Rheinmetall's Panzer Puncher: German PaK 36 for 28mm WWII Wargaming

After an extended sojourn in the grim darkness of the far future, I got back to basics by finally painting up my PaK 36 model. I haven't painted any WWII figures since a couple of Soviet casualty figures in late December, and haven't featured any new figures on the blog in almost a year.

This is the exceptional plastic model from Rubicon, spruced up with a crew made from Warlord's plastic Germans. I didn't much care for the Rubicon crew, I don't think they match the style of the rest of my Germans very well. It took me forever to get around to painting this model, partially because the very specific spare ammo canisters went missing in my bits box for several months after I finished kitbashing the figures.

The PaK 36 is greatly maligned among history buffs and wargamers, considered weak to the point of ineffectiveness against French and Soviet tanks. While that reputation is not totally unearned, the guns still made up the backbone of the panzerjager forces for a good chunk of the war, serving alongside later PaK 38s and 40s.

Wargamers often want to have the biggest gun or biggest tank. But most historical wargamers should remember that soldiers didn't always have access to these preferred weapons. For example, while the T-34 and KV-1/2 tanks were present in the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, they were fair outnumbered by BT-7, T-26 and older generations of tanks, which the PaK 36 seems to have done admirably against.

Now that I've spent some ink defending the little 37mm gun, surely it won't betray me by letting me down when I get it on the table... right?

While I had the feldgrau out for the crew I painted up a spare rifleman I had kicking around.

The PaK 36 joins my Rubicon PaK 38 and PaK 40 (which I don't have photos of handy) in fleshing out my German anti-tank collection.

The observant among you will note that the Chain of Command ruleset calls for a gun crew of five men plus a Junior Leader, and I've only modeled five men to go with each gun. At some point, I'll either model additional crew or specifically model a gun commander figure. I doubt the two guns will both be on the table at the same time, so I can also steal a member from one crew to get the other up to snuff.

The next German gun that should be on my list is a 75mm LeIG 18 infantry gun with the appropriate early war crew. It's a weapon I'm fond of and a useful tool on the tabletop, but I've yet to lay hands on an appropriate model yet, so I wouldn't expect to see one anytime too soon.

I've recently bought some STLs for a couple German and Soviet vehicles that are (at time of writing) only available as costly resin and metal sets. I'm not sure when I'll get those printed and table-ready, but ideally this summer? Keep your eyes peeled.