Does anyone ever deviate from historical paint jobs?

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**George Spiggott**

Big P wrote:Not been many places in the historical side of the hobby then?

Even my colouring in with my 4 year old is historically accurate, much to her annoyance. So there.

If there's definitely a place for red (or blue or rainbow) Shermans it's when you're 4. What you're describing is just obsessive hyper-realism.

Interesting that Ambrose got brought up, since Saving Private Ryan doesn't feature any red tanks but instead lots of correct period clothing and paint schemes it must therefore be HISTORY yes? What about the Downton Abbey TV series? Was that HISTORY? Visually It all looks right but is it HISTORY or just period drama?

Just out of interest if a game was set up with an accurate recreation of forces, terrain and conflict outcomes. Say a diceless system with a GM deciding outcomes based upon historical debate (let us also say that time was not a factor) but the troops used were painted abstracted primary colours? What if it units were represented by blocks of wood with unit markings on them? Would you turn your nose up at it?

What about a WWII fighter game that used replicas of the WWII period fighter command aircraft markers? What if they were cast in polished brass or stainless steel? Still an anathema?

Imagine the above was a wargame? Nobody wants to play with these cheezo stained pimply 40k youths right? Using models for Spanish civil war Me109s? Get out of here, cheapskate loser!

'Correct' paint schemes are a tool for making historical wargames look like interactive dioramas they're not the definition of what is, or is not, HISTORY.

**ArbeitsSchu**

Big P wrote:Actually the only tanks to leave factories unpainted were those produced in Leningrad during the seige.

I have yet to see any evidence of any German vehicle leaving a factory solely in red primer.

For the late war period German patterns were factory applied to set patterns. You can actually use these patterns to tell which factory produced the tank... So actually, a great deal of historical research has gone into providing a comprehensive amount of detail on WW2 paint schemes.

Again an interesting surmise (source?), but I'm hesitant to accept that the ONLY armor that came in "red" came from Leningrad, mostly because I have a stack of Fine-scale modelling magazines in my bathroom as tall as my own son, from a variety of publishers, from about 20 years of modelling, and there are many great examples of mostly red German armor . If there was ever a group that could truly rivet-count in extremis, its fine scale modelers. Literally rivet-by-rivet. Can i really accept that the Ultimate Grognards could all be wrong so badly and not receive a single argument? Can I accept that the Ultimate Grognards would let such an epic mistake roll past without comment? I mean these are the people who will fight for months over the exact shades involved in 'caunter', and the dates of its use to the nearest week. But none of them argue about a "wrong" red German tank?

**Shotgun**

That is an episode of Hoarders I don't relish seeing...the therapist confronting the Horder about the stack of 20 year modeling mags in the bathroom taller than his children.

"Tragically, it appears that, while in the midst of grabbing the march 86 ed discussing riveted periscope covers on the KV-1 and KV-2, everyting from early 1991 fell down ontop of him, smashing his brain stem. He went out like Elvis with his pants around his ankles and apparently not enough fiber in his diet."

**Avrik_Shasla**

George Spiggott wrote:
Big P wrote:Not been many places in the historical side of the hobby then?

Even my colouring in with my 4 year old is historically accurate, much to her annoyance. So there.
If there's definitely a place for red (or blue or rainbow) Shermans it's when you're 4. What you're describing is just obsessive hyper-realism.

Interesting that Ambrose got brought up, since Saving Private Ryan doesn't feature any red tanks but instead lots of correct period clothing and paint schemes it must therefore be HISTORY yes? What about the Downton Abbey TV series? Was that HISTORY? Visually It all looks right but is it HISTORY or just period drama?

Just out of interest if a game was set up with an accurate recreation of forces, terrain and conflict outcomes. Say a diceless system with a GM deciding outcomes based upon historical debate (let us also say that time was not a factor) but the troops used were painted abstracted primary colours? What if it units were represented by blocks of wood with unit markings on them? Would you turn your nose up at it?

What about a WWII fighter game that used replicas of the WWII period fighter command aircraft markers? What if they were cast in polished brass or stainless steel? Still an anathema?

Imagine the above was a wargame? Nobody wants to play with these cheezo stained pimply 40k youths right? Using models for Spanish civil war Me109s? Get out of here, cheapskate loser!

'Correct' paint schemes are a tool for making historical wargames look like interactive dioramas they're not the definition of what is, or is not, HISTORY.

I think you hit in right on here, and to be honest, I myself was raised in an environment where my Father ate, slept, and gak WW2. I never really got into WW2 in the manner that he had always done (reading books and watching documentaries and researching), until I stumbled upon Flames of War. I love it, I love everything that has to do with WW2 and if I can find a magazine or book, or a game that has to deal with that time period my hands are all over it searching for a price tag.

When it comes to this debate, would I be slightly annoyed? Possibly, but if it looked nice I wouldn't care, infact if it were a great looking army I'd probably fall in love with it whether it was realistically painted or not. I can tell you right now, a gakky painted army or an army which is not painted at all pisses me off far more than any made up scheme could.

**ArbeitsSchu**

Shotgun wrote:That is an episode of Hoarders I don't relish seeing...the therapist confronting the Horder about the stack of 20 year modeling mags in the bathroom taller than his children.

"Tragically, it appears that, while in the midst of grabbing the march 86 ed discussing riveted periscope covers on the KV-1 and KV-2, everyting from early 1991 fell down ontop of him, smashing his brain stem. He went out like Elvis with his pants around his ankles and apparently not enough fiber in his diet."

I should stress its my youngest son, not the 14yr old. Otherwise yes, that's probably exactly how I will meet my end, because the stack isn't getting any smaller. Its just a matter of which stack will get me first: The scale modelling one or the Wargaming one...

**Big P**

ArbeitsSchu wrote:
Big P wrote:Actually the only tanks to leave factories unpainted were those produced in Leningrad during the seige.

I have yet to see any evidence of any German vehicle leaving a factory solely in red primer.

For the late war period German patterns were factory applied to set patterns. You can actually use these patterns to tell which factory produced the tank... So actually, a great deal of historical research has gone into providing a comprehensive amount of detail on WW2 paint schemes.

Again an interesting surmise (source?), but I'm hesitant to accept that the ONLY armor that came in "red" came from Leningrad, mostly because I have a stack of Fine-scale modelling magazines in my bathroom as tall as my own son, from a variety of publishers, from about 20 years of modelling, and there are many great examples of mostly red German armor . If there was ever a group that could truly rivet-count in extremis, its fine scale modelers. Literally rivet-by-rivet. Can i really accept that the Ultimate Grognards could all be wrong so badly and not receive a single argument? Can I accept that the Ultimate Grognards would let such an epic mistake roll past without comment? I mean these are the people who will fight for months over the exact shades involved in 'caunter', and the dates of its use to the nearest week. But none of them argue about a "wrong" red German tank?

Check out the 'Duel in the Mist' series of books, these detail Panthers by their factory prescribed camo scheme. I would warrant that it may well have only been late model Panther Gs that got factory applied Ambush scheme on a proscribed pattern but its not one of my areas of in depth knowledge. The whole debate on blurred edge versus hard edge patterns goes over my head...

Ambush Camouflage (Hinterhalt-Tarnung): August 1944 – In order to achieve a more standardized pattern, camouflage paint began to be applied at the factory.

The German paints could vary wildly before then as they were supplied in paste format to be mixed with petrol for application. This gave wild variation and when crews used water instead the paint faded quicker and wore off very quickly. Some units did try to give their vehicles uniformal patterns though this seems to have been in a minority of cases and only when performed by the Werkstatte crews.

I never said the Leningrad tanks were red... They were, but from rust not red oxide primer.

The Germans did use the red oxide as part of a camo scheme but I have never seen any evidence to suggest they used it on its own. I have seen Panthers with replacement barrels still in the plain red oxide though. This seems to bear out that surmisation;

September 1944 - Tanks were left in the red primer (Oxidrot RAL 3009) with no base coat and only limited camouflage of olive-green and/or red-brown (Olivgrün & Rotbraun) applied at the factory. By the end of October 1944, this was expanded to include dark yellow, olive green and red brown (Dunkelgelb, Olivgrün and Rotbraun) applied in limited amounts over the red primer. Dark grey (Dunkelgrau) could be used instead of dark yellow (Dunkelgelb) if yellow was unavailable (there is no evidence that dark grey was ever used in this manner).

However, in December 1944 a further order was issued;

December 1944 – Vehicles were to be painted with a base coat of olive green (Olivgrün) with a hard-edged pattern of red brown (Rotbraun) and dark yellow (Dunkelgelb).

If you want more detail on the use of red oxide;

http://www.network54.com/Forum/47207/thread/1289496305/Question+about+parts+painted+in+red+primer+on+German+AFVs-

Automatically Appended Next Post:

George Spiggott wrote:
Big P wrote:

Even my colouring in with my 4 year old is historically accurate, much to her annoyance. So there.
If there's definitely a place for red (or blue or rainbow) Shermans it's when you're 4. What you're describing is just obsessive hyper-realism.

Please tell me you noted the sarcasm?

**George Spiggott**

Big P wrote:Please tell me you noted the sarcasm?

It works better if you try to describe an unlikely scene that is at odds with your on-line persona.

All I saw was this...

...stuck to your fridge door, with "by Little P, age 4 and a half" written in the bottom corner.

**Aldramelech**

Big P wrote:History is important as its the setting.

If you divorce the setting from the game it ceases to be historical.

We play plenty of games based on historical actions, some as refights using the units original starting positions, others where we start with our own deployments.

We recently refought Brawners Farm, using the actual starting positions for the units, and my Confederates, though taking heavy losses, did better than in reality and forced the Union troops from the field.

Interestingly in a refight of Arnhem a few years back, it went almost the same as reality, until an unfortunate mortar strike took out several key British commanders and the push into Arnhem was halted before it had managed to reach the bridge. A few years later we refought Arnhem and I changed the drop plan, but only in a feasible way that was possible at the time (though with hindsight) to drop twice on the first day of the battle. This made such a huge difference that virtually the entire 1st Airborne moved en-masse on the evening of the first day and secured positions around the bridge in such numbers that the German players were unable to dislodge them before XXX Corps arrived.

Historical based scenario play allows you to refight actions as they were, containing the troops there on the day and in the positions they had, but with your own tactical decisions.

But it can also be used to test counter-factual theories regarding differing deployments and events to see how things can be changed.

But I also have as much fun playing points games using KGN (never have and never will play FOW) so I dont mind... as long as your tanks are the right shade of green.

Agreed.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

ancientsociety wrote:As someone who's done extensive research on three FOW armies at this point (EW French, E/MW Panzers, & M/LW Finns), put in hours of modeling, and even longer periods of painting; I'd like to say that I'd NEVER, EVER get on someone else's case for having the "wrong" army in FOW, let alone color scheme.

To those new players reading this - do not take comments such as Aldramelech's as gospel, there are few FOW players who feel the game MUST always adher to history 100% (in fact, I'd question someone's grasp of historical accuracy who truly believes the FOW rules, especially army lists, accurately reflect reality). I've played both casually and in tournaments and have never encountered an attitude such as his, especially since he comes off as such a smarmy pr*ck.

It's a game - which means unless both players make the exact same choices as historical commanders, unless all units perform the exact same actions, and unless no dice rolls are made to reflect successes, losses, and casualties - it's not 100% historically accurate. Wargames have always had a certain "What If?" quality to them and FOW is the apeothesis of this genre.

As far as camouflage/color schemes go, even if you read some of the most respected historians on WW2, you will find that there is never 100% agreement on what the "true" schemes were. The biggest problem is that there are few, if any, true color photos from this time period, especially in the EW period, so the schemes we have now are really just a matter of informed guesswork, pieced together from color pics, surviving examples, and survivor accounts. Add to this the fact that many camo schemes were applied by units in the field and there are huge amounts of variations, even within the widely accepted schemes.

Having played many other, more comprehensive historical wargames, anyone who's approaching FOW as an entirely historically accurate ruleset needs to put their toy soldiers away and go back to reading Stephen Ambrose.

I think you best read the thread again, where have I said anything about FOW OOB's being accurate? I have in fact, on several occasions berated FOW lists on this forum as utter gak.
If you had read my earlier posts properly you would have noticed me saying that although we use FOW because it is convenient and quick to play, we tend to ignore BF's lists and points values and use forces that reflect reality rather then what BF would like you to buy more of.

You are correct, wargames are all about "what if?" But there is a big fu*king difference between what P describes above and early war Brits vs late war Soviets!

You can try and waffle all day long about correct camo colours matey, but what we're talking about here is "Is it OK to paint my Shermans BRIGHT RED" for gods sake.

And just for the record, I have never read a Stephen Ambrose book, pric*.

**Big P**

George Spiggott wrote:
Big P wrote:Please tell me you noted the sarcasm?
It works better if you try to describe an unlikely scene that is at odds with your on-line persona.

All I saw was this...

...stuck to your fridge door, with "by Little P, age 4 and a half" written in the bottom corner.

She tends to draw fairies and Princesses.

You would probably get on well with her... She likes painting tanks bright colours... Hence the pink T-72 I have on my desk that she did for my birthday.

**George Spiggott**

Big P wrote:She tends to draw fairies and Princesses.

You would probably get on well with her... She likes painting tanks bright colours... Hence the pink T-72 I have on my desk that she did for my birthday.

I hope her fairies are historically accurate. Nurture that pink tank spirit in her, it could lead to this:

**Aldramelech**

col. krazy kenny wrote:
Aldramelech wrote:Just as well then because I'd rather not rub shoulders with people who don't take the hobby seriously. A large part of historical wargaming for the vast majority of historical gamers is, wait for it................ HISTORY.

If history is not your thing, if your not interested in researching your chosen period and getting your miniatures right then I would suggest 40k, Warmachine, Secrets of the Third Reich and the host of many fine games out there that allow your imagination run riot.

I spend alot of money and time on my hobby and so do the people I game with and we expect certain standards at our club.

I don't play against people with unpainted figures either, so now you can call me a painting snob as well if it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

And this months NO-prize goes to you.
I guess you would never play in our league of basement dwellers.When we play at one of our houses,it is also a social event.We grill food,drink beer and all of that good stuff.We are in it to play first and devlop new tactics.Sorry if we buy to much stuff and do not have time to paint it or mess with the little fidgity bits.some just do not have the time to paint every day.But that attitude is ok because with what you just said we probably would not play ant games with you.As for not being serious,Every one of are players is a former Servicemen.3 rd cav.,1 st infantry,101st airborne, and 173rd/82 Airborne. on the historcal lists,blame Battle front.
But we are all seriuos gamers.It is that we are not a group of grown men who hang out in hobby shops or ones that do the tourny scene.
trust me we are some pretty good players,some of us have beaten top players in the tourny scene in our area,but mostly Blood bowl.

Were you drunk when you typed this? Whats your point?

**ancientsociety**

Aldramelech wrote:
...we use FOW because it is convenient and quick to play, we tend to ignore BF's lists and points values and use forces that reflect reality rather then what BF would like you to buy more of.

You readily admit FOW isn't historically accurate yet still use it because you can't be bothered using a more realistic complex ruleset!?

Get off your high horse, for god's sake!

Aldramelech wrote:You are correct, wargames are all about "what if?" But there is a big fu*king difference between what P describes above and early war Brits vs late war Soviets!

I don't think myself or anyone else would honestly float the idea of any EW vs. LW force in even a casual game

Aldramelech wrote:You can try and waffle all day long about correct camo colours matey, but what we're talking about here is "Is it OK to paint my Shermans BRIGHT RED" for gods sake.

And just for the record, I have never read a Stephen Ambrose book, pric*.

Man, you seriously need to chill the

out. For someone who's middle-aged, you come off as an immature teenager.

**rooneg**

Big P wrote:You can try and waffle all day long about correct camo colours matey, but what we're talking about here is "Is it OK to paint my Shermans BRIGHT RED" for gods sake.

To be clear, the thread started with someone talking about painting Shermans bright red. It continued on exploring the details of what various people were looking for with regard to the level of historically accurate modeling required for their games.

As someone who's just getting started in FoW I actually found this to be really useful. It seems the answer is "opinions vary, ranging from 'make it as accurate as possible' on one end to 'as long as you've got paint on the miniatures' on the other. Most people seem to rest around the mid point leaning towards historically accurate, i.e. 'make an effort, this is a game in a historical setting after all'." So paint your Shermans red at your own risk, but if you show up with the wrong type of camo on your panzers it's unlikely to cause a scene. All of this varies depending on the exact group of people you intend to play with, so check around first.

**Aldramelech**

I'm not the one calling people a smarmy pric* am I?

And your telling me to chill out? As for the rest of the bolloc*s you've just spat out................

I'm done with this, I've got figures to paint.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

rooneg wrote:
Big P wrote:You can try and waffle all day long about correct camo colours matey, but what we're talking about here is "Is it OK to paint my Shermans BRIGHT RED" for gods sake.
To be clear, the thread started with someone talking about painting Shermans bright red. It continued on exploring the details of what various people were looking for with regard to the level of historically accurate modeling required for their games.

As someone who's just getting started in FoW I actually found this to be really useful. It seems the answer is "opinions vary, ranging from 'make it as accurate as possible' on one end to 'as long as you've got paint on the miniatures' on the other. Most people seem to rest around the mid point leaning towards historically accurate, i.e. 'make an effort, this is a game in a historical setting after all'." So paint your Shermans red at your own risk, but if you show up with the wrong type of camo on your panzers it's unlikely to cause a scene. All of this varies depending on the exact group of people you intend to play with, so check around first.

Possibly the first sensible post in about 4 pages.

**George Spiggott**

ancientsociety wrote:
Aldramelech wrote:You are correct, wargames are all about "what if?" But there is a big fu*king difference between what P describes above and early war Brits vs late war Soviets!

I don't think myself or anyone else would honestly float the idea of any EW vs. LW force in even a casual game

They were eastern front Germans vs desert Brits before Aldramelech mangled his own anecdote. Not even pick up players (with red tanks) will play early war vs late war. Just like nobody plays Wood Elves vs Space Marines.

I once had an idea for an early war panzerkompanie list made up entirely of Panzer IIs and 38(t)s that I could then use in late war as a panzersphah list. I never did it because the differences in tank models and different paint scheme for early and late war would have annoyed me. Of course if I painted them red they'd be equally wrong for both periods.

ArbeitsSchu once had a similar idea about using M48 Pattons for a 'Battle of the Bulge' King Tiger force.

**General Seric**

rooneg wrote:
Big P wrote:You can try and waffle all day long about correct camo colours matey, but what we're talking about here is "Is it OK to paint my Shermans BRIGHT RED" for gods sake.
To be clear, the thread started with someone talking about painting Shermans bright red. It continued on exploring the details of what various people were looking for with regard to the level of historically accurate modeling required for their games.

As someone who's just getting started in FoW I actually found this to be really useful. It seems the answer is "opinions vary, ranging from 'make it as accurate as possible' on one end to 'as long as you've got paint on the miniatures' on the other. Most people seem to rest around the mid point leaning towards historically accurate, i.e. 'make an effort, this is a game in a historical setting after all'." So paint your Shermans red at your own risk, but if you show up with the wrong type of camo on your panzers it's unlikely to cause a scene. All of this varies depending on the exact group of people you intend to play with, so check around first.

QFT, This is a nice summary of what the whole argument comes down to.

So can we just move on?

**punkow**

Well... I'm mostly interested in WH40K but I'm also a regular of a historical gaming group, and I have played a lot of different scenarios and ruleset and now I have my 15mm russian tank division... I'd like to say 2 things to the OP
-First.... FoW is a bad ruleset and it doesn't have historically accurate publications IMHO ( i repeat ... IMHO)...
I prefer Rapid Fire
-Second... Historical wargaming is very different from competitive GW, PP, SG etc. games... The focus of the game is to reenact some historical event and try to change the course of history... but we're still talking about an historical event...
- Third... this leads us to the consideration that very often in historical wargaming, accuracy and passion are much more important than competitiveness and accurate paintjobs are an important part of the game.... Hell... I really don't even understand the concept of FoW tournament... random armies clashing one against the other is something I really cannot link to my idea of historical wargaming...
So yes... If you show up with red shermans you will attract (justified IMHO) criticism, because in historical wargaming, competitive play simply cannot represent the whole hobby like in GW games, and most players will expect historical accuracy and realistic battles...

**marielle**

What an amusing spat.

The problem with the original question is sure you can paint the tank fire engine red, and if you want you can have a platoon of thracians, two bottle tops, and the fairy off the Christmas tree - after all the figures are only game tokens. But what does it really say about your attitude to your opponent?

The fact is, it's not experimental and weird to do what you suggest, it's just really rather silly.

Still well played you have provoked the argument you intended, so well done you...

**Frazzled**

George Spiggott wrote:Would sir prefer the pink?

flower power soviet style!

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Big P wrote:Nah... I'd still be outraged.

I'm outraged at your outrage.

The one positive not been conjured up is have your force following historical accuracy reasonably well. If you want the Pink Smolensk Guards then just have another force. You can field that as a lark against those who are ok with that.

Problem solved.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Polonius wrote:
Cave_Dweller wrote:Well wow, I had no idea this would erupt into the quasi-flame war it has! I think after reading this you've helped me decide which side of the flames of war fence I'll be on. And that's as far from the FoW side as I can get.

Good luck with your hobby and more power to you all, but I can see its not the hobby for me.

I think that's wise.

If you consider expecting a historical army to painted at least somewhat realistically too much historical snobbery, you'd be better served by another game.

,
Here's a Q, how historically accurate (meaning detailed) do you have to be? This Q is aimed at the FOW crowd.
I'm just getting into this. Things like insignia etc. on troops won't be possible. With my eyes I can barely tell a mortar guy from a PIAT guy (I think, maybe not even that, I'll find out tomorrow). So how detailed are we talking?

**Snord**

Aldramelech wrote:
Possibly the first sensible post in about 4 pages.

This was the first response to the OP's first post:

Tailgunner wrote:As you'll see if you read these threads, games like FoW attract players who are totally into the historical issues. Some of them will be pedantic to the point of obsessiveness, and will spend the game lecturing you on tiny points of detail (and in some cases will still actually be wrong). So your red tanks will undoubtably attract some criticism. And it is a historical game, even if it plays a bit fast and loose with the details, so it's probably a bit provocative to do something that extreme. I don't think it would be unreasonable to expect FoW models to bear at least some resemblance to what they were meant to represent. If it's just a case of using the wrong shade of green for olive drab, or painting 1944 Panzers grey instead of dark yellow, then I don't think that should be a big deal.

**GBL**

I think the problem isnt the idea but the ruleset.

OP, you need to target your armies at a game you would like to play. Be it 40K, FOW or plain shelf sitting.

Myself and my group are getting out of 40k in a big way, and i have always loved the idea of historical games(which is why i have been lurking here).

However my usual group wouldnt be seen dead playing historical, so i split the difference. Currently we are playing Tomorrows War.

And i wanted to do something different.

So i grabbed a few boxes of PSC, and some stuff from some other websites(eyeing off a pair of MAUSes) and am painting up an "out of time" german force. Now i am intentionally painting them like WW2 movie germans, mostly for dramatic purposes and due to thats what my friends will understand the easiest. As such i have been reading threads on this forum and intentionally doing the opposite of a lot of suggestions. Especially when they frame their suggestions with "Dont make the hollywood mistake of..."

So when i say i would totally play your red shermans in that context i mean it.

But there is no way i would insult a dedicated historical player by dumping down my gear on the table and demanding they let me play FoW with a force intentionally set up to contradict history.

Doubly so for my Nazi T-Rex

For reference my friends are playing Red Alert style soviets, Alien style Xenomorphs and Predator Predators. (i love 15mm)

**Hordini**

Personally, if someone wants to be creative and push the envelope a bit, I'm not sure why they'd want to do it in a historical game rather than in one of the many science fiction or fantasy games that lend themselves perfectly to that sort of thing.

I'm all for being creative, but I don't really see the point of painting fire engine red Shermans in a historical game when you could just have fire engine red tanks in a Blood Angels army or something like that.

**marielle**

punkow wrote:Historical wargaming is very different from competitive GW, PP, SG etc. games... The focus of the game is to reenact some historical event and try to change the course of history... but we're still talking about an historical event...

I'm not sure where you get this idea.... there were tournaments, points systems etc for historical games long before any of these games systems were inventented....

**ArbeitsSchu**

George Spiggott wrote:
ancientsociety wrote:
Aldramelech wrote:You are correct, wargames are all about "what if?" But there is a big fu*king difference between what P describes above and early war Brits vs late war Soviets!

I don't think myself or anyone else would honestly float the idea of any EW vs. LW force in even a casual game
They were eastern front Germans vs desert Brits before Aldramelech mangled his own anecdote. Not even pick up players (with red tanks) will play early war vs late war. Just like nobody plays Wood Elves vs Space Marines.

I once had an idea for an early war panzerkompanie list made up entirely of Panzer IIs and 38(t)s that I could then use in late war as a panzersphah list. I never did it because the differences in tank models and different paint scheme for early and late war would have annoyed me. Of course if I painted them red they'd be equally wrong for both periods. ArbeitsSchu once had a similar idea about using M48 Pattons for a 'Battle of the Bulge' King Tiger force.

My Afrika Korps box contains at least one M3 half-track for much the same reason, and I still harbor a desire to do an Action Force Red Shadow German army...but then in these cases I'm not trying to be accurate to a historical force, but the Hollywood perception of one, which is still a form of accuracy.

**Snord**

I think it would be fun to wargame the Battle of the Bulge using M-47 Pattons as Tigers - as long as they were painted grey with big German crosses.

**ArbeitsSchu**

I'm just waiting for a "Bulge" release to do it. I'm also pondering a kitbash of some T-34s to make "Kelly's Heroes" Tigers.

I seem to recall a "Dad's Army" force doing the rounds a while back. I see no reason why representing a fictional fighting force should be an issue. FOW is basically the miniature version of 'Commando' and 'Battle' anyway so i see no real issue with fielding such things. Rule of Cool probably over-rides Historical Accuracy in cases like these.

**notprop**

I'm pretty sure the Tigers in Kelly's Heroes were the real deal (though I await some Grognard controdicting that and pointing out that that model was not actually produced until 8.73 weeks after the scene was actually set therefore was historically incorrect, but forgiveable if taken as light-hearted entertainment under the right circumstances).

The Shemans were also Shermans, but the only red paint was from special rounds inspite of Moriartity's negative waves....man.

**col. krazy kenny**

How about urban red camo?

**Snord**

notprop wrote:I'm pretty sure the Tigers in Kelly's Heroes were the real deal (though I await some Grognard controdicting that and pointing out that that model was not actually produced until 8.73 weeks after the scene was actually set therefore was historically incorrect, but forgiveable if taken as light-hearted entertainment under the right circumstances).

I didn't think one had to be a grognard to know that the Tigers in Kelly's Heroes were mock-ups based onT-34s. It was a very good conversion though (I love that film!) - so good that they did the same thing for Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. The only real Tiger I that is a runner is in the Bovington tank museum; it was captured in Tunisia, and lovingly restored fairly recently.

**Big P**

Tailgunner wrote:
notprop wrote:I'm pretty sure the Tigers in Kelly's Heroes were the real deal (though I await some Grognard controdicting that and pointing out that that model was not actually produced until 8.73 weeks after the scene was actually set therefore was historically incorrect, but forgiveable if taken as light-hearted entertainment under the right circumstances).

I didn't think one had to be a grognard to know that the Tigers in Kelly's Heroes were mock-ups based onT-34s. It was a very good conversion though (I love that film!) - so good that they did the same thing for Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. The only real Tiger I that is a runner is in the Bovington tank museum; it was captured in Tunisia, and lovingly restored fairly recently.

The Kellys Heroes (or The Greatest Film Ever Made as I call it) ones are indeed T-34s... The one in Saving Private Ryan was a T-55.

Bovington does have the only 'runner'... and I use that term in the loosest sense. Got to get inside the turret when they were doing the hull work back in the 90s.

Though a crowd in Russia have built a rather good replica.

Oh and can we give over quoting someone else and saying its me...