Panzer IV D Platoon

This is a platoon of three Panzer IV D tanks for my early war German Pioneer company. I'm also considering building a Czech Panzer Platoon which would also be able to have these as part of its TO&E. These are Battlefront miniatures that I've had sitting in my dead lead box for somewhere over five years. When the new Blitzkrieg book came out I rifled through all my old unpainted WWII lead and these were one of the things I had that made me go, 'Oooh! I can use THOSE!'. 

I was expecting these to have better stats in the early war book, but they're actually rated pretty lightly as far as armor goes: Front: 3, Side: 2, Top: 1. In comparison a Panzer III is rated 3,3,1 respectively. These do have a few reasons that they'll be fun to have on the tabletop. First they have a respectable anti-tank factor of 7 using their 7.5 cm KwK37 gun firing direct, second they can fire smoke against single enemy targets, and third, they can fire bombardments out to 48".  As an infantry support tank these last two are very nice to have. In an all-armor force the bombardments can be used to soften up dug-in infantry and the smoke can silence enemy AT guns.

Originally when I decided to start my Pioneer company I had anticipated choosing a platoon of Stug A Assault guns as my armor support. I may still do that when those models become available, but since I already had these it was a no-brainer to paint them up and give them a try. If I don't end up liking them I can always sell them on Ebay!

While I had these on the painting table I also painted up some transport and guns for my next project, a battery of two 10.5 cm howitzers and a single 8.8 cm '88' AA gun. I'll post those when I've finished the crew figures and base them up.