Perry Miniatures D.A.K. progress

About a month ago I showed you some WIP shots of my Afrika Korps figures from Perry Miniatures. Today I'm proud to show the first finished figures.

The first of my mighty Afrika Korps, a half squad and their platoon commander.

I haven't been working on them for a while really, because the 20mm US paras for the upcoming convention are taking precedence. Yet I keep returning to the DAK figures to get some variation. More pictures after the break.

I have used the same colours on all models but tried to vary their appearance.

The downside with painting germans is that they have som much equipment in different materials.

At the start I had a hard time deciding what colours to use. The D.A.K. uniform was originally olive green but faded quickly. Later items of clothing could be sand coloured while the italian baggy trousers were also popular. The webbings were some sort of canvas (which also faded) instead of black leather, and while the ammo pouches still were leather, they were brown. The belt were olive green and the helmets and gasmask cases were painted sand brown. SMG ammo pouches were still canvas in Africa though, like they were in Europe. British are far easier to paint, everything is either khaki or drab.

"Acthung! Feuer!"

I just had to convert a kneeling MG team.

"Vorwärts männer!"

The uniforms were painted Wargames Foundry Raw Linen, which is a set of three paints that are meant to be used as a base-mid-highlight. Here I have used the base tone for the greenish clothes and the mid tone for the sand coloured clothes. The highlight tone I used for the Y-straps and particularly faded items like the cap on the MG gunner and the officer's tunic and cap. I wanted to depict the hap-hazard look that the DAK quickly aquired in the field.

Leather items like boots and pouches were painted Wargames Foundry Dusky Flesh mid-tone, while the base tone was used on rifle stocks, water bottles and the shovels. Games Workshop Gretchin Green was used on the SMG pouches and belts and googles while the bread bags were painted GW Dheneb Stone.

Everything was then washed with Army Painter Dip. After hitting the figures with Tamiya flat varnish I did the metal areas and the goggles as well as some details on the officer. If you look closely you can see he has the Iron Cross as well as the wounded in combat badge.

A mortar team and the second half of the squad.

When I started to build the figures I used the platoon composition supplied by the Perrys. This called for 10-man squads with one machine gun each, plus a platoon commander and a separate MG team. This would leave five figures out of the box which could be used for an AT rifle team, a mortar team and a radio operator.

The first half of the second squad. Note the running MG gunner.

The second half including the squad leader.

Unfortunately the Chain of Command list for the DAK (found here) stipulates three squads of 12 men, split into two teams each with a machine gun. The list was published after much discussion on the lardie list, and long after I had started to assemble my figures. Since I already made a mortar team my platoon will be at least two men short.

Ah well, I was thinking of ordering a second box anyway.