Field of Battle Kursk Project

After a few games of Field of Battle WW2 (FOBWW2), I decided to embark on a new WW2 project using the FOBWW2 rules. The smallest unit in the game is a company. Commands are battalions and brigades. The rules make it easily possible to fight a division versus a division.

Each day lasts 3 turns (AM, PM, and Night).

After re-reading Glantz's Kursk book, I realized much of the action described in the book could be recreated with the FOBWW2 rules. For the first Kursk project, I selected a recreation of 1st SS Panzergrenadier Division LAH's attempt to seize Prokhorovka.

From 10 July 1943 to 15 July 1943, the LAH Division attempted to fight its way into Prokhorovka. It was opposed by a tremendous quantity of Soviet armor, infantry, airborne troops, and entrenched AT guns. The Germans start on the left side of the table and immediately have to seize Hill 241.6 right in front of them. By the end of the scenario, SSLAH Division has to have seized all four town sections of Prokhorovka on the right board edge to win the game.

One of my fellow Piqueters, Jed, agreed to participate in this project with me. I already had a decent collection of 10mm American and German troops, but no Soviets. My calculations have shown me that we will need to paint up the entire SS LAH Division as well as a Soviet Guards Airborne Division, a Soviet Tank Corps, a few motorized rifle brigades, and several AT artillery, assault gun, and heavy tank regiments. I currently have enough painted Germans to field half of what we will need.

We normally use 3 stands per company because we like the look on the table, but for this project, Jed and I agreed to only use 2 stands per company to reduce the troop congestion on the table (and reduce the painting load).

I have a lot of Pendraken infantry and vehicles. I also have approximately 30 pre-painted German 1/144 tanks. I ordered some samples from Pithead and I was happy with how closely the Pithead vehicles matched up with the plastic armor. I also recently purchased 48! 1/144 pre-painted plastic T-34's at Historicon, so that should help the painting chore list also:


I sat down and painted 10 Pithead Soviet infantry stands to see how they would turn out. With 10 poses per bag, I was happy with the results. After 2 hours of painting, only 90 stands left to go!:


The tank is an un-based plastic T-34. We'll base and touch them up.

The middle bunker is an AT gun bunker I made for this project out of Sculpey and toothpicks. The Soviet AT fortifications really wore down the Germans throughout this battle. I thought it turned out pretty well and I have some ideas for improving on this test model. I need to make 7 more and I didn't feel like buying a bunch of 10mm AT guns if I could make them myself.


The circle stand is a Soviet battalion command stand. The Pithead infantry looks really nice and I'm very happy with them. They also make tank riders we can put on out T-34's.

A few close-ups:


Here are more pictures of my awesome AT bunker: