40s and 50s Spanish army uniforms, and minis?

[Capt. E.W. Brimmage]

As with the French thread, I'm exploring ideas for some different Secrets of the Third Reich platoons. One of my other ideas was doing a Spanish platoon (as Franco's Spain eventually allies with Germany in the game). How was the Spanish Army equipped and dressed after the civil war died down into an insurgency? How did they come to be equipped over the next decade or so? Where there any interesting regular units that had differing uniforms, headgear or other distinguishing marks, due to coincidence or a sa reward for civil war service?

[argsilverson]

same as in SCW Nationalists?

[joroas]

You could base it on The Blue Division that DID fight for Hitler on the Eastern Front.  They wore IIRC, largely German kit with some Spanish emblems.

General Agustín Muñoz Grandes was assigned to lead the volunteers. Because the soldiers could not use official Spanish army uniforms, they adopted a symbolic uniform comprising the red berets of the Carlists, khaki trousers used in the Spanish Legion, and the blue shirts of the Falangists - hence the nickname "Blue Division." This uniform was used only while on leave in Spain; in the field, soldiers wore the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) field gray uniform with a shield on the upper right sleeve bearing the word "España" and the Spanish national colors. Although the Portuguese volunteers were few (Portugal tried to maintain a more neutral position, and only let a limited number of volunteers leave for Germany) they did the same their neighbors did, wearing a field gray uniform with a shield on the very same position with the word "Portugal" and the Portuguese red and green banner.

[Arlequín]

Following the end of the Civil War, the Spanish Army adopted a newer and more modern uniform, along with a new helmet, similar but not quite identical to the German type. The older pattern of helmet was retained in some units until the 80's iirc.

The only illustration I have to hand is this one;


J & K would be typical soldiers for the 1940-50 period. La Legión wore a shirt of the same distinctive colour as during the Civil War.
L is a Compañía de Vanguardia member, which replaced the Asaltos as the urban police force.
M is a Carabinero, who were frontier/customs police.

The Guardia Civil's uniform remained unchanged iirc.     

Spain went through a period of austerity and poverty after the Civil War, so in your scenario I'd expect Germany to provide uniforms and equipment in the same way as it did for the volunteers of the Blue Division.

[joroas]

Except for the colour, it looks very German............

[Arlequín]

The Spanish m.42 helmet was very close to the German m.35 in appearance. If I was doing this period I would use WW2 Germans with the lower style boot and paint the uniforms the appropriate colour. If you wanted to be more purist in your approach, you could do some weapon changes with regard to machine guns and sub-machine guns, but I wouldn't go that far.

The Spanish fielded Panzer I, L3/35 Tankettes and T26 tanks up to the 1950's. They acquired Panzer IV's and Stug III's in 1943/44. There was a home-designed tank/SPG called the Verdeja which never quite got off the ground. 

[Capt. E.W. Brimmage]

Would lower boots still have gaiters? Or even more so? Trying to figure out which ranges would be appropriate, the Westwind stockist can order in their historicals range (though I think they might stock it too) and also Bolt Action Miniatures.

If I were to go so far as to do weapons swaps (I could probably do MGs easily enough) what replacement weapons would I use?

What armoured cars did they use?

Thanks!