MV – We recently looked at the infantry portion of Andrés’ Blue Division force – Spanish volunteers who served with the Germans on the Eastern Front. Swept along in all of the Bolt Action: Third Edition hype, he’s gone and expanded his force further, with an Artillery Platoon. Let’s see what he’s gotten up to!
AF – For this second instalment of my hobby adventure, I’ve built myself an Artillery Platoon, formed of two anti-tank guns and a howitzer. The Blue Division was an infantry division with its own artillery attachments, and some German support from other Wehrmacht divisions, giving me plenty of supporting equipment to choose from.
This force is based around the period when anti-tank rifles began to struggle against larger and heavier tanks, and while I needed some anti-tank capability in the force, I also wanted to be as faithful as possible to the division organization. This meant that the AT guns at my disposal were the Pak 36 and the Pak 38. Not the most menacing of weapons, but it was what they had in real life!
I started with a PaK 36, giving it the Stielgranate upgrade to maximise how much damage this little gun can do! For the crew, I used a couple of men from the LeFH 18 winter crew, as well as one of the models from the PaK 36 with a quick head-swap. I’ve ended up with four crew figures, when in game terms the PaK 36 only has a 3-man crew, but it’s not a problem – I’ll just track crew casualties with a dice during games.
I painted the gun with Vallejo Model Colour German Grey 995, followed by a drybrush of VMC Luftwaffe Uniform 816, then Warpaints Fanatic Wolf Grey, and a bit of chipping by sponging with WPF Ash Grey. After that I created the white-wash effect by thinning down Speedpaint Holy White with Speedpaint Medium in a 50:50 ratio. I applied the mix with a sponge, followed by a highlight of WPF Brigandine Brown and another one with WPF Matt White, again using a sponge to simulate the battered and partially washed away winter camouflage. With a bit of VMC German Grey 995 and the sponge I created chipping and scratching on some areas that would get more wear and tear from everyday handling. I followed this method for all of my guns, and it was so simple and effective I’ll probably use it for my Armoured Platoon as well!
I knew I’d need more AT firepower, so I decided to ‘scale up’ and add a PaK 38! The crew for this one came from the winter PaK 40 kit, with the addition of some plastic heads. I also filed down the gaiters a little bit, which gave me great-looking jackboots after a coat of WPF Matt Black!
Finally I built up an LeFH 18 howitzer for dealing with enemy infantry. This was almost a ‘straight out of the box’ build, but I combined the Blitzkrieg-era gun without muzzle break with the winter crew to make the earlier production version of the weapon which was in service with the Blue Division.
The Blue Division decal sheet gave me all the Spanish badges for the crew’s right arms, and the Spanish flags and Wehrmacht badges for their helmets. As I did with the Rifle Platoon, I painted on some moustaches, to make them more like the men seen in pictures from the period.
To build my Platoon Commander and to give me some extra officers for the force, I decided to use the Winter Soviet HQ. Bundled up as they are in their winter kit, I only needed to add plastic pieces of German equipment, such as canteens, bread bags, and mess tins to turn them into Spaniards! In the case of the model I choose for the artillery group, I attached an MP 40 to his back and shaved a small rectangle into his ushanka hat for the Falange emblem.
I’ve deliberately left the basing unfinished on these models – they’ll all eventually have a good covering of snow! I prefer to do this step last, on all of my models, just to ensure that the basing is consistent across the entire project.
Next up for me is an Armoured Platoon for even more support – but that’s for next time! After that, I’m not quite sure where I’ll go. I know I’d like to add some more weapons teams, but the new German Veteran Infantry set is giving me all sorts of crazy ideas…
MV – Want to follow in Andrés’ (snowy) footprints? The Winter German range has you covered, and with the Spanish Blue Division decals, it’s never been easier to field this unique force yourself!
