From JasperO - PzKp 224 (45 points)

On the first Sunday of February, I'll be at PolderCon(.nl) to run four games of Chain of Command together with Nick Skinner of TFL. We've selected a scenario based on the fight of D Company, 1st Battalion the Border Regiment along Van Borsselenweg in Oosterbeek. On September 20th and 21st 1944, they (and the other companies of the battalion) were attacked by infantry supported by the tanks of Panzerkompanie 224.

The Kompanie was equipped with Char B1 bis tanks, taken from the French in 1940 and largely allotted to various armoured units on occupation duty. PzKp 224 had 17 of these vehicles, which had largely been converted to flamethrower versions. All photographed wrecks at Arnhem seem to have been flame tanks, in fact, but archaeologists have found shell casings for the French 75mm gun as well, testifying to the presence of un-converted tanks.

PzKp 224 was in western Holland when Operation Market Garden began and departed for Arnhem on Monday, September 18th. It lost one tank which toppled into a canal, drowning two of the crew, but the rest of the unit arrived west of Oosterbeek in the late afternoon of September 19th. According to German reports, the tanks went into action immediately, but British reports do not mention them until the next day. The attacks did not go well. Half a dozen were put out of action with PIATs as well as 6-and 17-pounder anti-tank guns. Reportedly, a shell fired by one of the latter went through-and-through the tank. That gun is one of the three surviving ones now sitting around the Airborne Museum in Oosterbeek.

In short, I clearly needed a couple of these tanks to scare the British players at PolderCon. They are both Warlord Games plastic models, built in the gun-tank and flame-tank versions. The wrecks at Oosterbeek were photographed extensively by the Germans - one photographer thought they were British (...), and they all seem to have been painted standard yellow with modest camouflage applied. As I've been experimenting with my airbrush, mine got a slightly more opaque coverage. None of the photos show any markings (perhaps explaining the photographer's confusion), so I've left those off as well. The commander figures are Rubicon (3/4 figure) and a Warlord (1/4 figure) model. I guess together they count as one? So that makes 45 points I think.


Those tanks look great Jasper. Presumably these were the ones positively (mis)identified by someone from 2 Section of  Recce Squadron's A Troop as Panzer IVs on the 19th - there was a brief engagement between them on Dz/LZ Z that day.

As for points, that's two tanks at 20 points each, and the two commanders which I'll count as a single full foot figure. So, that's 45 points total.

TamsinP