Saturday 19 March 2011

Panzer-Grenadier Division Großdeutschland

Hi folks, Griddon here.

This is to be the very first post detailing the development of my German Late War Flames of War army. It starts with a discussion about the list in this post, but in the coming weeks and months i'll be putting a lot of effort into documenting how I go about pretty much everything in the process of concept to table top.

Firstly I will say this. The list wont win tournaments. It isn't designed to. The list is a step in the process of getting a good selection of Germans painted and available and should be fun to play in casual games. This list is an elite four platoon list that will be cheap and easy to get ready and gaming with.

I have chosen to represent the Panzer-Grenadier Division Großdeutschland on the Eastern front around 1944. These guys were known to be really quite well equipped. Infact this was one of the reasons I picked them. In my very first list I had a squad of armoured Panzergrenadiers. During late war, it was actually quite rare for Panzergrenadiers to be issued with halftracks so finding a regiment that definitely did receive them was top priority.



Things evolved and the cost of the armored Panzergrenadiers was actually quite prohibitive to getting sensible sized tank platoons into the list. (More on that later). So I downgraded the infantry in the list to simple Panzergrenadiers mounted in trucks. This allowed me to get 4 tanks in each selection.

I'll stick with Großdeutschland though. Whilst they definitely were a better equipped outfit, they undoubtedly still had a range of gear and they were active on the Eastern Front.

At the end of the day, the list is very generic and comes from the Fortress Europe (FE2) book. This could practically be any list on any front. This is perfect. When starting out having something that is flexible is most sensible. You might not have such a great idea about how things will work on the table top and keeping the options open will allow you to include more of what you like or more of what you need in future updates.

1750 Late War Panzer List - Fortress Europe

HQ - 1x CIC Panzer IVH, 1x 2iC Panzer IVH

Combat - 1x Command Panzer IVH, 3x Panzer IVH
Combat - 1x Command Panther A, 3x Panther A

Support – Panzergrenadiers, 1x Command MG, 1x Kfz 15 field Car, 6x MG, 3x Kfz 70 Truck
Support – Heavy Anti Aircraft, 1x Command SMG, 1x Kfz 15 Field Car, 2x8.8cm FlaK 36 gun, 2x Sd Kfz 7 (8t) half-track, 2x Extra Crew


Analysis


Like I say, this list isn't designed with tournaments in mind. So, not a lot of point in dissecting the list in great detail.

Both tank platoons have four tanks each. This is important for break checks. When you have a three tank platoon, you're taking break checks after you lose two tanks as you're under half strength. With a four tank unit, losing two tanks only has you at half strength. Besides this, clearly more guns is an advantage.

The infantry will more than likely dig in on an objective and the Flak 36s are superb anti tank with solid range and rate of fire 3. On a good Eastern Front table (read: Flat and open! ) these guys should do well.

Thats all for now, but I'll even be posting about shopping for flames of war before I get into the hobby sections. Thanks for reading.

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