KAMPFGRUPPE NORMANDY AT 28mm

One of the most common questions I have been asked is why the game is 20mm (see earlier article for the answer), but I am aware that 28mm is a popular and growing scale to play WWII wargames with. Big battles at 28mm isn’t really my bag, although I do have quite a bit of 28mm stuff, mostly infantry, and enjoy the occasional infantry skirmish. When playing at that scale I don’t use tanks or artillery at all, so KGN would not be my first choice for rules.

That said, for those wishing to play the ‘big battle’ game at 28mm the rules will work just fine. Here are my tweaks and notes to alter the scale and give little more detail to the infantry.

Command and Control

Don’t change at all, it’ll work as written.

Movement

Don’t change at all. The distances are relative to the table size, and as such will be just fine. For detail with infantry movement, I’d rate a few more terrain pieces and obstacles as difficult ground for them, reducing their movement by a D6. So dense woods would be difficult ground, and bocage hedgerows would be linear obstacles.

Shooting

Ranges

When playing with the larger models the ranges on the weapons will seem very short. Double them all. So, Close assault range becomes 0-16”, Short range 16-32”, Effective 32-48”, etc.

This is going to close-up the ranges, and mean most of a tabletops engagements take place at close assault, short and effective range, unless you can play on a very larger table. This is fine, so the 28mm battle becomes a close quarters engagement, where infantry side arms have a more decisive effect on the battle, which befits the scale. 

Small Arms Firepower

The game rates all side arms, be they rifles, sub-machineguns, pistols etc as firepower 1. It just doesn’t worry about the specifics. In a game of tank combat this generalisation works fine, but when the infantry are 28mm tall and you can clearly see what they are armed with then it’s worth including a little more detail.

28mm Small Arms Firepower Table

                                       Firepower           Maximum Range

Rifle                                       1                             48”

Semi-automatic rifle¹             1.5                           48”

Submachine gun                     2                             16”

Pistol                                     1                             16”

Assault Rifle²                        2/1                           32”

Light Machine Gun                 2                             64”

Medium Machine Gun            5                             64”

Heavy Machine Gun               7                             64”

¹ For semi-automatic rifles round any fractions up.

² Assault Rifles have firepower 2 at 0-16” and firepower 1 at 16-32”.

Indirect Fire

The 8” ‘danger-zone’ from Indirect Fire’s target point means these are very tight barrages at 28mm scale. Expanding it to 16” means that most of the table is in danger from a mortar barrage, and will mean that friendly fire becomes a common occurrence, perhaps so much so it’s not worth the risks. I’d split the difference and play with a 12” danger zone around the target marker for each stonk. That still makes it large and risky, but means you can sometimes keep away from your own artillery targets.

PANTHER SQUADRON

This was something of an unplanned addition to my German forces. Whilst visiting a Nottingham model shop I came across three Altaya ‘Legendäre Kampfpanzer’ diecast models on sale at just £5 each. The models are fine, but the paint jobs dreadful (flat spray, no highlighting or weathering - see below), but to me they did not seem beyond redemption - and at £15 for a pre-made squadron with the basecoat painting complete it was too good to be ignored. 

So I spent an evening happy upgrading my impulse buy. First off I sprayed the models with a good layer of gloss varnish, so they were very shiny. Next, I gave each tank a generous all over wash with spirit-thinned black and dark brown oil paints. The gloss varnish allowed the oil paints to run very rapidly and neatly into all the depths around rivets, bolts and plates. The oil paints then had to be left to dry over night.

The next task was to repaint a few details, adding extra camouflage paint in green and some highlights on the dunkel-geld. I also painted out the same numbers and added new ones with transfers. Once dry I gave the models a careful coating of spray matt varnish. This I repeated to get rid of the gloss. Any parts I couldn’t reach with spray I hand painted matt varnish onto, and then added weather powders to the tracks, wheels and surrounding area. First a mid-brown, followed by light earth colour over the top. 

The final stage was to tear up a few strands of Woodland Scenics clump foliage and stick them on with a dab of superglue.

Over all it was very quick and easy. I tried to get a few crew on them, but the model’s diecast construction meant I was going to wreck the model to open up the hatches. So no crew this time, but they are ready to stalk the hedgerows.