For Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht raised mountain, light and Jäger divisions. By 1943 all light divisions had been renamed as Jäger divisions, in the same way that motor rifle divisions had been renamed as Panzergrenadier divisions. Much sexier! My light division has always been at the back of the queue for toys, fighting with my Gebirgsjägers and Fallschirmjägers for the limited number of Kettenkrad Sdkfz 2s that I had. Reinforcements of 6 Krads from Syborg 3d Printing have allowed me to swap out Raupenschleppers that had been standing in with the 7.5cm mountain guns in all 3 divisions, with spares for the Luftwaffe ground crews.
The original intention of the light divisions was that they would be the link between mountain divisions and more ponderous standard infantry divisions, fighting nimbly in wooded and built up terrain. Barbarossa, and the Soviets did not oblige in that respect, and they often found themselves thrown into the line, where the terrain did not cooperate, and where they needed as much artillery as their line infantry brethren.

My light division is a mix of troops of varying levels of painting and vintage. Nowadays, my painting style wavers between minimal1 and comic book2, depending on mood and energy levels. The light Division got the Comic Book treatment.

Given that Waffenfarben can be almost invisible in the field, even close-up, it didn’t stop me putting meadow green/grass green (grün) splotches onto the shoulders of the figures.

… and if camouflage makes everything the same colour at a distance3 , anything that gives the viewer the sense that “wow, he’s put a lot of detail into those figures” is a toy soldier conceit. If I’m only doing it to pass the time, and for pleasure, then it makes sense to exaggerate the colour differences of different bits of equipment, to separate them out on the figure. You can blame Old School or the Sci-fi and fantasy painters for leading me down this route. Take your pick 🙂
… so here are the Jägers, resplendent in their new box, and with very little paint chipped off them. I’ve also updated the Orbat page.

The drop off in my regular postings is entirely due to having to waste time learning the new block system, now that the default classic editor has been turned off. Still, it’s free. Oh, and two days in, I’ve just discovered where the classic editor has been hidden. Excellent!
- Basecoat, face, Ink shading, then perhaps guns and helmets. In 15mm this counts as “realistic”.
- Think four-colour Eagle or Judge Dredd comics, with brighter colours for visibility.
- Vallejo #0038 Really Hard to See 🙂