Danish Armored Reconnaissance Squadron

After the past weekend's break from my regular painting routine, it's back to the salt mine this week. East Germans and Danes. Danes and East Germans. 

This week, I'm finishing off a Danish armored reconnaissance squadron. In 1981, it would have consisted of two troops of light tanks; unmodernized M41 Walker Bulldogs:

Also three squads of infantry (some squadrons had four), each mounted in an M113A1:

And a platoon of six reconnaissance Land Rovers (likely to be 88's):

This particular photo is of a British Army reconnaissance 88, but the Danish ones would be configured more or less identically, but substituting MG3's for the L7 GPMG's:

As usual, O8 doesn't have armed Land Rovers, other than the 110 SOV, so I have to grit my teeth and use it. And they don't have 88's period.

The squadron commander would be mounted in a Danish home grown M113A1 command vehicle, as Denmark never bought M577's:

The only differences from a standard M113A1 were extra radios, a 1kw generator mounted on the top deck, and the internal bay was converted into a small "office". 

And everyone together for the obligatory group shot:

Officers in the rear. Isn't that always the way?

The upcoming three day weekend has me full of plans to get loads of painting done, while it has Mrs. HistoryPhD full of plans to prevent me from getting that accomplished. Need I say whose plans will win out?  See you next time!

Danish infantry platoon TO&E

I've already covered the TO&E I use for making East German infantry platoon stands, so this weekend, I'll go over how I structure a Danish platoon. 

After a bit of Internet research, a platoon of Danish infantry in the early 80s was made up of 3 squads. Each squad consisted of 4 riflemen, a 2 man LMG crew (the MG was a German made MG3):

And a Carl Gustav with a two man crew:

Two M72 LAWs were also issued to each squad:

 

So this makes my platoon stand 12 rifles, 3 LMGs, and 3 Carl Gustavs. In the early 80s, individual platoons had no MANPADS, which seems to me to be a significant handicap. Six two-man Hamlet teams (the Danish name for the US Redeye) mounted in Land Rovers were assigned at the brigade level, to be parceled out to the infantry battalions: 

They weren't replaced by Stingers until the later 80s. 

Additionally, each mechanized company had a pair of M125 mortar carriers (81mm): 

Motorized units substituted 3 mortars carried by a Unimog 1300L. 

In other news, I used this weekend to finish the East German T-55 company that was missing from the panzer battalion for my motor rifle regiment, which is slowly taking shape. Here's the entire battalion, including command, in one of GHQs bunker boxes:

I also made a start on a Danish armored reconnaissance squadron. Here are 2 troops of M41 Walker Bulldogs:

A friend mentioned "Oh! They're not exactly correct. They're not M41 DKs!" No they aren't. However, Danish M41s didn't begin the upgrade process to DK standard until 1983 (being completed in 1985), so because I begin my scenario on March 30, 1981, they would still have been standard, unmodernized M41s:

And just for conversation's sake, here's an M41 DK:

The visible differences being the addition of a laser range-finder box above the gun barrel, Leopard-style scalloped side-skirts, and a truly enormous turret bustle.

That polishes off this weekend. Another installment in a few days, if not before!