"The Last Levy, Volksturm." Topic

i am putting together a Volksturm/Hitler Youth etc force. It will probably be used for a Demo game rather than Competition play so I can be a bit loose with its composition. i may use CoC or Bolt Action depending on who I can get to play with me and I dislike teaching while putting on a Demo.

I bought figures from Warlord, Great Escape Games, Artizan and a few others.
I have converted an Old Glory WW1 Maxim gun with some extra crew from Foundry. Everything is being based before I undercoat as I want rubble strewn bases which should be easier to do before undercoating.

I have looked at Warlords rules for these and they seem to be missing stats for some of the models like the Krummlauf (shoots around corners) so I may just use as a sniper. Or he can be hidden and fire round corners. Luftfaust also seem to be missing but that could be in a supplement I suppose? Likewise the Wanz.

I see this as an interesting painting project rather than any kind of Political statement. (I have armed Boy Scouts in my Dads Army force)

I have been playing around with the following composition.

Platoon HQ, one officer and two Panzerfaust armed youths.

Sections 1 to 3, Junior Leader with mix of 9 members armed with up to 3 automatic weapons and the rest rifles. No LMG. Some Panzerfausts.

Tank Hunter squad. Junior Leader with SMG. Up to 6 members armed only with Panzerfauts. One shot only and they disappear after shooting.

I bought a Tamiya Elephant but have not been able to find much info about them other than two were in Berlin at the end of the War, and only one photo which does not help much with painting it. Anything else I can add from my Late War German collection.

Anyone have any suggestions about the squad composition? or anything else useful?

i am putting together a Volksturm/Hitler Youth etc force. It will probably be used for a Demo game rather than Competition play so I can be a bit loose with its composition. i may use CoC or Bolt Action depending on who I can get to play with me and I dislike teaching while putting on a Demo.

I bought figures from Warlord, Great Escape Games, Artizan and a few others.
I have converted an Old Glory WW1 Maxim gun with some extra crew from Foundry. Everything is being based before I undercoat as I want rubble strewn bases which should be easier to do before undercoating.

I have looked at Warlords rules for these and they seem to be missing stats for some of the models like the Krummlauf (shoots around corners) so I may just use as a sniper. Or he can be hidden and fire round corners. Luftfaust also seem to be missing but that could be in a supplement I suppose? Likewise the Wanz.

I see this as an interesting painting project rather than any kind of Political statement. (I have armed Boy Scouts in my Dads Army force)

I have been playing around with the following composition.

Platoon HQ, one officer and two Panzerfaust armed youths.

Sections 1 to 3, Junior Leader with mix of 9 members armed with up to 3 automatic weapons and the rest rifles. No LMG. Some Panzerfausts.

Tank Hunter squad. Junior Leader with SMG. Up to 6 members armed only with Panzerfauts. One shot only and they disappear after shooting.

I bought a Tamiya Elephant but have not been able to find much info about them other than two were in Berlin at the end of the War, and only one photo which does not help much with painting it. Anything else I can add from my Late War German collection.

Anyone have any suggestions about the squad composition? or anything else useful?

I only hit submit once, honest.

DA THB,

My apologies for the length of this post.

The "Krummlauf" "shoot around corners" device you're thinking of probably looks like this:

or this:

which are just disconnected pieces of this:

or this:

Note that both of these units are missing the periscope from the installation, which looked like this:

link

Which is, of course, missing the weapon itself. The attachment was never intended to be used as anything other than a close-in defense weapon for armored vehicles. See installation in upper right (black arrow) of this photo (periscope only visible):

It would be impossible to use the curved barrel attachment as depicted in the top two photos. For one thing, recoil forces would make it uncontrollable. The other, is that no sighting system was provided that would allow it to be so used, as that was never the intention. Despite the reasonably well documented reality of the equipment's design, these (same) "shoot ‘round corners" photos keep serving as justification for the notion that this is how the system was meant to be used.

Even in it's intended installation, the Germans found that projectile distortion in the barrel curve reduced the practical range of the installation to fifty meters or so, and barrel erosion was extreme.

There was however, this little gizmo:

which was used thus:

link

However, there were not thousands of these things in service, and it wasn't terribly practical to be jogging around with it regularly attached to your weapon. Novel, interesting, and doubtless well made, but didn't really contribute much to the late war efforts of the German army. As far as I know, none of these ever made it into Volkssturm hands, as the appropriate assault rifles were not intended for issue to Volkssturm units.

Others may be more familiar with it's history than myself, but I'm not sure the Luftfaust ever fired a shot in anger, in anyone's hands.

Despite many regularly trotted out (then propaganda) photos, the Volkssturm actually wound up with a lot of captured weapons and third string equipment the regular army just didn't want in its system, when they wound up equipped at all.
Your thinking with regard to the use of weapons like the Maxim MG, and the one-shot tank hunting units, is probably spot on. Junk weapons, fragile morale, fire a couple of rounds then skedaddle…
After all, the War was nearly over…

Duck

have a look at offensive miniatures, they have a ton of very nice volksturms, HY figures

Bayonet Strength has a listing for Volks Grenadier units and their evolution to Volksturm units.

See link to Bayonet Strength:
link

The two Machine Pistol Platoons were re-titled Sturm or Assault Platoons, with the first and second Squads now each of an NCO and seven men, each armed with the Stg44. The third Squad had an NCO and five men each carrying an Stg44, plus two light machine gunners each with a pistol and an MG34 or MG42. The Platoon Commander and his two messengers were all to carry an Stg44, and there was one unallocated light machine gun. The third Rifle Platoon retained the same number of personnel and weapons as before, but slightly rearranged. The three rifle grenadiers were shown under Platoon HQ, with the Platoon commander and two messengers all having an MP40. The three Rifle Squads each consisted of an NCO with MP40 and seven men, armed with one MP40, five bolt action rifles, and a pistol and MG34/42 for the single light machine gunner.

"I only hit submit once, honest."

Yes, I too tried to make some edits to my post but got a second posting with only some of my edits. I'll leave it be so I do not personally overload the net with my blather.

I have been thinking about doing a game set in April, 1945 in Berlin. Thanks for the good ideas. I started with the Bolt Action "Last Levy" set, it has a Krummlauf assault rifle. I also got a "bedbug" = Borgward Wanze ausf C.

What I need most is cheap good ruins for Berlin.

If you find good cheap ruins you could let us know!

Thanks guys, thats really interesting.

DuckanCover thanks for the long post. You have saved me searching on the Net for that. I have seen those before but forgot about the Tank defence plan. The figure is supplied as a prone figure with no sighting capability so I will use as a sniper.

I forgot also about the Offensive Miniature figures so may make another Platoon of them.

I have some resin ruined buildings plus some Dust Tactics building but they are only two stories so I am looking at these.

link

My other idea is to make printed buildings to line the edges of the table and have actual buildings in the Middle.

I was thinking this morning while having a lie in. This really is the last Levy for me as I must have painted everything else German WW2 in either 15 ,20, 28 and 1/35th.

…at USD 175, you are a reach man.

You may find yourself in the conundrum of buildings taking more importance than the miniatures. I am toying with the idea of simulating with a rather flat terrain the top view.

My terrain will have some 3D effect but I was thinking of putting a marker on building location to indicate the floor the unit is at.

One other idea was to use boxes on which I'd glue prints of bombed buildings, I'd just put on top of them the unit, indicating again the floor they are at. For the boxes, I could make a few different series that would fit into one another like Russian dolls for easy storage.

If you have a blog, that'd be great to keep us informed of your progress!

GameCraft Minis has a selection of 28mm multi-story city buildings available. And if I'm not mistaken, they usually have a sale running to coincide with the holiday.

link

repaint, those prices are in Aussie Dollars, I am thinking about if I really need to spend that much. I have a Blog but am doing mainly Zulu War at the moment, but will keep you posted.

Years ago I built a Factory/Train workshop three Cork tiles in length and one high that I've never been completely happy with. I am planning on covering it with printed brick sheet as an experiment before buying any more buildings.

Those GameCraft building seem cheap, wonder how the postage would work out?

Seems like another over engineered German device with little use. A "fix" for a problem that really was not … !

Bayonet Strength has a listing for Volks Grenadier units and their evolution to Volkssturm units.

Volksgrenadiers didn't really evolve into the Volkssturm. They were 2 seperate entities. Volksgrenadier divisions were formed in the autumn of ‘44 either from reserve divisions or from the cadre of regular infantry divisions withdrawn from the front for rebuilding. They had a different TO&E to regular infantry divisions (at least on paper), but were intended for the same tasks as regular infantry. The Volkssturm were the German Home Guard and had the same mix of old men, young boys and outdated equipment as the British Home Guard had earlier in the war.
The Volksgrenadier divisions received priority for equipment and received large numbers of assault rifles. Volkssturm got all the old and captured weapons and had some specific weapons designed and produced for them, the various Volkssturmgewehr. These were either very crude bolt action rifles or a very crude assault rifles using the same 7.92mm kurz round as The Stg44.