[blitzkreig]

Shan,

I did only mean "68" Sdkfz 251s. Should have made it a bit more clear! The 250 series didn't enter production until June 1941. One of my favourite referance books for German armoured vehilces is:

Standard Catalog of German Military Vehicles by David Doyle published by KP Books in 2005 isbn 0-87349-783-x.

Its says there were aprox 6000 of the Sdkfz 250 series were made. I'm not sure about the Sdkfz 251 series.

On another realism point though it's really great being able to hammer the other side with loads of artillery fire! Trouble is depending on how big your game is artillery was in realitivly short supply.

If you think that a typical Pz Division had 2-3 artillery Btls of 3-4 batteries, each with 4 guns depending on formation and losses. A btl sized kampfgruppe is therefore unlikley to have it all on call at once! With the exception of pherhaps an assult mission. Larger pieces over 150mm would be Corps assets and would be even rarer.

It reality (at least for German Mechanised forces) you should take 1 forward observer/observation vehicle for each battery taken. This eats up support points but also means the number of batteries you take will probaberly be reduced as well as being realistic. It would be a real headache for one observer to co-ordinate the lot! Todays British Army certinally uses the one observer per battery ratio with the battery commnader taking the role in the "armoured artillery" formations using AS90.

The Germans made up for the "lack of atillery" by the introduction of inf gun units attached to indivudual btls and regiments. The 75mm and to a lesser extent the 150mm sig would be a common sight in a reinforced btl sized kamfgruppe.

Not sure on other nations though, any one any thoughts?