1:72 Luftwaffe Field Division infantry (WWII)

Soldiers who became infantry only during the war

The Luftwaffe field divisions came about from 1942 onward out of surplus ground personnel who, once flying activity had been cut back, were left without a use. The men came from ground services, from anti-aircraft batteries and from training centers, that is from nowhere where they would have learned foot combat. Their training and their command lagged behind the army formations, and at the end of 1943 the divisions passed under ground command.

A group that differs from its surroundings in color

For a modeler, what matters is exactly the thing that set these units apart. They wore uniforms in the Luftwaffe shade, that is blue-gray, to which army equipment, helmets and weapons were gradually added. What came about was an incongruous combination that is visible at once in a small scale and that can be put to use: in a mixed scene it sets one group apart from another without a single caption or marking.

How to make a scene of it

Put them in a situation in which their inexperience is legible. A knot of men huddled too close together, a man looking at his neighbor instead of out into the field, an NCO pointing with his hand in the direction they are to advance. Leave open ground around the group, and turn a second, separately standing figure with his back to the viewer; the tension comes from the difference between the knot and the lone soldier.

The color side

Leave the blue-gray shade faded and slightly toward green, as after months in the field the color lost its cool cast. Leave the army parts of the equipment in their original green, so that the difference stays plain.