Today I wanted to show off a project I recently finished, my 6mm Germans and Soviets for WW2. They were a blast to paint and came together very well.
For the infantry, I just primed the uniform color and blocked in the rest of the colors. It’s a super easy method that looks great. I just drybrushed a series of progressively lighter shades on the vehicles, layering until I got the color I wanted. A friend of mine graciously 3d printed all of the vehicles for me, and the infantry are from GHQ.
The Soviets
I painted these primarily for games where 1 base of figures represents a platoon. At that scale, I have a Soviet Motor Rifle Brigade, and an Armored Brigade. Which equates to about 65 stands of infantry, 65 trucks, and 20 armor stands.
The Germans
At the same scale as the Soviets, I have here 2 motorized Panzergrenadier battalions, and a medium Panzer battalion. Which equates to about 30 stands of infantry, 30 trucks and 12 armor stands.
A little bit of history
I wanted to take a moment in case some of the readers are only vaguely familiar with the Eastern Front. Let’s take a look at few myths associated with the Eastern Front, many of which were propagated in the post war years in the U.S.. In my opinion this is because the government wanted Americans to view Germans in a more favorable light, because we needed West Germany as an ally in the cold war.
While they were greatly outnumbered on the Eastern Front, post-war German sources spoke of being outnumbered numbers like 10 Soviet corps to their 1, which ignores the fact that Soviet corps were often the size of a German divisions.
Another myth is the ‘clean Wehrmacht’, is the idea that the Germans army didn’t perpetrate very many war crimes, and that the SS was the evil part of the German war machine, a great article on that here, https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/the-clean-wehrmacht-making-a-myth/.
After the war many German officers wrote widely distributed memoirs, and many of them had the same theme. They blamed Germany’s defeat almost solely on Hitler, which was a convenient way to save their reputation. Pass the blame to a figure now out of the picture, and these generals were getting new, favorable positions in the newly formed NATO. These are just a few common misconceptions that surround the Eastern Front.
Conclusion
I hope you are inspired to start doing some small scale Eastern Front gaming!!
I apologize for my sub-par photo setup. I’m looking to upgrade it, but that does cost money, so any support is appreciated.
Here are the links to most of the STL files for the vehicles and GHQs sight for metal miniatures.
https://www.thingiverse.com/m_bergman/designs
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Until next time- Joshua, The Napoleon of the West
