German artillery, Airfix 7.5 cm Pak 40

Hi, here's the last gun for my German Artillery park! This time I've built and painted an Airfix 7.5 cm Pak 40. This gun came in a set together with an opel blitz and some crewmembers. These crew members however were to big to be used with my other 20mm miniatures and so I ended up using Hät crew members. This 7.5 cm Pak 40 will give my earlier war Germans the much needed ability to destroy some allied medium armour!

Development of the PaK 40 began in 1939 with development contracts being placed with Krupp and Rheinmetall to develop a 7.5 cm anti-tank gun. Priority of the project was initially low, but Operation Barbarossa in 1941 and the sudden appearance of heavily armoured Soviet tanks like the T-34 and KV-1, increased the priority. The first pre-production guns were delivered in November 1941. In April 1942, Wehrmacht had 44 guns in service. By 1943 the PaK 40 formed the bulk of the German anti-tank artillery.The PaK 40 was the standard German anti-tank gun until the end of the war, and was supplied by Germany to its allies. Some captured guns were used by the Red Army. Source wikipedia

I hope you enjoyed this post! And welcome to the new followers enjoy your stay!

Greets,

German artillery, 3.7 cm pak field battery

Designed by Rheinmetall in 1924 and first issued in 1928, the 3.7 Pak36 was first intended to be drawn by horse. As the German Military decided that motorised warfare was the way to go, the wooden spoked wheels were exchanged for modern wheels. During the Spanish Civil War, the German Condor Legion made great use of these guns as the armour on tanks was still weak.

The Pak 36, being a small-calibre weapon, was outdated by the May 1940 Western Campaign, and crews found them inadequate against allied tanks like the British Mk.II Matilda, and the French Char B1 and Somua S35. Still, the gun was effective against the most common light tanks, such as the Renault FT-17 during the Battle of France and the T-26 during Operation Barbarossa. The widespread introduction of medium tanks quickly erased the gun's effectiveness; miserable performance against the T-34 on the Eastern Front led to the Pak 36 being derisively dubbed the "Door Knocker" (Heeresanklopfgerät, literally "army door-knocking device") for its inability to do anything other than advertise its presence to a T-34 by futilely bouncing rounds off its armor. The addition of tungsten-core shells (Pzgr. 40) added slightly to the armour penetration of the Pak 36. Despite its continued impotence against the T-34, it remained the standard anti-tank weapon for many units until 1942. Source: Wikipedia

My 3.7 cm pak 36 field battery exists out of three Hät guns and their crews. I decided to make a three gun battery as this is the standard size for artillery batteries in Rapid Fire and I only had three guns left. The guns and crew were painted using vallejo's German Field Grey as main color.

I hope you enjoyed this new update!

Greets,

German artillery, an 88' battery

Hi, here's some more progress for my Operation Sealion project. This time I managed to finish an 88 gun battery for my German forces. The Flak88 was one of the best artillery guns during the Second World War as it could be easily transported and could be used as both anti aircraft and tank gun. During the Spanish Civil War, earlier versions of these guns were succesfully used against tanks. Also during the invasion of France in 1940, the gun proved a powerful weapon capable of penetrating the armour of the Char B1 Bis and Mathilda II. During the invasion, the guns were able to destroy 152 tanks and 151 bunkers.

For my wargames I decided to built a battery of two gun as more would take too much place on the tabletop. Building and finishing these guns also triggered me to finish my other German artillery pieces. One of the guns is made by Airfix and came in a boxed set with a tractor and a limber, the other gun is of an unknown manufacturer but was easier to put together.

A view of the entire 88 gun battery, the towvehicles will follow in the future.

A close up of the limber

I hope you enjoyed the battery! And a Merry Christmas to you all!

Greets,

Operation Sea Lion, German supply issues

Hi, I've finally managed to do some more research for my Operation Sealion 1940 project. This time I decided to research some more about the German supply lines as these would be of vital importance for the German army and their possible victory. Surfing on the internet I've stumbled upon a huge amount of documents which contained lots of useful information. To make it possible to research the supply issue I narrowed the research to the ports of Dover, Ramsgate and Folkestone as these were some of the main objectives because of their proximity with Calais.

Dover, 1940

First of all I estimated the number of used German divisions for the 1940 invasion. These numbers were gathered from a number of sources including the internet and some publications. The first assault wave would probably exist out of eleven infantry division supported by a fallschirmjager division. The second wave would exist out of eleven divisions including four panzer divisions and one luftlande division. The third wave would exist out of six infantry divisions.

Another number I found was that an ordinary German division would use up to 300 tons of supplies a day including everything from fuel to ammunition. A Panzer division would probably need more so I roughly estimated 500 tons! So the first wave would consume 3600 tons, the second wave would use 4100 tons and the third wave would consume 1800 tons! The total of needed supplies for the entire invasion force (not mentionning reinforcements) a day would be 9500 tons a day!

Where would they unload these huge quantities? I found a short list with some of the British ports within the reach of the invasion forces. The numbers used are when the ports are fully operational but when the Germans would invade the ports would be destroyed together with the storage facilities, derricks and docks. These damages would probably cause that only 30% of the shown tonnage could be unloaded. The ports marked with a (*) are ports which are already partially destroyed by British engineers.

The ports of Folkestone, Dover and Ramsgate would be the primary targets of the first invasion force as these would enable the Germans to unload heavy equipment such as heavy artillery (such as 88's) and some much needed tank support (second wave). These ports however would not be sufficient to supply the invasion force so beaches would also be used for unloading supplies. The next picture shows some more number about the German capacity of unloading supplies.

The first wave would consume 3600 tons a day, the Germans would be able to unload 5200 tons (under perfect circumstances). The second wave would probably land within some days after the first wave so the total of needed supplies would be 7700 tons. As you can see there's already a shortage of 2150 tons! The third wave would probably land after a week, the total of needed supplies would be 9500 tons, the unload capacity would be 8400 tons. Again there's a shortage of 1100 tons! There's a small possibility to fly in some supplies using the Junkers but it would not be sufficient to fulfill the needs.

Edit, Thanks to the Angry Lurker, there's also the idea of Germans living off the land. As I don't think there was some sort of full scale scorched earth policy in Great-Britain. I guess some installations and supply depots would be destroyed but not all of them because of the surprise element of both fallschirmjager and some Brandenburg units.

I hope you found this an interesting read as always this "research" is purely made to be used as a base for my wargames. So there's the possibilty that the numbers aren't correct.

Greets,

Operation Sea Lion, British Army

As the start date the Analogue painting contest comes close I decided to start preparing both of my Operation Sealion forces starting with the British units. The first unit will be a regular infantry battalion with some support such as Piat's and heavy machinguns. This unit will probably take some days to finish but won't be too much of a hassle. The paintjob will be quite forward with a lot of drybrushing and maybe some washes.

The rest of the army will exist out of a pair of Bofor guns and their tractors. As I haven't managed to collect a lot of british equipment at Crisis as there weren't much 20mm kits that I liked. These guns will be a real nightmare for my German Paratroopers and the German light armour units! I hope to extend the army with some proper transport, homeguards, some tanks and some AT guns. But that won't probably happen during the painting contest!

I hope you enjoyed this small post.

Greets,

Operation Sea Lion, background

Hi, as part of my small ongoing Operation Sealion project I've searched some information about both factions involved in the operation. First of all I searched on the internet some information about the navy of both factions which could be used during operation Sealion in the Channel. I quickly came to the conclusion that the Germany lacked an adequate surface fleet which was heavily outnumbered by the superior British home fleet.

French war fleet at Mers-el-Kebir

So I searched more information about the French warfleet which was quite modern. This fleet together with the Kriegsmarine would pose a serieus threat to the Royal Navy. This of course is "what if", would the German Army be able to capture the French war fleets at Dakar, Toulon and Mers-el-Kebir or would be able to convince the Vichy French to join the operation. The French navy mentionned in the table below is made up by the sum of the war fleets of Dakar, Mers-el-Kebir and Toulon.

Together with the mass assembled heavy artillery on the French coast and the Luftwaffe's superiority above the channel, the Germans would probably be able to land sufficient troops and supplies for a campaign. Another thing I've recently saw in a book and on the internet are the following numbers about the British Army in 1940. These numbers were the averages of several sources and do not contain other vehicles than Light and Medium tanks.

As seen I've also added the Home Guard an important part of the British defense system however poorly equiped they were numerious and were experts in ambush as they only fought in the areas near their town and villages. An interesting fact of the Home Guard was they weren't allowed to attack airborne units of less than 6 men as all British airplanes had a crew of 6 or less! And you don't want to shoot your own pilots which were highly appreciated.

I hope you enjoyed this small update, if you have more information or comments please shoot!

Ps, this "research" is purely "what if" and isn't intended to be fully historical correct.

Greets,

Assembling an invasion fleet

Hi, as mentionned in a previous post I've recently started an attempt to recreate the fictional invasion of England or better known as operation Sealion in 20mm scale. The first thing I needed was an German invasion fleet! The fleet that was assembled for the operation existed out of nothing more than hundreds of unmotorized barges, dozens of motorized barges and tugboats. These improvised transport ships were occasionally defended by Kriegsmarine surface vessels and U-boats. In an attempt to increase the defence of the slow fleet, German engineers added armor and AA guns of all sorts and sizes. Due to a shortage of trained naval personnel to man these guns, poorly trained army personnel was pressed into service decreasing the much needed firepower of the fleet.

My fleet for the moment exists out of two unpowered barges which I built by using my pontoonbridge, two motorized barges, two small tugboats and a siebelfaehre (some sort of improvised pontoon sometimes equiped with up to four flak 88's!).

In my attempt to increase the fleet's firepower I managed to built three AA gun emplacements which will be placed upon some of the fleet's ships.

Greets,

Operation Sealion

Hi, here's a post about one of my more recent attempts to begin a new subdivision in my larger 20mm World War Two project. This time I will try to gather enough German and British troops to recreate some parts of the fictional invasion of Great-Britain in 1940-1941. I have been fascinated by this plan for several months now as I really love the way the Germans intented to invade England. Their invasion fleet nothing more than a gathering of Belgian, French and Dutch barges strenghten by some prototype vessels. Most of these barges were already gathered in major European ports such as Ostend, Boulogne, Cherbourg and Calais and the invasion force would mainly exist out of infantry supported by some panzer elements for swift actions and a small-scale Blitzkrieg. Before the initial invasion the RAF would have to be destroyed or heavily damaged in order to safeley transport the thousands of German soldiers across the Channel. When this was done, the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine would be able to control the Channel and eventually destroy the Royal Navy as they attempted to attack the German supply convoys. Before the invasion, thousands of highly trained and equiped fallschirmjager would be dropped above the major objectives such as airfields and large ports such as Dover. These elite units would only be counter by British Home Guard and Army units as most of the regular army was destroyed at Dunkirk leaving most of their heavy equipment. As the airfields and ports were secured, the main german invasion force would land and establish a beachhead before pushing further inland.

As part of this project I've started to build some barges, not historical correct ones but who cares in a fictional invasion. The barges are 85% ready and will be shown in a short tutorial on how to build a simple barge. As for the forces involved I've already finished the German paratroopers and bought the German infantry. All I need for the Germans are some armor, trucks and guns. For the British I need to buy some Airfix infantry, light tanks, Homeguard units(?), improvised armored cars and some AT support. But as most of my projects this will be one that will last forever!

Greets,