Gotta Do My Research...

Getting into a game like Flames of War is not for the faint hearted.  Not if you're as crazy as I am, that is...

I've always been interested in Generalfeldmarschall Rommel and the Deustches Afrikakorps, and so that will be my chosen army for Flames of War. (well, it will be my first army in Flames of War, but we'll see how it goes) So you might think that all I have to do is pick up some Panzers, paint them desert yellow, and I'm good to go. The problem is, I'm not that easy to please. I'm a nerd, so I need to do some background research. My Afrikakorps force needs to have the right paint scheme for the period, the vehicles need the right markings, and so on. And I need to know more about the campaigns than I do. The Flames of War North Africa sourcebook has some useful information in it, but not to the level of detail that I'm looking for.

So it's the Osprey books to the rescue!



I've already bought the second row of books in the above list, which will give me a good historical background of some of the major battles. But it's the first row that will give me the meat on the organization and equipment of the Afrikakorps--I'm just waiting for them to go back on sale and I'll be picking those up. I've already learned that for the North Africa campaign, the Afrikakorps' vehicles arrived in their in a standard German dark grey scheme:

Later they were painted a desert tan...

 (was going to put a pic here...but a color picture of a real panzer is this scheme is proving hard to find!)

...and later still they were painted a lighter shade of desert tan:

I also need to figure out the meaning of the three digit vehicle codes. Is it kompanie-zug-wagen (company-platoon-vehicle), or is it something else?  This is important stuff!