My German Force

In addition to working on my Soviet officer, I recently completed a small number of Germans that, for the most part, make my force "done for now". For now meaning, I can field all of the units required for the 2x2 Crossfire scenarios, and then some, and I need to purchase a bag or box of figures to finish the next bits I want.

First up are the Engineers - the two rearward figures are Matchbox and are among the first I painted years ago, the running figure is a Classic Toy Soldiers figure from their Elite set:

Engineer base - two flamethrowers and a guy who came with a broken rifle that I cut off.

Here is a figure I am designating as a Forward observer, from the Classic Toy Soldier German artillery crew set, and I managed to fix one of the UltimateSoldier/21st Century mortars:

Forward observer and three mortar bases. Bulky mortars are BMC.

I decided to base the LMG "teams" with a third figure to either treat as rifle squads (since the LMG is assumed anyway) or to use as independent LMGs if and when the scenario calls for it (as some of the D-Day scenarios I ran did).

The prone figures have been painted for years - from back to front, the prone figures are Airfix, Matchbox, Matchbox. The standing figures are all Classic Toy Soldiers pulled from my "I don't know what I'll do with these" box - the figure in the back is one of their older, no longer produced, German infantry. I feel it bears a resemblance to the Marx poses, and its skinniness works well with the Airfix, while the newer figures work better with the chunkier Matchbox.

Three rifle squads with prone figures.

Finally, the whole lot -which was hard to get into the picture. There are twelve infantry bases, three SMG leaders, two MG bases, three mortar bases, a sniper (also recently completed - just forgot to give him his close-up), a commander figure, and an engineer base:

Kampfgruppe Kitzentable

In addition to a few more MGs (more of a want than a need), what's clearly missing are anti-tank infantry weapons (I have a panzerfaust figure, a panzerschreck figure, and will convert a figure to a PzB 39), but I will need to make a purchase of either some Matchbox or Airfix Germans (probably clones) to fill those bases out, and there's no rush.

Before I do that, I'll get the Soviet engineer base together - that way they can be the attacker in those 2x2 Scenarios. After that, three more Soviet rifle bases, so they have an equal number to the Germans, particularly because some TO&Es suggest that, at least on paper, the Soviets had four squads per platoon.