German Early War Battalion

I've finally found some time to write up on my projects. Real life and the renovation of my old apartment have taken up too many hours of the day for me to blog. Still, I've been painting steadily and my early WWII German battalion is finally complete. It's been complete for a while now, but SWMBO has had other plans for my time. Kitchen appliances, bathroom fittings, you get the idea. Anyways, back to the figures. I used classic Esci and Revell for these. The Esci figures (reboxed by Italeri) were as perfect as when I used to buy them in my (very early) teens. The Revell stuff had a lot flash. I did not remove all of it, lazy sod that I am. After lots and lots of Feldgrau they were ready.

  Here are all nine platoons. The figures mix well together and have great detail as all of us know. There are still enough figs left over for another two companies or so.

 

The machinegun platoons were Esci and Zvezda. Zvezda are a bit more accurate with their sustained fire tripods but I like the old-fashioned stuff as well. 

  

Mortar platoon is Zvezda. Great little kit, not at all fiddly.

  

And  finally the command stand. All Esci. Radio man, officer (for once showing some common sense and wearing a helmet) and NCO.

This was a surprisingly pleasant experience. I thought that I'd be bored to death after all this feldgrau, but it was very zen in a way. No worrying about what design to paint or which colours to use. Just plain old field grey. Eventually all of these guys will get transport. I'm thinking about a mix of 251's, trucks and motorcycle combos. With the crisis in Greece its getting difficult to find a lot of stuff so I'm stuck with only 2 Opels, one for the battalion AA (a 20mm gun) and one for the AT battery (one door knocker). Still, better days for styrene are bound to come.

This is all from the Greek Geek household and a pleasantly cool Athens evening.