Well, no secret that I have both 2nd and 3rd edition rules of Flames of War and pretty much all the campaign sourcebooks from 2nd ed.
I have been looking to collect armies that fit around one of these sourcebooks.
After a scour through them, the seemingly best one for beginners was the battle for Villers-Bocage. It had a lot of things going for it - it has a relatively simple opening scenario (one Tiger tank vs an entire British Brigade! - Michael Witmann's famous charge), it's late war in Normandy (one of my favourite and most read parts of the war) and it includes army lists for some great regiments (the Panzer Lehr, the 101 Schwere SS Panzer and the British 7th Armoured 'The Desert rats', in which my great uncle served).
So, I've started a Panzer Lehr army with a view to getting the German units to allow us to play the scenarios in the sourcebook. I'm not limiting my troop choices to just the requirements in the scenarios though, I am choosing what I fancy in the actual 2nd ed army lists, and hopefully, most will be a straight match up to the new army list in the
Atlantik Wall book in 3rd ed.
Anyway, enough guff:
Panzer LehrFormed towards the end of 1943 at Potsdam and fully operational in January 1944 (where it was moved to Hungary), the Panzer Lehr was an elite unit of the Heer (army) from the off. Formed from various crack units across the Wermacht, Panzer Lehr was intended to be a demonstration division that would form both an elite training corp (
Lehr means 'to teach') and provide a model blueprint for the rest of the German army.
The troops were all taken from Panzertruppenschule I & II, the Panzerwaffe's teaching cadre, and were some of the most battle hardened and experienced men the German Army could muster, having seen action in almost every theatre of the war to that date.
As befits such a unit, the Lehr were lavishly equipped, with every infantry section mechanized, riding in the latest Sd Kfz half tracks, supported (or in support of) the latest model panzers and assault guns.
To lead all this, only a personality would do and the commission went to Generalleutnant (as I think he was at that point) Fritz Bayerlain, Rommel's Chief of Staff - an able commander who had already received the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves at the time of the commission (and was to go on to add swords to the KC with the Lehr):
The fighting record of the Panzer Lehr was good, but at the point of its formation, the tide was already turning for the Germans and the outfit often found themselves under-resourced, outnumbered and without air superiority (or even air parity! As the Heer's grim saying went
"If the RAF fly over - we duck; if the USAAF fly over - everybody ducks; if the Luftwaffe fly over - nobody ducks!").
They fought at the beginning of June 1944 in Normandy alongside 12. SS
Hitlerjugend and 101. SS Schwere, mainly against the British and their 7th Armoured Division around Caen. Initially, they were expected to drive the British into the sea, but after very heavy fighting around the killing fields of bocage country, the Lehr were forced to withdraw. Suffering further heavy losses from air attacks during their transport, they were moved to Saint Lo to defend against the US 83rd Infantry Division.
After a week long battle of attrition there, they were forced again to withdraw as the Americans launched Operation Cobra. Seriously depleted and exhausted, the Lehr could not hope to withstand a 140,000-man American assault and they retired for refit at Fontainbleau.
By this point, the division had been severely mauled and had lost much of its combat effectiveness (it only had 20 tanks left).
The division returned in time to fight in the Ardennes through the cold winter of 1944, at the Battle of the Bulge and at Bastogne (see Band of Brothers!).
The Lehr Panzergrenadiers (901/1 Battalion) repeatedly assaulted Bastogne village and would ultimately grind themselves down to a point where they were no longer recognisable as the elite unit that they had been upon formation. There was a final swansong for the Lehr as they retreated to Rochefort and assaulted the town of Dinant (led by Bayerlain himself) but allied air superiority caused hideous casualties. The 101st Airborne then pushed the rest of the Lehr out of Bastogne, leaving the divison all but ground to dust.
The Panxer Lehr was refitted again in the Rhineland in 1945, but with most of the veterans gone, the division was a pale shadow of its former self and it ended up trapped in the Ruhr Pocket and encircled by the US 9th Armoured Division.
So, that's the background, onto the miniatures! So far, I have assembled one (of two) Gepanzerte Panzergrenadier platoons (and a little air support). I had hoped to have more finished before showing them off but with you guys coming down next weekend, I may as well put it up now! Oh well!
The painted stuff:
The men are part of 901. Panzergrenadier. I've painted them quite quickly - I want to get them done and on the table. Because of this, I've not gone into detail like eyes, or things like the green braiding that Panzer Lehr grandiers would have had (TBH, the scale is such (15mm) that to do that detail would probably have obscured the overall effect of the uniform).
Eagle eyed (sad) grognards will notice that a fair few of these men have M1942 jackets on rather than the 'Sturmgeschutz crew' style wrap over smocks. The reason was that this platoon was bought in a bring and buy at Salute and it turned out that it was a mixed bag of men! I'm not too bothered about it because this is a second platoon. The first is in full Lehr fatigues, so it's nice to get a few little differences between them to be able to tell them apart!
Also, by June '44, resources were becoming pinched for the Axis and it was starting to be a case of make do, so it's not inconceivable that the platoon has mixed and matched equipment. In addition, looting was not uncommonn and soldiers often embellished/improved their kit with whatever they could find, even if you were in a disciplined division like the Lehr. It could also be possible that stragglers split up from other divisions have tagged along.
The plane is a Junkers Ju 87
Stuka dive bomber, made famous from it's success as a whistling 'terrror-from-above' during the Blitzkrieg in the early stages of the war. By June 1944 however, the Junkers was becoming antiquated and their production had been wound down. Almost all of the remaining Stukas had been sent to the Eastern Front as anti-tank in a vain attempt to cope with Operation Bagration - the Soviets' first major offensive.
There is no evidence to suggest that Stukas had any involvement with the fight for Caen and Villers-Bocage, however I have seen some records that show a number of Junkers kills claimed by the USAAF on 6th June 1944, around the Chartres area.
It seems that Einsatzstaffel I./SG 103 were still operational and flying Ju 87s in France at that time and were involved in dogfights with American forces around Orlean to the South East, so it would not be unimaginable that a Stuka, with an operational range of about 300 miles, could have found (lost?!) its way (precariously, given allied air superiority!) to help out the Panzer Lehr with a couple of strafes as it passed!
There are also records of orders for Junkers 87s of SG 103 to attend forward bases in Normandy (only one plane made it apparently!) and a Lt Douglas of the 8th USAAF reported fighting with a Ju 87 formation near to a beach head in Normandy (unfortunately, Douglas was shot down and killed later that day and the engagement remains unconfirmed as far as I can see), so my plane stays!
I've not been able to find markings for SG.103 in the sources I have. I'll keep looking though. Also, I bought the plane off ebay and it was already basecoated and decaled (I just added microset to reduce the silvering and hide the edging). I've just weathered, based and tidied it up (the canopy, annoyingly, has been blobbed with paint a bit. I've tried getting it off but it's a bugger to shift. It looks ok on the tabletop though.
(it's also worth noting that in FoW, it is the convention to use model planes at 1:144 scale rather than 1:100 (15 mill). This is to help keep some room on the table! This model is by Zvezda and is 1:144).
So, next when this lot is done:
The first platoon:
And: Tiger Marsch! Michael Wittman and the highly feared 101 Schwere SS Panzerabteilung!