Fallschirmjäger

When I was at Milano wargame I bought some miniatures including a couple of 1/72 German WWII soldiers. One of the boxes was a Italeri 1/72 German Paratroopers [Tropical uniform], the second-one a Pegasus 1/72 German Fallschirmjäger. After opening the boxes I was not happy for the seller’s suggestion about Pegasus miniatures but painting them permitted me to change idea.

In all cases I painted around seventy miniatures with three mortar team.

Fallschirmjäger were part of German Luftwaffe and, of course, they are an elite corp.

German paratroopers were involved in a large number of battles: Denmark, Crete, Montecassino, North Africa and I was very surprise to know that German Generals were inspired by Italian and Russian units. I have no great information about Russian paratroopers during WWII, on contrary the Italian regiment (“Tuscania”) was never used for they original purpose but sacrificed in North Africa. Italeri has a specific 1/72 box for Tuscania … may be a potential purchase next year …

I painted Fallschirmjäger with different color combination usable for various war theaters.

 

the first miniature at the left of each photo could be part of Ramcke Brigade. A German paratroopers unit that operated in North Africa during 1942 and that, honestly, I don't know till I started to study their uniforms. In 1942 Ramcke brigade became famous because, during the attempt to rejoin with the other Axis units, they captured a British supply convoy without firing. So even if they started the retreat without transports they reached the remaining Rommel troops fully motorized.

 

The other miniatures are fine for Italian battle scenario (ie Montecassino) or North Africa too

 

 

 

I painted also the sniper with his observer

For the three mortars I used the unit in the box increasing the number of gunners converting a miniature with a panzerfaust.   

 

(Copyright Wikipedia)