15mm demo force - mother hen and her chicks

[Gunbird]

In the next few months I will be building a Waffen SS force in 15mm for Kursk to be used as a demo force against willing FoW players here in the Netherlands. Which could mean it would never be used, as sofar I've had no requests or replies, but still, you never know. I will be copying my 20mm Heer force troops wise, just with halftracks, using FoW basing which can be used as is for BGK, and with a few small modifcations.
If my calculations are correct, you can play a decent game of BGK for a lot less cost wise then FoW, so that might motivate a few of them, if not fulltime, at least to take the rules on the side. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Troop wise, putting a single unit on the table would involve something like this:

Armoured PG/SS Platoon
1 HQ of 6 men - 2 small command stands (standard)
3 Units of 5 men - 3 medium troop stands (standard)
3 Units of LMG - 3 small stands with MG-42 (not standard but easily made)
4 Halftracks - 4 Halftracks

For support, I'd base a HMG on a small base with loaders on another small base, or play the medium base with 2 HMG's as 1 HMG with a loader team. Small bases with 3 man loader teams would be easy to make for mortars, at guns etc using Peter Pig models or spares from my suddenly extensive collection of FoW SS. Casualties would be marked off with a die behind the team, and/or I would make up some individually based troops when a team would be down on their last 2 or 3 men.

Feel free to chip in if you think another method would be easier. I never played FoW and my ideas what their bases contain comes from other fora and looking at their pictures.

SInce I want to copy my more exotic units in 20mm down to 15mm, I have decided to start off with my Funklenkpanzer III with Borgwards. Fortunately, Battlefront does a blister of 4 Borgwards in one box (the late model) and these are very nice, with seperate charges and a open topped drivers seat. I'm modifying them to a closed top plus the signal light on a stand in the back. Nothing too grand and easily done.
For the Panzer III I want to use the PSC panzer III's but since I would not be able to get them till this weekend at Crisis, I've used a character Panzer III from Battlefront. This comes loaded with stowage, spare tracklinks etc and looks really nice, pity the tracks came in 2 sizes, 1 large and 1 smaller (which I've seen with 20mm resins as well, so this is not a diss). Nothing a thin strip of styrene under the smaller one and filing down the bigger one could not handle. Changing the stowage box to the square box of the Funklenkpanzer was easy, add some gs/milliput mix to the sides, press flat and sand down when dry. Now I need to make a door with paper and try to score the correct decals this weekend.

Why don't these models come with decals btw? I bought Rommels Greif so I have a good halftrack for my Luftwaffe commander, and it doesn't even come with the decal sheet with GREIF on it. Of which I need the F's for the Funker. Really odd and a little bit annoying.

Other then that I have plenty of work left for me, and these little ones have restarted my joy for wargaming that kind of burnt out after the last Big Game.

And the progress so far:


I strive to put the same amount of detail in the little ones as I do in my 20mils. Up to a point.