FoW: Slovak Motorised Infantry

Hello Gents once more!

Today we are going on a slightly different type of journey because today there is not too much of drilling down into an historical analysis of the formation type that we will be looking at.

The reason for this is that thus far I can only find the brush strokes of this troop type and not so much of the small unit details.

Today we will be delving (somewhat) into the inner workings of the Slovakian Motorised Infantry!

When Slovakia declared its independence from the Czech state under the coercion of Hitler and his thugs [an interesting aside here is that some of the main supporters of increased Slovak autonomy such as Karol Sidor and even Tiso himself decided that the Slovaks wanted, at the start of 1939 to remain a part of the Czechoslovakian state!] one of the issues that became apparent was that the armed forces remaining to the Slovaks were under supplied in the area of motor vehicles and what soon proved to be an even more severe problem was the lack of qualified engineers that were left in Slovakia.

By the time of the Munich Crisis in 1938 Czechoslovakia was able to field four Mobile (in Czech 'Rychla' or 'Rapid') Divisions. In March of 1939 the V, VI and VII Corps were stationed within the territory of Slovakia consisting of the 9th, 10th, 11th, 15th and 16th Infantry Divisions and the 3rd Mobile Division. These Divisions were all under strength due to the exodus of Czech serving soldiers but importantly not only was all of their equipment left within Slovakia but also the Czechs had numerous arms depots and magazines stationed in Slovakia which they had judged as being the safest part of the country.

New officers needed to be assigned to the formations with vacant command positions and in line with this Staff Captain Dubravec was assigned as the nominal commander of the 3rd Mobile Division. This shines a very stark light on how short on qualified manpower the Slovak state actually was at this time as the 3rd Mobile Division should have been led  by an officer holding a rank of Major General and instead command devolved onto the shoulders of a Captain.

Before the dissolution of the Czechoslovakian state the ideal constitution of one of these Mobile Divisions was of two Brigades taking inspiration from the French Division Legere order of battle although influenced by current German experiences.

Each Mobile Division was to comprise of one Cavalry Brigade and one Motorised Brigade. The Cavalry Brigade would include two Dragoon Regiments, a Bicycle mounted battalion and an artillery group whilst the Motorised Brigade would comprise two motorised infantry regiments mounted in trucks and an artillery group. 

However all of the Czechoslovakian Mobile Divisions were under-strength and as Slovakia was considered the safest part of the country the areas mobile reserve had been flensed of its assets. By the time the Slovak state declared its independence the 3rd Mobile Division had no truck mounted infantry assets at all, and a much reduced complement of tanks and armoured cars. 

The Slovak government realised what kind of precarious position they were in and immediately undertook the reorganisation of its armed forces in order to bring about a degree of military effectiveness that was expandable and dependable. The Hungarians had already invaded and occupied Ruthenia before any of this reorganisation was able to be started let alone completed.

The beginning of the growth of the Slovak Mobile Division began on 5 September 1939 when  the Slovak General Staff decided on the formation of Fast Group 'Kalinciak' under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Jan Imro. This unit comprised a squadron of cavalry, a bicycle mounted infantry company and a motorised unit.

The motorised unit had one company of tanks, a company of armoured cars and a company of anti-tank guns... but no infantry! They were instead assigned to work in cooperation with the advance of the Slovak 2nd Infantry Division 'Skultety' also under the command of Jan Imro.

The Slovak army went through a couple more reorganisations before the next major milestone in Slovakian military history; the invasion of the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941.

Slovakia had been preparing to assist the Wehrmacht in invading the Soviet Union since early 1941 and on the day that the German army rolled across the borders into the Soviet Union eight classes of reservists were called up, amounting to around 68,000 men. On the same day as the state was placed on a war footing General Catlos, the Minister of Defence ordered the formation of a 'Mobile Group' for use on the Eastern Front under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Rudolf Pilfousek.

The Mobile Group consisted of its Headquarters, the 2nd Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron (JPO-2), a tank battalion with two tank companies, two companies of anti-tank guns, a motorised artillery battalion and the asset that is of particular interest to us here; the 1st Battalion of the 6th Infantry Regiment, all supported by ancillary units provided by the 2nd Infantry Division.

Motorised Infantry Battalion II/6 based in Stara Wies comprised the following:

3x Infantry Companies

1x HMG Company

1x Anti-Tank Platoon

1x 7.5cm artillery battery

1x Engineer Platoon

The total assets were: 14x officers, 629x men, 341x rifles, 162x pistols, 38x LMGs, 12x HMG's, 4x 3.7cm AT Guns, 4x 7.5cm Artillery Pieces, 33 Trucks, 2 Staff Cars, 2x Motorcycles and 8x Bicycles.

The composition of the Infantry Company was absolutely no different to those infantry companies that were marching and was as follows:

Company HQ

20x Men (I can't find any information on the breakdown of this unit unfortunately)

3x Infantry Platoons each comprising of:

Platoon HQ:

1x Lieutenant (9mm vz.34 handgun)

1x Platoon Sergeant (7.92mm vz.24 rifle)

1x Orderly (7.92mm vz.24 rifle)

1x Runner (7.92mm vz.24 rifle)

3x Rifle Sections each comprising of:

1x Corporal (7.92mm vz.24 rifle)

1x Lance Corporal (7.92mm vz.24 rifle)

1x vz.26 LMG Team

     1x Gunner (9mm vz.34 handgun)

     1x Assistant Gunner (7.92mm vz.24 rifle)

     2x Ammunition Carriers (7.92mm vz.24 rifle)

2x Grenadiers (7.92mm vz.24 rifle and grenades)

5x Riflemen (7.92mm vz.24 rifle)

It was this Mobile Group and especially this Infantry Battalion that fought the Battle of Lipovec on 22nd July, exactly one month after driving over the Soviet border and crossing the San river. Whilst Lipovec was a strategic victory for the Slovaks, tactically it shone a light on some serious issues. Chief amongst these was the fact that a single infantry battalion was not strong enough to take on prepared defences in numbers that the Soviets were so fond of and of perhaps greater concern was the fact that the Germans were now witnessing the fact that the Slovak troops had become especially sensitive to Soviet Artillery or Mortar fire frequently abandoning their positions. This all precipitated the next reorganisation which took place on 23 July 1941, a mere day after the battle.

General Catlos decided to reorder all Slovak units on the Eastern Front into two divisions; the Mobile Division and the Security Division. The operational order to cause this to happen was issued on 25th July and named Colonel Turanec as the commander of the Mobile Division.

At its formation the Mobile Division had no armoured vehicles at all as they had all been sent back to Slovakia for repairs. It consisted only of two Motorised Infantry Regiments and an Artillery Regiment. For the next three weeks the Division stayed around Lvov whilst the infantry were trained to cooperate with the artillery. From here, after training was completed, the new Division was sent forwards to meet up with the remains of the original Mobile Group with which it would combine.

The Mobile Division achieved its final form by 22 August 1941 where it moved on to Skviro, where it trained for several more weeks.

The final composition of the Mobile Division was as follows:

Headquarters

Infantry Regiment 20

Infantry Regiment 21

Artillery Regiment 11

Reconnaissance Group 11

Communications Battalion 2

Engineer Battalion 11

Mountain Battery 11

Anti-Tank Company 11

Anti-Aircraft Group

Automotive Workshop

Quartermasters Unit

The elements that interest us here are the Motorised Infantry Regiments. IR20 was considerably larger than IR21 and had the following assets:

57 officers, 1966 NCO's and men, 1552 rifles, 623 handguns, 101 light machine guns, 24 heavy machine guns, 12 3.7cm anti-tank guns, 4 7.5cm field guns, 169 trucks, 51 staff cars, 2 motorcycle and sidecars, 30 motorcycles and 50 bicycles.

Infantry Regiment 21 had the following assets:

63 officers, 1765 NCO's and men, 1183 rifles, 493 handguns, 63 light machine guns, 25 heavy machine guns, 10 mortars, 12 3.7cm anti-tank guns, 4 7.5cm field guns, 171 trucks, 35 staff cars, 2 motorcycles and sidecars, 26 motorcycles and 62 bicycles.

The entire Division had a complement of 893 trucks, 201 staff cars, 6 motorcycle and sidecars, 133 motorcycles and 282 bicycles.

The rapid advances of the Mobile Division and occasional soviet air raids took their toll on the vehicles of the Slovak automotive pool. The somewhat large variety of trucks and cars that were being used were designed in the pre-war Czech era with the excellent Czechoslovakian road network in mind and as such the Automotive Workshop had its hands well and truly full. By the time the Division was called to halt and cover the shores of the Sea of Azov at the beginning of November they felt it was long overdue.

Soon after calling this halt however all but one of the infantry battalions was redeployed to the Mius River to form a defensive line. They immediately found themselves embroiled in savage and bitter Soviet assaults as the covering German divisions fled around their positions. The Division, much to its credit, managed to hold onto its positions and even launched a collection of local counterattacks pushing back the Soviets. By the end of November the situation had again stabilised and a new defensive line was constructed. At this time Colonel Turanec was replaced by the popular Colonel Malar.

The Division remained in this position for 7 months, covering 12km of the axis front line, during which time the Soviets repeatedly failed in trying to puncture the Divisions lines. Over Christmas 1941 the Soviet army staged a massive armoured assault and yet the Division still held them back.

The Mobile Division was taken out of the line in June '42 when it was given time to rest and recuperate. The seven months on the Mius had cost the Division 119 dead, 576 wounded and 89 missing.

The front line started moving again on 19 July 1942 and along with it went the Mobile Division, now commanded again by the newly promoted General Turanec. By this time the Division was so finely tuned that the truck convoys, supported by the Automotive Workshops frequently outpaced their German allies reaching Rostov-on-Don on the 22 July. By September the Division had advanced more than 800km from their previous winter positions on the River Mius.

General Turanec was replaced by Colonel Jurech in September who held extreme anti-fascist sentiments. The Division took up defensive positions south of Krasnodar remaining there for several months during which time officers who had sympathetic views to Colonel Jurech made contact with the Red Army and attempted to arrange a defection en masse for 28 January 1943.

The rapidly changing situation on the front lines however precipitated a rapid withdrawal from the front for the Division and the opportunity was lost.

Now joined by some of its armour, in the face of a furious Soviet offensive the Division was forced to fall back to a succession of positions in an effort to stem the Soviet advance...

...and this is where it all went horribly wrong!

On 31 January 1943 the Division was again ordered out of the defensive line and this time received orders to redeploy to the Crimea taking all equipment possible and destroying whatever had to be left behind.

About half of the Divisions manpower was airlifted to the Crimea with only their small arms whilst the remaining men and heavy equipment were rushed to Taman where they were caught in the harbour by repeated Soviet airstrikes. They finally managed to board the ships and were ferried to the Crimea.

The material losses were huge with the entire Division being left with only one tank and only 237 trucks and 29 of its staff cars. The remnants of the Division eventually retreated to Romania alongside their German allies where they were converted into the 1st Technical Division responsible for building and construction work...

...the Slovak Mobile troops heyday had now come and gone!

So there we have it, another potted history of the formations that Slovakia was able to put into the field. Now we will take a look at what I did in the modelling and painting part of getting this army fit for use.

Now you will notice that there are a lot of Praga RV trucks in this particular part of the army. They were all sculpted, cast and painted by yours truly and I aim to do a blog post dedicated to the stuff that I have actually sculpted and cast myself for the army and as such I wont deal with them here but instead what I will do is cover how I did all of the infantry (and for those with more than your average Wombat's IQ, yes it is exactly the same techniques that I outlined in the Slovak Infantry post).

You may also notice that in this company there are only two bases per section. This is because I have decided to follow Alex's Poland in Flames Slovakian Motorised Infantry composition until such times as I can (and indeed have the inclination to do so) draw up a new Intelligence Briefing that covers the Slovaks through the war...

Before we go any further I should point out that every single miniature in this company was a Battlefront 15mm Romanian until I nipped off their heads and replaced them with Peter Pig heads to turn them into Slovaks. Either the ones with the Slovak Helmets that Martin sculpted for me or else the ones with the Soviet Pilotka Caps which fulfil a good proxy for the Slovak field caps.

So, where painting all of the infantry is concerned its a relatively simple affair. They are done the way that I do them to look good from about 5ft away. Scrutinise them from up close and all of the flaws in the painting will probably slap you in the face but from arms length away they look splendid!.

The first step is to prime, and as with most of my other historical stuff, I prime with a black etch primer. You can buy these from any hardware store but the 'etch' in the primer ensures an exceptionally strong substrate to the acrylic layers that will go over the top, the etch actually referring to a micro dilute acidic content that eats microscopically into the surface of the model creating an uneven surface for the paint to clutch to whilst providing a nice and smooth top layer as the paint levels out and dries.

The lions share of the work done on WW2 miniatures is the main uniform and where the Slovaks are concerned after a somewhat lengthy research period I decided to ditch the (re)coloured photos from the past and go with the uniform colours that all of the re-enactors in Czechoslovakia are using at the moment. In my experience all of these re-enactment guys are anal about accuracy so I would trust their opinions a lot more than raggedy old photos with amateur enthusiast recolour treatments.

My base coat was done with Vallejo's 887 Brown Violet for the deepest layers of the uniform. The first highlight, which presents the largest overall surface area that will be seen at the end was done with MIG's 113 Khaki Green No3 (Brit 1939-1942) with the final highlights along all of the raised edges being completed with MIG's 058 Light Green Khaki. This covers all of the cloth uniform and the puttees.

The helmet has a single coat of 50/50 mix of Vallejo's 897 Bronze Green and Vallejo's 887 Brown Violet with the blue helmet band having a basecoat of Vallejo's 925 Intense Blue, highlighted with a 50/50 mix of Vallejo's 925 Intense Blue and Vallejo's 943 Blue Grey. The little Slovak crosses are all hand painted with thinned down Vallejo's 820 Offwhite.

Everything else is all gravy after painting the uniform.

All of the Canvas bags and straps have a basecoat of Vallejo's 921 English Uniform applied with block highlights of AK Interactives 3072 M-44 Uniform Green Ochre Khaki whilst the leather belts and ammo pouches are basecoated in Vallejo's 045 Charred Brown and highlighted with Vallejo's 983 Flat Earth.

The boots are any matt black whilst the Gas Mask Tins are basecoated with Vallejo's 980 Black Green and highlighted with Lifecolor's UA224 Olive Drab Faded Type 2.

The rifle bodies are basecoated with Vallejo's 826 German Camo Medium Brown with the highlighted grain lines painted with Vallejo's 981 Orange Brown. All metal work is painted black firstly and highlighted with Molten Metals Steel. The rifle straps are basecoated with Vallejo's 880 Khaki Grey and highlighted with a 50/50 mix of Vallejo's 880 Khaki Grey and Vallejo's 819 Iraqi Sand.

Where the skin is concerned you can paint it how you please but personally I use one of AK Interactive's paint sets for 'Flesh and Skin Colours' and I've never looked back!

All of the bases are actually really simple. I buy all of my bases from Tony at East Riding Miniatures. Hes a bit of a legend and REALLY helpful. They are all laser cut MDF which allows for easy scoring of the base surface.

I then glue the miniatures to the scored surface and apply a thin layer of tile grout over the top. Once this is dry I glue a layer of one of my sand mixes over the top. Generally speaking I create my own mixes for base coverings as I REALLY don't like a lot of the crap you buy from the shops. Its generally speaking far too gaudy in colour or uniform in texture for my tastes.

I like the generally fine sand BUT I like to have lots of the little stones in there so I can create some colour contrasts with the dirt on the bases.

Once dry the whole base is given a basecoat of Vallejo's 826 German Camo Medium Brown and given a heavy drybrush of Vallejo's 814 Green Ochre.

All of the little stones on the bases are then given a basecoat of Vallejo's 995 German Grey and roughly highlighted (to create a jagged uneven texture) with any lighter grey of your choice but personally I go with Vallejo's 992 Neutral Grey.

The sides of the bases are now painted Matt Black. I never used to bother with this BUT I've really gotten into the clean precise look this lends to the bases. I love it now.

Now we come to the final stage of the bases which is the covering. The static flock that I use is my own mix. I go for something that approximates the dead and dry grass you find on the Steppes with perhaps a little more green in it than usual. This allows an overall base aesthetic that can be used the length of Europe in my opinion.

To provide the final textural boost to the bases though I use a variety of clumps. I had a LOT of problems finding ones that I felt were suitable but after a couple of years I came across a company called Tajima Miniatures whose self adhesive tufts are without a doubt the best I have ever found. I use their stuff by the bucket load now, in great variety. 

These all add to the final colour and texture of the bases of this army.

...and there we have it. Another investigation into the inner workings of the Slovakian military and their BAYONETS!!!!