DAR: GE Long campaign - small core

[Brian61]

A small core, fictionalized historic long campaign covering the entire war from the viewpoint of a German Panzer company. The personnel of this company will see action in Poland, France, Balkans, North Africa, Eastern Front, and Western Front.(1)

The core force consists of a reinforced Panzer Kp(2) drawn from the 1939 German 4th army, under Guderian's XIX Motorized Army corp. Specifically the 1st company of II battalion, 5th panzer regiment, 3rd panzer division. In game, this is modeled as a heavily modified Panzer Kp (le) consisting of 2 PzIIIb/d, 1 PzIBef, 5 PzIIc, 10 PzIb, and 4 PzIVb tanks. Attached to this company are a Flak Sp Grp consisting of 2 SdKfz10/4s, an Infantry platoon (security element), 2 Spaehtroop sections (4 teams total), an 8cm GrW platoon, and a transport group of 3 Kfz70s. Additional organic transport is initially considered to be off-board and not present in the core.(3) This company, under Oberstlt Kraft, is being employed as a small 'fire brigade' within the XIX corp during the Sept 1939 offensive versus Poland.

I find that, despite all the hard work done by the OOB designers, modeling early war german forces to be a bit difficult especially when you consider the intended long term growth path of the organization being modeled. Early war german kit is so varied and so poorly documented with often conflicting sources, that it really ends up being an informed best guess compounded by game considerations. Historically it is probably incorrect to be adding the infantry security element at this date, the direct attachment of the flak group is highly questionable, and it is almost undoubtably incorrect to be adding the mortar platoon. Unfortunately, there just isn't sufficient auxiliary purchase points available in some circumstances to buy the elements necessary to have a playable combined arms force without including some of it in the core.

(1) As far as I've been able to discover, no German armored unit saw action on all of these fronts. However it is remotely possible that some personnel may have. The 'plot device' fiction I plan to use is that this company was intended to be part of Operation Barbarosa but at the last minute rerouted to the Balkans. After refit post-Balkans, the company is sent to North Africa and in late 1942 the company's personel (but not equipment) will be rotated out of North Africa and redeployed to the Eastern Front until mid-1944.
(2) Total core cost is just under 1200 points.
(3) The halftracks intended for the company haven't arrived yet, evidently they were rerouted to some other unit with better connections.