Sunday 26 January 2014

Bolt Action: Fallschirmjäger in Tunisia

I made a bit of an unexpected discovery in Lead Mountain today whilst looking for a couple of packs of (still elusive) Foundry Pirates. I came across a bag of 28mm Crusader Miniatures Fallschirmjäger. Haha! I thought, Tunisia!!

Fallschirmjäger Regiment 5 fought in the Tunisian campaign and the 24 figures I found almost make a complete airborne Zug.

With a view to using Bolt Action for the Tunisian project my first port of call was the Armies of Germany book, but the forces in the theatre selector section was disappointing in that both of the North African reinforced platoons are DAK ones. Yes, you can add Fallschirmjäger to them but I see no reason why you should not be able to deploy a reinforced Fallschirmjäger platoon for games in North Africa, as occurred historically!

So, off to the history books and given 5. Fallschirmjäger were organised on the early war model still at the time of their deployment to North Africa, I need three sections of nine paras, each with one lmg. I am three figures short for this (one rifle and one lmg team) but if I buy another couple of packs of lmgs (giving me four new teams) and a pack of four infantry, I will have enough figures in total for the late war organisation which has two lmgs in a twelve man section.

I need to sort out a command section, some mortar support and decide on some reinforcing elements (I have a Solido PzIV somewhere that might be useful) but it is a good discovery given my plans for Tunisia later this year...

4 comments:

  1. Looking forward to seeing them painted ;)

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  2. Sounds like a plan. You might want o add a truck or two for some mobility. They would not have to be part of the official OB but could be Allied captures, Italian leavings, or evn something "rescued" fro the DAK motor pool. AKubelwagon might be nice, too.
    Jerry
    A/K/A The Celtic Curmudgeon

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  3. You can field FSJ in Chain of Command too...

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