15mm Afrika Korps Infantry

 A bit more detail on my 15mm WW2 Afrika Korps infantry.

Here are a couple of typical 'companies', like the British, actually modelled as rifle sections with an LMG group and two rifle groups of three figures, one of which has an NCO on it. I've used this basing scheme for 15mm figures for nearly 25 years now, and it has the benefit of being very flexible in terms of representing various levels of unit although I persist in thinking of them in Command Decision terms, which is why I always do a command/infantry base. 

The figures are a mixture of Peter Pig DAK,  Peter Pig Late War German infantry and a few PSC early war German infantry.

The PP DAK figures are all cast with caps on, and I wanted some/many figures in helmets, so mixed in the other types. The late war figures are wearind low boots and gaiters, while the early war ones are in jackboots which can easily be painted to represent the early high desert boots. Bizarrely, none of the PP figures are wearing shorts either, well maybe it is a cold day or something. In theory DAK troops were forbidden from wearing shorts at the front, but plenty of them did. 

One of the companies, you can see the mix of caps and helmets a bit better. The PP DAK MG34 teams come with both prone and marching gunners, and like the British I'd say these are still the old moulds. The figures are notably smaller than both the PSC ones and the late war infantry, and the poses are cruder. The LMG gunners in particular are draped in MG belts, which is a really good way to jam your MG34 with cartridges covered in dust.

Mixed up with the other figures though, they look quite a lot like the ployglot uniforms favoured by the DAK.

What colour are DAK uniforms? Battlefront suggest Vallejo Russian Uniform, which is perfect for 1:1 scale factory fresh olive green uniforms, but green cotton uniforms are notorious for fading in the sun. My repro DAK jacket faded markedly after just six weeks of hanging outside in the garden in a British spring, and as Guy Sajer noted, their summer uniforms faded to 'piss yellow'.

In photos, darker jackets seem more common, whereas faded or what are obviously Italian or British shorts or trousers are more prevalent, but a lot of the jackets are intermediate tone. In the end I picked three basic colours, VJ Russian Uniform, VJ Middlestone (a sort of greenish yellow) and VJ Desert Sand (a more yellow, yellow) and went through mixing and matching with a higher proportion of lighter trousers than jackets. 

The caps I generally did lighter as troops were prone to bleach them to show they were 'veterans' and they also wore out less quickly. Helmets and metal items of equipment were sprayed various shades of tan, so I picked darker sand shades than the British helmets and used that.

A lot of the non DAK figures are cast with Zeltbahn rolls, which were rare in the desert, but fortunately a lot of troops carried rolled greatcoats (the western desert is very cold at night, even in August). DAK greatcoats were brown or grey, so I did them in a mix of tones.

Generally I'm quite happy with the mix of different uniform tones. The figures are unified by the common colours for the equipment and hats/helmets.

The heavy weapons are PP DAK tripod MGs (MG34s) and 81mm mortars. The weapons crews include some very useful poses for other purposes, so each weapon only has two crew.

I just did three stands of engineers, plenty for most levels of representation. These are Peter Pig 'mine detection team' figures, which iirc are cast with anklets and low boots as well as helmets. I don't think PP do specific DAK engineers.

These are the three main poses, a bloke prodding with a bayonet, a bloke carring a Teller mine and a bloke with a mine detector. I've also got some spare German assault engineers with flamethrowers etc so I can always paint some of them up if I need more.

HQ types, a mix of PP, PSC and QRF figures.

The actual HQ stands are these. The two on the left are actually from the 81m mortar set, a useful standing officer type and a bloke carrying mortar ammo cans which look very like jerrycans, when painted grey with a big white 'water' cross on them.

The pair in the centre are an advancing PP NCO figure and a PSC officer in riding boots and helmet from the Early War infantry set. The final group are the bayonet guy from the engineer set (who is perhaps crouched over a radio) and an officer with binoculars from the tripod MG34 set.

Having bodged all these stands up, I later discovered a bag of PP HQ figures, including radio operators etc, which I'd misfiled with the Italians. I wondered why I didn't have any DAK officer figures! That is what comes of buying too much stuff.

A few individual figures. The sniper is a PSC kneeling rifleman, the artillery observer is a spare gunner from one of the QRF artillery crews and the officer with binos is another one from the MG34 set. I have quite a few of those already as my Volksgrenadier battalion uses a lot of DAK figures (in caps), it is a great pose and reminiscient of the one from the Airfix DAK set.

What I really need a is a Rommel figure. Hilariously I have one in 6mm with the H&R Rommel/Grief set, but I'm sure I can rustle up something in 15mm.

Very pleased with that lot, and I don't need loads more figures to round them out either. Some more MGs and mortars and another couple of infantry companies should do.