CS
Your historical reporting on the K&C winter troops is most impressive and quite interesting. I think the toy soldier companies ought to hire you as an advisor. I am wondering what your take is on the winter troops from Honour Bound (ski troops and chow line) and Patriot (for the new winter nebelwerfer). Accuracy, where they might have been in battle, etc. Should the nebelwerfer troops have red arm bands?
Thanks. Randy
Now that would be a nice job! Actually, if they’d just send me their concept work I’d even provide my input for free if it might mean more accurate figures for us.
Before I try to answer your questions, I thought of another interesting possible use for BBG10-14: representing 7th SS Prinz Eugen Division late in the war fighting partisans in Yugoslavia. For Tito’s partisans one could use the two figures in the Assassination of Heydrich set. That was fairly merciless fighting and war crimes were committed by both sides. One of the interesting things about SS mountain troops (Nord, Prinz Eugen, the muslim Handschar division etc.) is that they break the stereotype of SS always being more elite than Wehrmacht divisions. In fact, the Wehrmacht Gebirgsjagers were the elite, well trained ones, usually with Austrian heritage, and the SS divisions sort of tacked on the status of mountain troops to their names. Thus they usually ended up being assigned to less important combat zones like against partisans while the army Gerbirgs divisions got the glory assignments.
Okay, as for the three sets you show:
The HB cook line: Would work fine for Wehrmacht in the Bulge, or Eastern Front Winter 42-43 or later. The guy on the left with supply canisters on his back has a decent splinter camo cover. From pictures though it doesn’t look quite as good as the rendition in HB07B – Summer Cook line – the best splinter camo I’ve seen in a recent release. Second guy from the left wears winter boots and the standard German parka introduced in 1942. He has procured a fur cap patterned after the Russian style, not official issue, but nevertheless very common on the Eastern Front. He has what looks to be a G41 semi-auto rifle. Nice to see someone do this weapon, the predecessor of the German’s more popular and more effective G43 rifle. The tan canvas pouch on his belt is for ammo mags. In a photo on HB’s website you can see he has a splinter shelter quarter rolled up on his back. The next guy has on the same parka and pants, but gray side out, and is wearing the same cap as in that famous Bulge shot of the two Germans in the Schwimmwagen. Last guy picking the dung off his boot has on white camo made in the field out of a table cloth, an improvisation made famous in the fighting around Moscow in 1941 and at Stalingrad. Accuracy looks fine in this set – it’s a bit hard to tell details under the motley winter clothing, but indeed that’s what many German snow troops really looked like.
The red arm band seen on the second guy from the left was for identification purposes. Since in the winter both the Russians and Germans were wearing white winter outfits, the Germans had the idea to put on different coloured armbands (red, green etc.) so they could tell their own men from the enemy's. If you were a patrol going out to fight you might rip it off in combat, and then pin it back on when you returned to friendly lines. It probably worked better in theory than practice. In models and modern colour illustrations red seems to be the favourite colour used.
The Patriot nebelwerfer team: They’re Wehrmacht based on the splinter trousers on the kneeling NCO or officer (identified as such due to his black map case), and because it looks like their bottom parka pocket flaps are cut straight across (SS pocket flaps were pointy/scalloped). The best splinter colours I’ve seen by Patriot is in the set where the grenadier is leaping over the wall, even though it lacks a bit of the necessary “rain drop” background pattern. Because of the camouflage on the trousers, this set wouldn’t work for winter 42-43 because the parkas becoming available then were only white reversible to gray. So these guys are great for Eastern front winter 43-44 or 44-45. This set would also work for the Bulge, no problem. Guy on the left is operating the detonator which fired the nebelwerfer. Wires would run out of that box to the nebelwefer itself. Those tubes the guy in the middle is handling are the cases containing the nebelwerfer rockets. One issue is that the case on the ground especially looks a tad bit skinny to be holding a whole rocket. Should be thicker I think.
Since these guys are manning artillery behind the lines they don’t need red armbands on their parkas. Coincidentally, red was indeed the colour of artillery, but that was for the shoulderboard piping worn on the regular German tunic jackets - those of course are hidden beneath these guy's parkas.
HB Ski Troops: Long story short, taken as a set it is most indicative of the Eastern Front in winter 1944-45. On the Western Front, the guy with the sled could work for the Bulge as a Wehrmacht soldier, but because of their mountain gear the three guys on the left would have to be reserved for Nordwind or the Italy scenario described above etc.
This is another well done set by Honor Bound: I have it on order. In some ways I think it is the best ski set done by a manufacturer because you can clearly see the definitive three-pocket mountain trooper windbreaker on the guy on the left. That said, HB has made its share of camo mistakes too: the camouflage on HB03B “Wehrmacht Summer troops” is pretty messed up – it’s actually mostly SS pattern, with the bizarre use of Italian camo and pea dot in smocks. Never seen that before in my references.
If you're interested here's a more detailed writeup about the HB ski set I posted a while back in a discussion on another forum:
If you want to include all the figures in the set then I think your assessment about Eastern Front winter 1943-44 is spot on. It depends on what it says on the label of the panzerfaust anti-tank weapon in the guy's sled (if even legible). If it is a panzerfaust 30 (not to be confused with panzerfaust 30k for klein, which had a different smaller-shaped warhead), then winter 1943-44 is appropriate. If it says panzerfaust 60 (visually almost identical to panzerfaust 30 but operationally had a larger range), then this scene would have to be winter 44-45 because the panzerfaust 60, despite often being erroneously portrayed as being used by the Germans in Normandy, actually did not enter service until fall 1944. But so many of this weapon were produced before the end of the war that it quickly became the most common panzerfaust, even though it was actually a 3rd generation model.
If you drop the guy pulling the sled with the panzerfaust, then the three guys on the left would actually work as early as Jan.-April of 1943 (eastern front).
In terms of ski troops, all Gebirgsjager divisions, both Wehrmacht and SS, would have access to skis as basic equipment when needed. Also skis were used on the Northern sector of the Eastern Front by regular infantry divisions from time to time. Even when there were no mountains around, skis (and snowshoes) were apparently very useful during the winter months as a fast way for groups of soldiers to quickly cover distance for the purposes of long range patrols, reconnaissance, ambush, harassment, delivering messages, anti-partisan activities, etc. The use of skis in the cross-country role is something the Germans picked up from the Finns and Russians (versus using them downhill in mountains which German and Austrian troops were more familiar with).
There was also two specialized Skijager regiments formed in 1943 as the 1st Skijager Brigade (sept. 43). Information on these guys is a little elusive, but I know this unit fought on the Eastern Front that winter. It became a division in June 1944 (even though it was considered a light Jager division, it apparently had a complement of howitzers, anti-tank guns, flak guns, StuGs and captured T-34s) and it saw combat that summer in the central sector of the Eastern Front retreating toward the Vistula. It then move to Czechoslovakia, north to Poland, then Upper Silesia and finished the war in Czechoslovakia. Some smaller ski battalions (sometimes ad-hoc ones) also saw action on the Eastern Front. For example 6th SS Gebirgsjager Division Nord had an elite battalion of Norwegian skiers called SS-Skijägerbattalion "Norge".
You are correct that the fellow pointing on the left is from a Gebirgs division or the Skijager brigade because he is wearing the special mountain anorak (white side out) which can be identified by the three chest pockets. I can't tell what type of winter clothing the other fellow with skis beside him is wearing. It looks like the guy with the panzerfaust sled is wearing the typical German parka (white side out) which was used by all branches of Werhmacht and SS troops, so he's not necessarily a Gebirgsjager or SkiJager specifically, though they used this parka too.
The guy in the gray outfit third from the left also has a mountain trooper’s large rucksack which again lends credence to the idea this is a set of specialist Gebirgsjagers/Skijagers. Now in spite of this set being named “Werhmacht snow troops”, this fellow looks to be wearing a gray SS-pattern anorak based on the fur around the collar and the pockets that seem to be on the chest, neither of which were generally present on standard greatcoats (though until I have this figure in my hand I cannot confirm for certain). Perhaps he borrowed it from an SS comrade, or perhaps these fellows are actually SS. The only thing to signify them as Wehrmacht is that in the sled there is a splinter pattern Wehrmacht shelter quarter rolled up. 
