Friday, June 12, 2020

Armoured Inventory - WW2 German


Whole inventory of my German AFV fleet.

In a recent Not Quite Mechanised posting, Chris Kemp laid out his German armoured fleet, including SP artillery, and, by way of comparison, tabulated his list with the German production by early, middle and late war, plus overall total. He then invited readers to lay out their own inventories. Hence this posting.

Overnight I tried to recall just what I had. I could just about recall my tanks and self-propelled artillery, but rather underestimated the 'tank hunter' type of vehicles in my inventory. Here is my list, with, by way of comparison, the German overall production at, if I understand Chris's figures correctly, are 1 for every hundred. That is to say, German war production is given, rounded, in hundreds.
So, as a proportionality exercise similar to Chris's, let's see how my fleet looks:



The core of the fleet: Panthers and Panzer IV -
about 40% of the whole.


German AFV Inventory 
Model    War Total    My Fleet     Notes
Pz I 6 1    GwI SP sIG
Pz II 7 1
Marder II 7 1
Wespe 6 3    Or 4; excludes Ammo       carrier
All Pz I and Pz II chassis: 25 6    Or 7 - unmade kit
Pz 38(t) 14 0
Marder III 15 4    I've merged all these types
Grille 5 0
Hetzer 30 0
All Pz 38(t) chassis: 64 4

The Marder III M at the rear sports a rather bad camo
(a failed experiment) that is to be redone.  Soon.
Pz III A-F 5 0
Pz III G-J1 24 3
Pz III J2-M 20 5
Pz III N 7 2
Pz III Flamm 1 0
StuG III A-E 8 1
StuG III F-G 85 5
StuH 42 12 1
All Pz III Chassis: 156 17

Pz III chassis and Marders.
Pz IV A-F1 9 3
Pz IV F2-J 74 19
StuG IV 11 2
Hornisse/Nashorn 5 0    Might have enough to
   scratchbuild from bits
JagdPz IV/48 7 2
JagdPz IV/70 12 3
Sturmpanzer IV 3 0
Hummel 7 2    More produced than Wespe?
Mobelwagen 2 1    Of a type (Quad 20) not     much
produced past prototype
Wirbelwind 1 1
All Pz IV Chassis: 131 33
Pz V Panther 61 16
JagdPanther 4 6
All Pz V Chassis: 65 22
Tiger I 13 7
SturmTiger 0 0   18 produced by Germany
BergeTiger' 0 1   Die cast model.
Tiger II 'King Tiger' 5 3 2 x Henschel, 1 x Porche turret
JagdTiger 1 2
Ferdinand/ Elefant 1 0    Used to have one.
   Should have kept it.
All Pz VI Chassis: 20 12    Excl 'BergeTiger'
Overall Totals: 361 94
All the really heavy, scary stuff - cats on the prowl.



















16 comments:

  1. Not a bad force there.....well done!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Don -
      A few things were gifted (broken and requiring repair work in most cases), hence (to some extent) the over-representation in some areas. I admit I am surprised there are as many as 94 vehicles here, though, not counting the AA half-tracks.
      Cheers,
      Ion

      Delete
  2. Interesting idea/comparison. Now I'm wondering what my more modest force looks like (split between two scales won't help).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Depends on the scales. I didn't include the three ROCO Tiger Is in my collection (could you use them?), but I don't concern myself overmuch about the differences between 1:76 and 1:72.

      My Russian and British Commonwealth armies are far smaller by comparison - the two combined don't have such an inventory of AFVs! such was certainly never my intention.

      Delete
    2. I left my one Roco Tiger out of my post
      https://onesidedminiaturewargamingdiscourse.blogspot.com/2020/06/176th-ish-inventory-ww2-german-sans.html
      Cheers!

      Delete
  3. That is an interesting idea. My stuff is split over three scales, but if I start with the 15mm, that should be manageable.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This army 'grew like Topsy'. My original idea (45 years ago) was to form a battlegroup around a 10-tank 'battalion' - 4 Panthers and 6 PzIV. But then I found the Jagdpanthers... The Brits and the Russians would have tank inventories to match. I didn't 'do' Americans, as I wanted just the one Western Ally, and the Brits had the Firefly...

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  4. Hi Archduke- my-my you sure have a huge amount of Armor- well done!...it is interesting what we accumulate over time. When I had my WW2 Collection I didn't have any more that four tanks aside in 1/72nd- and was happy. Cheers. KEV.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi KEV - Not sure it has been 'well done' exactly. My original plan (45 years ago) I mention in my response above. I'm inclined to 'blame' Command Decision, as I wanted to create a Panzer Division (hence the numbers of Panthers and PzIVs) and an infantry Division based on the type that defended Omaha Beach (the only 'proper' field Division present at Normandy on 6 June 1944, the rest being second and third rate formations).

      Quite a lot of stuff was given me badly in need of repair (all four Airfix Tigers were in somewhat damaged condition when I received them - but all they cost me was time). But a few things I picked up 'just because', like the die cast Tigers.
      Cheers,
      Ion

      Delete
  5. Archduke Piccolo,

    A very interesting display and analysis of your collection. I'm not sure that my stuff would fit on a table ... or even two tables!

    All the best,

    Bob

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That must be some collection, then, Bob! I've mentioned a couple of guys I know in this town whose collections make mine look puny, and all. I've been sorting through my Russian and German infantry, and need to look at my German artillery park as well...

      Meanwhile, I'm working on a little East Front project, somewhere south of Kiev, late 1943. Orbats and map done, just need to know where some of the Russian infantry Divisions go...

      Cheers,
      Ion

      Delete
    2. I have a private bet on that the order of running for massive collections of armour is 1. Peter Schulman, 2. Don, 3. Tim Gow. You are in the lead at the moment Ion, with YesthatPhil close behind. Don't disappoint me Don :-)

      Delete
    3. Cheers, Chris. No one has a collection like Peter Schulman's I dare say. I have HEARD of collections of German Panzer divisions at 1:1 representation (this from the US). One guy I read about had an encounter with a 1:1 Russian Tank Corps.

      I think I have mentioned before the serendipitous appearance one Club Day of a temporary boxing ring from the previous night's entertainment. A bunch of us fetched up with a mighty battle between 100 Russian and 70 German tanks, nearly all from one guy's collection. My contribution was my then entire Soviet inventory: 9 T34s and 4 KV tanks. Given a further 16 tanks to play with, I attacked with the whole 29, taking on 16 German. At the end of the battle, we had both lost 13: I was down to 16 tanks, the enemy down to 3. That was one of the most fun battles I ever had.

      Did I mention another friend, who laid out an entire tank regiment on my lounge floor (47 T34s) - then alongside them laid out a further 20 other Red Army AFVs?

      Delete
  6. Dear Ion,

    Impressive! You look to be more configured for '44-'45, so would be more in proportion for late war.

    Regards, Chris.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Chris -
      The original plan was for mid-1943 on. When I started, early war stuff was hard to get hold of, and, using the Bruce Quarry Airfix rules tended to lead to something of an arms race if you wanted to stay competitive in pick-up battles. The first tanks I bought were Panthers and T34s.

      Mind you, I developed a particular fondness for the dear old KV2 - I have 2 of them to go with 3 Fujimi KV1 models (the 6th KV is an ESCI KV1S(?). A local does 'conversion kits' that can transform the Fujimi models into KV85s.

      Cheers,
      Ion

      Delete