Sunday 6 December 2020

Great War - 3.7cm German Anti-Tank Gun and Flamethrower - 28mm Great War Miniatures

More progress has been made with my Great War collection in the last week.  Some models take on a life of their own very quickly and just fly along with painting.  That's what happened with these.  I found I couldn't wait to apply paint to them.

This 3.7cm Anti-Tank gun was needed as a counter for the Mark IV British tank that I added recently.  The gun was added in the last weeks of the war and fired a purpose made armour piercing round with exploding charge rather than being solid shot.  The low silhouette must have made it deadly.  It was capable of penetrating 15mm of armour at 500 metres.


Initially I painted the gun in field grey and I found sources showing random daubs of a brighter paint (possibly a dark yellow) applied in splodges.  However, on a model this can just look awful and I was also struck by the gun on the North Star website where the Great War Miniatures models are shown.  This pattern was used on their model just looked so interesting to replicate.

It's one of those really interesting things, that near the end of the war when there were so many desperate shortages of materials and no time to dally about, that the Germans spent so much effort applying complex paint patterns. A contrast somewhat to the WW2 Soviet method!.  It does make it interesting for the wargamer though.

The Germans have a few choices of weapons to take on the British tanks now.  This flamethrower team of the III Garde-Pionier-Battalion will be sure to make its presence noticed on the battlefield.


The black epaulettes with red lacing for the pioniers, Garde Litzen lace on the collars and flamethrower specialist badges on the sleeves identify the troop type.


I must admit to not getting bored with painting German WW1 troops.  There is a lot of potential to make little changes in leather and fabric colours.  So far the AK paints WW1 German Uniform shade is pretty spot on, though I find the highlight a touch too light so I apply a light wash of the main colour just to tone it down a fraction and also help to give a more woollen look.

With the chronic fabric shortages, re-issues of the older tunics was quite likely and much patching and repairing to keep uniforms going longer. So some of my 1918 troops (such as the Junior NCO with the gunners) has the older tunic of a greyer shade.

There will be more German to follow soon and then I might have enough troops - a platoon each side plus supports, to modify the Chain of Command rules for the Great War and give them a go.

Note mainly for self on photography: First pic used the 'M' setting and flash with daylight bulb above and in front.  Seemed to be much brighter and clearer than the usual settings. More experimentation seems to work as it might mean that buying a light box is unnecessary!
 

16 comments:

  1. Gorgeous vignettes Jason, great painting!

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  2. Lovely work on these, I also seemed to never tire of painting the Great War Germans.

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    1. Thanks Paul, I have another lot of Great War German's on my desk right now. I seem to have misread previous sources on unit sizes so had to expand a bit more with them - that's no bad thing though! :-)

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  3. Really great work on these WW1 types Jason, the colours look just right to me!

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    1. Thanks Keith, I'm glad you like them. I have had to go back over some of my previous figures to amend the colours, but I think I'm happy with them now.

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  4. Awesome figures, Jason. Very inspirational as I'm working on the period right now.

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    1. Hi Dean. Thanks I'm glad you like them. Yes I have got behind with my blog reading so have been over and read how yours have progressed. Very interesting too! You have done some great looking figures.

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  5. Nicely done and I love the camouflage on the anti-tank gun.
    Neil

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    1. Thank you Neil, I'm glad you like them. I might go for more simple paint schemes in future though, this one did take a little while to paint! :-)

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  6. Splendid looking great war Germans! Love the camo on the anti tank gun,crazy!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain, There are more of these to come. It's not all field grey and khaki, which is a great relief for painting. I am missing painting scarlet coats again though!

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  7. Beautiful painting Jason. Fantastic detail!
    Regards, James

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    1. Thanks James, I'm glad you like them. :-)

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  8. Some nice change of pace items for this era!

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    1. Thanks Peter, It's all coming along. Painting and researching these were really interesting too. I might make one of those massive A7V German tanks yet too!

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