% of it's industrial capacity. However the total annexation that was faced by the Baltic nations was avoided.

Simo Häyhä. The most successful sniper in history with 545 confirmed rifle kills and roughly 200 with an SMG within less than a 100 days. He was nicknamed Belaya Smert or 'White Death' by the Soviets and massive efforts were taken to kill him. He was shot with an exploding bullet on March 6th only a week before the end of the war, but survived and lived to the healthy age of 96 passing away in 2002.

The Finnish army had been neglected before the war and was woefully underequipped especially in regards of heavier weaponry and air power. The Soviets could muster 3 times as much manpower, 30 times as many air planes and 100 times more tanks than the Finnish army. However they were hindered by horrendously bad leadership after Stalin's purges and problems were caused by a particularly nasty winter weather with plenty of snow and temperatures varying between 0 and minus 40, which made life in the front lines hard for troops that were not equipped for it. In the end the Soviet losses were roughly 130,000 dead, 190,000 wounded, 3500 tanks destroyed and between 260-500 airplanes lost compared to the Finnish losses of 26,000 dead, 43,500 wounded, 20 tanks and 60 airplanes.

A Soviet column destroyed with 'Motti' tactics.

The war was the final action that proved the League of Nations to be an ineffective organization. As with the German invasion of Poland and annexations of Czechoslovakia and Austria the League could do nothing more than disapprove and void the membership of Soviet Union due to the attack. The war also lead Hitler to believe that the Soviet Union could be invaded easily, which partly lead to the start of Operation Barbarossa. During the interim peace between the Winter War and Continuation War, Finland developed closer ties with Germany as support from foreign nations had been minimal with only token supply deliveries.

Soviet POW's with their captors.

The start of Winter War also has quite a bit of similarity with the current events in Ukraine. Staged attacks and blaming from eastern neighbours coupled with a rhetoric where the west is blamed for the fighting happened in 1939 and 1940 as they are happening at the moment. Outside help is also mainly limited to condemning the actions of the aggressor with little material support ever making it to the front. It would seem the west is again avoiding conflict so much that it might actually lead to another larger conflict in the near future.

Magazine front page telling of the signing of the peace treaty and the end of the War

Review: The History Book Man

This time no miniatures, but more "light" reading in the form of the excellent uniform and unit guides from W.J. Rawkins or "The History Book Man". I stumbled across his site when Loki from Loki's Great Hall mentioned his work a while back. As the books focus on more obscure nations that are a bit harder to find information on I decided to give it a try.

I bought myself a book about the Swedish Napoleonic army for future use in commissioning a small 1808 force of these as well as books on Swiss and Polish troops in French service. All the books have originally been published sometime in the late 70s and early 80s and are long out of print, but with the coming of modernish technology they have been re-edited, new colour images have been added and are now delivered in on DVD's.

A single DVD retails for 4 pounds, which is quite a bargain in my opinion. Inside the DVD you find a PDF, so nothing fancy or interactive. I'd personally have preferred just a downloadable PDF to save the waiting time of a DVD. There is the small cottage industry feel to these as the DVD's actually came with a blank face and a printed sticker that you need to attach yourself. To be honest it's not really a problem to get these on a DVD, but still saving on the postage would be nice and maybe the world would have a tiny bit less of useless stuff.

Having read through most of the book regarding the army of Sweden during 1802-1814 and glanced through the other two, they do come across as very thoroughly researched. The unique Swedish indelningsverk method of maintaining a largish army in a small country is explained thoroughly and all the uniform changes and peculiarities are explained both in writing and with pictures. This is definately a subject that is hard to find information on as there is little to none of it even in Swedish so I must applaud Mr. Rawkins for his research into the subject. Certainly helped me out a lot. The other books are of similar quality, though longer as those armies had far more combat experience and I would expect research material to be far easier to find.

For the price these are quite unbeatable as background material. They won't go into extremely obscure details, but will definately provide more than enough for your average wargamer and will be a good starting point for the more fanatical persona. Most of the titles are about the small German states so if you are planning those I'd definately recommend taking a look. The website states that they are planning to release 3 new or re-edited books this year, so it will be interesting to see what new nationalities will be covered.

Painting Challenge entry 10: German Light AA Platoon

Progress has been slow with most of the week being spent struck down with a nasty flu and the lovely dog eating up what energy was left. Still I did manage to finish up 4 anti-air halftracks that I got started on last week.

I feel planes are a bit more useful in Early War in Flames of War and with them going to make an appearance on quite a few lists I figured some anti-air fire would come in handy, especially as I was going to be rolling out with 3 infantry platoons and light armour which provides some nice targets for planes. The choice is between a couple of 88's or then these Sdkfz 10/5 which carry the 2cm Flak cannon. With the 88's costing far too many points, being basically stationary and leaning on to the overkill side with AT power I decided to use the lighter version. Rules wise each halftrack pumps out 4 AT5 FP5+ shots and come at 90 points for 4. Quite a bargain even if they are basically paper. They are able to really hurt some light tank hordes and add some firepower to help dig out infantry. I painted up 4 as it's the maximum platoon size, but I have a feeling I'll probably only run 3 at a time as points are at a premium with 1550 points being the list size at ETC.

The trucks are a bit fiddly to put together with loads of parts and little attachment points. For example the sides are held on with only a 1mm ledge, some superglue and assistance from some higher power. As there is also a separate trailer and some crew on foot I decided to base them on a large base, which should also limit the chances of breaking any parts of as they can be picked up from the base and not the minis themselves. The large bases also allowed for the addition of some scenery pieces to add some variety as the minis are all identical with no variety in crew etc. As they are a Luftwaffe unit I painted the uniforms with a blue grey shade that's hopefully closer to the real Luftwaffe uniform.

Still two platoons to go, but I don't think I'll be painting them for a while as they don't really need to be done before August. With Waterloo 200 anniversary coming along and a Russia 1812 campaign starting at the club I really need to get those things progressing. There's still 6 French and 2 British battalions to paint for Waterloo games and I promised to paint up the 9th Division for the Russian campaign, which sees me painting 13 battalions of 15mm Swiss units. When painting Prussians I've been able to finish 15mm battalions in an evening or two and I'm hoping to be able to keep the same pace with the Swiss.