May '40 Miniatures!!! Dutch Army 1940

[worrywort]

I'm very impatient to see them for sale !

[Chico]

Ooo! Exciting project and I'm looking forward to seeing more

[Deadestdai]

Finally a decent range for a much neglected army in 28mm WW2 gaming. Will be following this one closely.

[Daeothar]

Oh. My. Goodness!

How did i miss this?

Kepi's off to you sirs; I have been dreaming about doing May 1940 in 28mm for ages and was all set to just convert Romanians into Dutch, as doing my own range is simply beyond my reach (I can sculpt something decent, yes, but to do an entire range, with the amount of miniatures required, plus the mould making, casting etc, would simply be too much to fit into an already overburdened schedule, not to mention wallet...).

The sculpting looks great and I can't wait to see the end results. (Was the Lewis actually fired over the shoulder like that?)

How many sculpts will there be in total? Will there be officers in kepi's (and wielding sabres/klewangs?) Can you elaborate on possible future expansions to the range? Will there be marines in longcoats, hussars on motorbikes and/or mobile infantry on bicycles? (my enthousiasm might be getting the better of me now... ).

At any rate; I always attend Crisis, so I'll be fully prepared to shell out big time then.

Oh; to finally be able to game the Holland airfields, the Grebbeberg, or Moerdijk... *Squee*  

[Jager1815]

@Daeothar and everyone else ofcourse,

That first remark is a big part of why this is all finally happening. Though my sculpting skills are near to 0 I have found a way to do the project anyway 

The lewis could indeed be fired in this pose, though the Dutch would probably not have because of the defensive warfare we conducted. There are pictures of soldiers of other armies firing it this way. This will nog be the only pose with the Lewis in this first release.

We've got a very long list of things that we want to do in the (near) future. It will have to stay a secret for now, but your wish list is not far from the truth ;-)

On the officers with Kepi. The kepi was a "buiten model" hat, so it was privatly bought. In Wartime, all (fighting) officers would wear their helmet. So that's one thing I can let slip, the first release won't have officers with kepi's.

CRISIS!! Been there a couple of times as a punter. Really looking forward to be there with a stand. It will be a joint stand with Sally4th.

Your enthusiasm is noted and much apreciated. Whenever I start talking about the subject it tends to end in the same way as you do.

If you have Facebook you can contact me there. Interested in what you have sculpted.

https://m.facebook.com/May-40-miniatures-970522413022592/?ref=bookmarks

I'm not expecting an update this week. But certainly next week.

Cheers!

[Jager1815]

P.s. thinking on getting a new May '40 Miniatures  account  on here for my personal one might be confusing.

[Daeothar]

Interesting news; I'm sure we'll have a nice long chat in November then

I do not Facebook, but don't expect too much of my sculpted range; so far I've only ever done 2 full miniatures (plus loads of conversions, obviously), both for personal use only, and only 1 was actually cast in metal.

What rules are you intending on using once you have your own army finished? I've been looking at a Bolt Action expansion myself, but it was decidedly underwheling, and I held off buying the book, even though I really like the BA rules in general.

Then again; I suppose there are plenty of rulesets to be used. It's just that that those are first published ones (that I'm aware of) for use with 28mm. (obviously there's FoW Early War. But hey; 15mm... ).

I'll be on the lookout for your updates!

[Jager1815]

No Fb. Smart! It can be rather tiresome sometimes, all the self proclaimed politicians and all.

The miniatures range is not actually rules specific. It's intended to be used by for all. Though I only have BA and combat patrol. The way the sets will be put together will hopefully be interesting for every ruleset, but are based on historical accuracy. So 12 men in an infantry squad and such.

BA is an interesting ruleset, though the Dutch army lists ciukd do with some improvement. As it happens, there's a BA group on FB.......hmm...ok......where we've made a "add in" army list to the official BA list. Including rules for marines.

BA 2.0 will also be released in a bit. So not sure what's going to happen to the current army lists..

[Poiter50]

Chain of Command has a proposed list. I for one will wait until you do the KNIL (hint, hint), then I will leap in.

No Fb. Smart! It can be rather tiresome sometimes, all the self proclaimed politicians and all.

The miniatures range is not actually rules specific. It's intended to be used by for all. Though I only have BA and combat patrol. The way the sets will be put together will hopefully be interesting for every ruleset, but are based on historical accuracy. So 12 men in an infantry squad and such.

BA is an interesting ruleset, though the Dutch army lists ciukd do with some improvement. As it happens, there's a BA group on FB.......hmm...ok......where we've made a "add in" army list to the official BA list. Including rules for marines.

BA 2.0 will also be released in a bit. So not sure what's going to happen to the current army lists..

[aktr]

I was considering doing a ww2 French army for CoC but now I'm seriously considering these

does anyone know what the usual (paper) platoon structure was and also what kind of support would have been available?

I know they had a hand full of Landsverk armoured cars - does anyone make one in 28mm?

cheers

Andy

[Daeothar]

There is much deviation form the norm, depending on the regiment, readiness and degree of equipment. But on paper, a Dutch infantry company in May 1940 consisted of 160 to 195 men, divided over 4 platoons (sections), plus one command platoon.

It would/should have had 12 Lewis light machine guns (3 per platoon/section).

Mobile (bicycle) companies and border companies would have had about 120 men.

The Landsverk M36 and M38 were used mostly in Brabant, in delaying actions and a few around The Hague (Fortress Holland) as a mobile reserve. To my knowledge, they were not used in the North and along the Waterline.

Oh; and there was one (1) Lewis carrier. It had been acquired purely to evaluate how tracked vehicles would perform in the flooded areas of the waterline (poorly, as can be expected), but unlike what some trackheads will make you believe, it was not used in combat.

There were also a lot of repurposed and upgraded civilian vehicles of a lot of makes, all converted into so-called Trado trucks. They were quite ubiquous, being available to many artillery and mobile units.

All kinds of artillery support was available, some virtually ancient (19th century) pieces, but also some pretty modern batteries. Mortars were also available. most indirect fire guns had been ranged in long before and fields of fire mapped, so they could be very effective at times.

A special mention should go to the very modern Anti Aircraft Guns which certainly left their mark on the German transport aircraft fleet during the foiled air-mobile attack on Fortress Holland, which were also used as point-blank defence guns against troops on the airfields.

Also, there were some Solothurn 20mm anti-tank guns, which were used mostly in the same delaying actions mentioned before, in Limburg and Brabant.

Bear in mind though, that there was a glaring lack of communications equipment throughout the army, so radio's were not a very common sight (if at all) at company level.

So top down, organisation of a nominal company would/should have been:

[Company]
- [Command Group - Captain, Sergeant (-Major), 11x rifle]

[Platoon A]
- [Command Group - Lieutenant, Sergeant, 11 rifles]
- [Group 1 - Sergeant, 1x Lewis LMG, 11x rifle]
- [Group 2 - Sergeant, 1x Lewis LMG, 11x rifle]
- [Group 3 - Sergeant, 1x Lewis LMG, 11x rifle]

[Platoon B]
- [Command Group - Lieutenant, Sergeant, 11 rifles]
- [Group 1 - Sergeant, 1x Lewis LMG, 11x rifle]
- [Group 2 - Sergeant, 1x Lewis LMG, 11x rifle]
- [Group 3 - Sergeant, 1x Lewis LMG, 11x rifle]

[Platoon C]
- [Command Group - Lieutenant, Sergeant, 11 rifles]
- [Group 1 - Sergeant, 1x Lewis LMG, 11x rifle]
- [Group 2 - Sergeant, 1x Lewis LMG, 11x rifle]
- [Group 3 - Sergeant, 1x Lewis LMG, 11x rifle]

Sometimes elements were attached to the command section, such as antitank rifles, mortars, heavy machine guns, couriers etc etc. (but usually just one of those, if any at all...)

...I know they had a hand full of Landsverk armoured cars - does anyone make one in 28mm?...

This, I would like to know as well. Even better (to match the rest of the vehicles in my collection) at scale 1/50 or 1/48...

[Daeothar]

Of course I had to go off and find out on my own.

So far though, I can't seem to find any manufacturer who does Landsverk M36/38 models in an acceptable scale (that is: anywhere between 1/60 and 1/43).

There are models available in 1/35 and 1/87 respectively though.

I did find this one blog post though, which I think represents our best bet, when building an acceptable Landsverk. Although I strongly suspect that the guy posting this, might also be active here on LAF...

He uses the FoW suggestion of taking Zvezda Russian Armoured Cars and converting them into Landsverks. It looks as if this will take minimal effort, although he does lament the fact that the conversion is quite obvious. Still; I think the idea has merit and lacking other sources, I will probably go this route.

[Jager1815]

Thanks Daeothar.

You sharing this info is very welcome because probably not everyone has this much detailed info on the Dutch during the years leading up to our involvement in WW2. keep it comming.

concerning the Landsverk and other support units. ummm.....next topic please. My lips are sealed. pom tie tom tie tom.

[Poiter50]

That is sounding very promising. Now, the KNIL?

Thanks Daeothar.

You sharing this info is very welcome because probably not everyone has this much detailed info on the Dutch during the years leading up to our involvement in WW2. keep it comming.

concerning the Landsverk and other support units. ummm.....next topic please. My lips are sealed. pom tie tom tie tom.

[Jager1815]

I wish we could do everyghing at once.... choices had to be made so for now the focus lies on the defence of The Netherlands. But..... 

Anyone interested in helping out? Send me a message here or on Facebook.