Slowly over the last 6 months I've been working my way through a German pioneer company for Flames of War. As with all my flames armies i look for something different i can do to add a certain spark to the army so when my opponents look at it they go “wow” or “hey that’s neat”. With tank armies this is often easy – do up some nice stowage and a good paint job and most people are happy. Unfortunately when it comes to infantry armies most people get wowed by fancy bases and the miniatures themselves are often overlooked in the face of flashy bases with lots of silflor grass tufts and little flowers (don’t get me wrong these things are cool). As this army is for next years MWGT in Auckland i really wanted to add some character to my army and up until today i didnt have a clue what i could do. At lunchtime i was struck with inspiration – a few months back id been reading up on the German wire controlled bomb: the goliath, and vaguely remembered a small note about pioneers carrying the Goliath around on a hand cart. I thought to myself that might make an interesting infantry stand in my force as the Goliath is meant to be represented in the game on a medium base until it is unleashed upon an unsuspecting enemy tank or bunker. With this idea in mind i decided to do some more research and found some pictures for reference as to what this hand cart looked like.
It would seam from these pictures that it can be pulled along without too much trouble by a pair of Pioneers and has several different wheel variety's.
Whilst researching the hand cart i also discovered that the Kettenkrad was also often used by pioneers on the eastern front to quickly move a Goliath into position. However finding a real photo of this seams to be difficult and so far all ive come up with is pictures of a Tamiya kit that is available. If i can find some historical photo’s of a Kettenkrad pulling a Goliath on a trolley then ill maker some of them as well.
Watch this space for pictures of my first attempt for this model conversion.
1 comment:
I've been working on the same army for about five years now! I like Goliaths, no matter what people say :).
Those first three photos you posted are from the Warsaw Uprising, where they used both Goliaths and Borgward BIV demo carriers a lot to blow up street barricades, such as the one you see in Stalin's Europe.
Pioneer companies are a lot of fun. They are like little armies unto themselves, having all sorts of tricks up their sleeves!
Good luck!
Mike
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