Thursday 24 September 2009

German Late War Infantry, not quite Panzer Grenadiers

Another sample PVA primer experimental batch was carried out on the Revell opponents to the US Infantry  (see previous post) as shown below. Slightly repeating myself, the loss detail was slightly disappointing but for wargame figures they will do. Note to self: Next time, apply less PVA, watered down more.




Looking at the painting scheme it seems a little too green, not the field green-gray I was expecting. I will have to double check this. Again lots of other bare plastics of this type exist in my collection and they are a target for a factory style painting approach some approaching winter's day/night. Also shown, albeit with an early war paint scheme, is a  Esci Hanomag 251/10, though please note it does have the added (almost unique amongst my model AFV's) attraction of decals ;)

While posing the above photo I was reminded of a quibble I have with the Command Decision rules, particularly in 20mm, namely you are expected to have a Half-Track vehicle for each stand in your mechanised company. Not only is this expensive but it creates a visual problem when some twelve figures could be inside it and only two pop out of it. Scale wise there is an issue as in 20mm the half track takes up far more room than it should. In 1/300 or 1/200 it is on the same size base as that of infantry. Hence I am tempted to abstract this sort of transport from the individual stand level up to the company level. It also stops over aggressive use of Hanomags and American M3 Half Tracks being pointed machine gun facing the enemy pretending to be a light tank.

2 comments:

JohnM said...

Nice to see so many updates, keep the coming.

Our wargame group used to game CD in 20mm scale too, but I don't think the scale is right for the game. I do like the rules, but we found that visually it's more a game for 1/300 scale models.

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

Yes, I think likewise, hence the reason for the long lead time in construction of my 20mm kits.

Half-way through my Command Decision project, somewhere in the late 1990's (just before 2000) I gave up and switched to Skytrex 1/200 or Action 200 models (see links) for Command Decision. I now use this scale in conjunction with Pendraken's (see links) 10mm infantry where possible.

The 1/200 came about as I was mainly modeling early war stuff which was really tiny in 1/300.

However I have high hopes for Crossfire coming to save my 20mm collection from a November fireworks display, or perhaps with age I can turn a blinder eye to scale discrepancies (but I don't think so).

It is funny, naval wargames suffer equally with realistic interpretations of battleship gunnery and keeping things on tabletop!