Having become bogged down in a Cold War build, I've gone off on a tangent and built Tamiya's ancient white metal infantry Gun; I plan to populate the model with figures from Tamiya's equally venerable Pak 37 crew; the figures are dynamic enough although I plan to replace the heads and show the earlier WW1 type steel helmet.

I have been unable to discern whether or not the crew to these guns were from the Infantry, or Artillery, can any Wehrmacht experts help with this? I really need to know not least for the appropriate Waffenfarbe colour.

The Tamiya figures are quite sparse in their personal equipment; they do come with towing straps for moving these guns, but not much personal stuff (ammo pouches, supporting straps, etc.)

If they should be Infantry, surely they would be adorned with the full range of personal equipment; can anyone help?

Ditto for the Artillery really although conceivably some personal kit could be left with a Limber or such.

I appreciate the figures will need a fair bit of modifying but having roughly placed them in position I think I might be able to bring it off. I will show them wearing coloured exercise helmet bands and might put the gun in the earlier Reichswehr colour scheme.

Thanks in advance.

Brian

Brian,
The clue is in the designation, LIG, Leichte Infanterie Geschutze, Light Infantry Gun. It was exclusively issued to infantry regiments, and was one of the first new pieces of equipment designed for the Reichswehr in the 1920's. The German infantry regiment establishment included a gun company, in the case of horse-drawn units with a mixed a mixed company of 2 SIG (150mm) and 6 LIG (75mm). So the crew should be infantry (white Waffenfarbe). The most interesting technical feature of the gun was the shot-gun breech. The barrel pivoted near the muzzle end of the cradle exposing the chamber. This made for very fast loading and firing in keeping with it's function as a direct fire support weapon. This feature was only really applicable to a comparatively small calibre weapon.

Steve,

That is what I thought/hoped; after all, training an Infantryman to operate this equipment would have been no more technically demanding, than say, training him as a Mortarman. I was put slightly off track by the assertion somewhere that the larger sIG 33 was a proper Artillery piece but it seems you've put that to rest as well, so thanks!

At least now after I've sanded the figures to death, I can equip them as proper Infantrymen.

This little gun builds up into an attractive little model; I might even be tempted to track down the equally venerable plastic version by Esci. We'll see.

Thanks again,

Brian

On a related note, are there any pics of the ammo box (wooden) open showing ammo arrangement and/or divisions? I've already checked my primary reference source (Google) - plenty of pics of closed box, markings, and dimensions, but no open box.

I'd forgotten about these - I'll need a couple for my planned vignette; all details welcome!

http://wehrmachts.kisten.free.fr/75mm_le_ig18_2.htm

HTH

Sean

Well, that's a hell of a website! Thanks very much Sean, just the job.

Brian

Dohh!!