WWII German forward observers

We recently switched to the Battlegroup series of rules for our WWII gaming. The rules work really nicely when you are using combined arms tactics and I personally feel they encourage them. As a result, we have been using artillery a lot in recent games. Nothing bad about that, only that obviously it would be nicer if you do not have to burden some squad leader with the direction of incoming shells. So I felt it was time for some forward observers. Up first are the Germans, but I will add some to the Americans, British and Russians as well.

The set is from Warlord Games and for once, the faces of their Germans are actually fairly nice. That being said I still wanted some more diversity and used a head from West Wind on the guy with the map board. All the others are straight out of the box.

Wehrmacht (Heer) forward observers

Wehrmacht (Heer) forward observers

But being on it, I also wanted some for the SS. While the set is cast as a Wehrmacht set, they were fairly easy to convert. With the officer and the map guys this only meant the removal of the collar insignia with a sharp knife. Otherwise most of their uniforms are covered up by the Zeltbahn, so nothing more to do there. The radio operator was a bit harder. He is wearing a Tarnhemd. Now opposed to what wargamers tend to believe SS and Wehrmacht smocks were actually quiet different. They had foliage loops in different places (not sculpted on these figures, probably since many soldiers removed those anyway). But the biggest difference is that the Wehrmacht version was reversible camo / white and had a hood while the SS version was reversible spring (summer) / autumn and had no hood. Since the radio operator is wearing his hood out (most soldiers actually stuffed it in on the inside in summer) it had to be removed. This was simply ground away with a Dremel. Over the years I have grown accustomed to working with a grinder bit on the Dremel and as a result I did not even have to re-sculpt anything. In this case the officer got a helmeted head from West Wind and the map guy a head from Victory Force. I chose to paint these in Eichenlaub pattern. For one it one of my favorite patterns, it is one of the most common and helmet covers, smocks and Zeltbahn were produced in this pattern, so it fitted nicely.

SS forward observers

SS forward observers