Panzer Lehr - Reinforcements - Tank Hunters and Mortars

With the CTA tournament looming closer I had to get a few more bits and pieces finished up, for my chosen force.

I wanted to add some armour to my force of Lehr Panzergrenadiers, and wanted the better armour of the StuG G, over the Panzer IV, however the Lehr company restricts the StuG to its 'Radio Controlled Tank Platoon' in which they come with Borgward demolition carriers... which I did not want to field.

However Lehr can field the Jagdpanzer Tank Hunter, which to all intents and purposes, is identical to the StuG in the game.

Also known and 'Guderians Duck', these tank hunters will do all that the StuG can. To me they look a little like the Jagdpanthers little brother...

Later in the war these were upgraded to the Panzer IV/70, with beefed up frontal armour and a much bigger gun, and stronger front wheels to support this extra frontal weight.

But these Jagdpanzers will suit me fine for now, and give my Lehr forces a little low silhouette mobile anti-tank punch...

Next up a pair of SdKfz 251/7's carrying the 8cm Mortar.

These are being fielded as part of the GPG 'Heavy Platoon', and give me a little extra in terms of options; landing a pinning artillery strike, or dropping some smoke where it might be needed, to help the GPGs in their assault duties...

Finally though not strictly for my Lehr forces, a couple of Kfz 15 Field cars. Again these were grabbed half price from the store closing down sale, and will no doubt come in useful for other mobile German formations where they often serve the purpose of transport for platoon commanders.

Brief Battle Report
Last Friday night I had a game with Paul playing Fighting Withdrawal, with my Lehr GPG force defending against his British Armoured company, as a pre-tournament practice as I had never played this mission scenario before.

My Jagdpanzers were sprung in ambush from a wood against Paul's Recce Stuarts and caused them a degree of grief, though my dice rolling wasn't the best and the Stuarts managed to escape total destruction! The jagdpanzers managed to continue to support their dismounted GPG infantry who were holding the flank objective, though slowly got whittled away, until I successfully withdrew the sole surviving command tank.

Approx turn 2 - Jagdpanzers have moved out from under ranged in artillery

The 251/7's faired less well, being taken out by long ranged tank fire. I had positioned one on the edge an orchard and another alongside a building (hoping to avoid air attack - though Paul had not taken air support). Sadly the one by the building was a clear shot to a Sherman tank, and with their re-rolling missed long range shots, took out both half tracks... next time I'll hide them better.

Lehr Panzergrenadiers deter the Brit Shermans on the right flank

The game came down to the wire as I held on gamely, withdrawing the two flank objectives, hanging on by my fingernails to the central objective, including a counter attack where I mounted up the GPGs and came flying back 'all guns blazing' to assault and shoot up some M10s that had broken through. The CO also arrived from a flank to help the situation... Having rescued the objective, Paul was no longer in a position to capture it, so being a canny player, switched tactic, to kill me and force me to withdraw. This he did by firing everything he had at my CO, who passed everything thrown at him till the last shot possible... then died and failed his warrior save. The 2iC had already died in a prior 'blaze of glory', so that left me with no chance to take a company morale check and I was forced to adversely withdraw on the last turn... a great game which saw us approaching midnight to finish it off, it was that close... and despite losing, again I learned a lot :-)

Tank Hunter teams - Panzer Lehr FoW, & Beach WIP

Another set of figures finished just before Easter, were the Tank Hunter teams for the 'conversion' of the Gepanzerte PanzerGrenadiers, to Panzer Lehr status. Each GPG platoon in Lehr gets three PanzerShrek teams to supplement the infantry teams. These combined with a PanzerFaust SMG command team makes these platoons very resilient to armour. I have only eight teams here, the last one is on order, and will be painted as soon as it arrives.

In the meantime I am pressing on with my Howitzers. I have finished the guns, and the cast resin scenic bases and the staff cars all painted ready for varnish. I am working through the gun crews which shouldn't take too long as they don't have a lot of equipment on them, which speeds up painting. With luck I'll have them done for the weekend.

And pressing on with more terrain activities...

Well you can't fight a beach amphibious assault without a beach so... I made a start over Easter.

Its a 2cm thick sheet of polystyrene glued to a 3mm MDF sheet. Then I sliced and cut and shaved and sanded it down to a slope. Finally PVA sand to it.

The only thing is, the sand here (west coast of NZ north island) is a lot darker than the sand of the Normandy beaches so I am going to have to paint a lighter shade to get the right effect.

After that I have some plastic L-strut on order to make a load of beach anti-tank obstacles, which will be glued into place before I box off the the seaward end and fill it water-effect resin.

That's all for now , back to painting my howitzers...