May 1940: somewhere in the Netherlands

A German 38(t) tank crunches over a purple objective marker on a canal bridge. On the right, a tiddly Dutch Carden-Loyd tankette nervously awaits the oncoming menace.

This is a scene from my first game using Iron Fist Publishing’s Battlegroup rules, which I played recently. My Dutch forces had their first outing, and in true ‘newly-painted’ tradition, lost the battle against Scott’s Germans (who I think broke the tradition as they were also newly painted!).

Pride of my force was this Landsverk armoured car, a beautiful model made by Dutch company May ’40 Miniatures. Sadly, it blew up part-way through the battle. But now that it has had its baptism of fire, perhaps it will do better next time!

Here are my Dutch Marines in their distinctive dark blue tunics man the hedge-line. They didn’t play a huge part in the battle, other than their support fire keeping the Germans’ heads down.

In the foreground sits a Böhler 47mm anti-tank gun. This performed quite well during the game, scoring a direct hit on Scott’s Sd Kfz 222 armoured car.

The game stats for this gun and other oddities in my Dutch force aren’t in the core Battlegroup rules. But fortunately an article in Dispatches magazine features everything you need to know to field this less well-known army.

Here’s my opponent Scott discussing a point of the rules with our mate Herman, who popped in for a look-see. This pic also gives you another good look at the Landsverk and some of my Dutch infantry.

Scott made the fantastic terrain board with its realistic canal in a week. He also 3D-printed two of the bridges, and provided many of the buildings, which I supplemented with my windmill, brick roads and cardboard Dutch village.

I also provided the third bridge. But as you can see, I need to make some abutments for it to sit properly instead of the brickwork hanging out over the water!

Unfortunately I didn’t get many photos of Scott’s German forces, nor did I capture the most ‘fun’ pieces on the board, our two mortars. One of Scott’s mortar’s wilder shots actually took out some of his own troops.

Overall, it was a fun game and a great evening out. Hopefully it marks the start of some more regular gaming in the future.

May ’40 Fallschirmjäger in Holland

For my latest painting project I have returned to World War 2, or the 1940 invasion of the Netherlands to be exact. I have previously built up a Dutch force, which is significant to me because my Dad served in the Dutch army in 1940.

May ’40 Miniatures have recently completed a Kickstarter range of 28mm metal Fallschirmjäger (paratrooper) figures. These are specifically designed to be the foe for their existing WW2 Dutch range.

The sculpting and animation of these figures is simply superb. For example, just look at those men running their machine-guns forward!

I don’t intend to build a full German wargaming force. But I thought I would still get some of these figures, mainly so so that the Dutch arrayed in my display cabinet have an enemy to look as though they are fighting.

Painting these paratroops was one of those jobs where you have t start from scratch so far as your own knowledge of their uniforms and equipment goes. I had never painted WW2 Germans before, and knew next to nothing about them. So off I went to my library and the internet.

I must say I was quite amazed at how difficult this research was, considering how recently WW2 took place. There are many conflicting sources on topics as basic as the colours of the helmets and smocks. Even Napoleonic uniforms seems to be easier to research!

Anyway, as I had heard the German paratroops were nick-named the ‘Green Devils’, I decided that my figures’ helmets and smocks would be done in shades of grey-green, with Luftwaffe blue trousers.

As an aside, why do so many armies include ‘devils’ in their midst – Green Devils, Black Devils, Red Devils, etc … and were these nicknames really bestowed by their enemies, or were they actually self-generated in a sense of hubris?!

Over the last year I have really taken to using Citadel Contrast paints. These give an automatic shade and highlight in a single coat, which results in figures that look great from wargaming distance.

As you can see from the photos (especially if you enlarge them), they can look a bit blotchy from close-up compared to the fine finish of more traditional painting methods. But I really like the overall effect. And it is so quick!

And for those who want the exact recipe for my painting:

Undercoat: Wraithbone spray.

Smock: Basilicanum grey with hint of Militarum green.

Trousers: Space Wolves grey with hint of Basilicanum grey.

Helmet: GW arctic grey ( the only non-Contrast paint I used) with a hint of Militarum green.

Weapons: Basilicanum grey with Gore Grunta Fur wooden parts.

Straps and belts: Wyldwood.

Boots: Black Templar.

Flesh: Guilliman Flesh (this really has to be my favourite Contrast paint – it is almost miraculous what it does to faces and hands!)

I finished everything off with a coat of Army Painter’s Quick Shade (strong tone), followed by a Vallejo matt varnish.

On Parade! My WW2 Dutch army

Over the last year I’ve been gradually parading each army in my wargaming collection for inspection to take stock of what I’ve got. In this posting in my On Parade! series, it is the turn of my WW2 Dutch. You can click on each picture to inspect them more closely.  

I’ve got sufficient models to field a small mixed force of the Dutch army as it was when the Germans invaded the Netherlands in  May 1940.

My 28mm Dutch infantry are all produced by May ’40 Miniatures. They wear green M.1927 steel helmets, and the grey uniform that had changed little over the previous twenty years. 

On the right is a machine gun team. The light machine-gun squads had a M.20 Lewis light machine-gun operated by a gunner and assistant gunner.

The Dutch infantry in 1940 consisted mainly of conscripts, with only a small number of career officers and NCOs. Squads were commanded by sergeants, and had 9-12 men armed with Steyr rifles. I have sufficient figures for three squads of infantry.

Here’s my squad of the Korps Mariner, who were the only all-professional branch in the Dutch armed forces, and without any doubt the best the Dutch could field.

Marines wore a distinctive dark blue (blackish) uniform tunic or great coat, rather than the grey of the regular army, which gave them the nickname of the ‘Black Devils’.

On the left is an 81mm mortar. Like many armies, the Dutch introduced mortars based on the Stokes-Brandt principle. My force is actually quite lucky to have one, as the Dutch army were under-equipped with mortars, and had only two per battalion.

On the right is a three-man Schwarzlose M.08 machine gun team. The gun is complete with its hose and drain bucket. In May 1940 the Schwarzlose machine gun was quite outdated. Still, they proved to be highly reliable and robust, and the number of break-downs was extremely low.

On the left is a Böhler 47mm anti-tank gun. These guns would prove effective during the intensive fighting in 1940. It could easily penetrate the armour of all German tanks of that time, it had a low profile and it was easy to handle.

On the right is a Solothurn S18-1000 20mm anti-tank rifle. When it was first introduced its firepower was adequate against light tanks and other soft-skinned vehicles, but by 1940 it was insufficient to deal with newer and heavier tanks.

The Landsverk M.36 armoured car on the left was quite modern for its time. The 37mm gun was relatively heavy for an armoured car, and was better than that of a German Pz.III tank. Their only significant weakness was their poor armour. The Dutch armoured cars that served in the May war (about 35 were operational) would excel in the fighting.

On the right is a Carden-Loyd tankette. The crew comprised a driver and a machine-gunner, which allowed each to fully concentrate on his own task. Two small domes protected the crew’s heads. The Carden-Loyd was powered by a Model T Ford engine (true!) and had a road speed of 25 mph (40 km/h).

Tanks? Well, the Dutch army had none! Before the German invasion, the Dutch considered the introduction of powerful anti-tank guns as marking the end of the tank era. As the website War Over Holland says, this belief was “amazing for an army that had not seen anything of modern warfare and that got all of its ‘knowledge’ from papers or magazines.” Of course, they couldn’t have been more wrong, resulting in the Dutch being the only belligerent to have no tanks!

Here’s the crew of the Landsverk. They wear blue overalls over their grey shirts.

The chap in black standing drinking a cup of coffee is a hussar in leather tunic and trousers. Hopefully sometime in the future May ’40 Miniatures might produce a motorcycle for him!

There’s a personal reason why I have built a Dutch army. In September 1939 my father was conscripted into the Depot Battalion of the Medical Troops in Amsterdam (see my previous posting on this subject). In 1940 he was promoted to sergeant, a rank he had held for only one month when the Germans invaded on 10 May.

My Dad is the left-hand soldier of the middle row. What he experienced over those five days in May 1940, we don’t know. He never told us anything about it. My mother believes he was in Rotterdam, which was badly bombed, though as a conscript from the southern province of Limburg, it was also possible he was stationed there.

So my Dutch army includes a team of medics, in Dad’s honour.

Terrain for my Dutch army to fight over includes several modified Gungnir cardboard buildings, a MDF windmill by 4Ground, a bridge and back-gardens by Sarissa Precision, latex brick roads from Early War Miniatures, and plastic lamp-posts, power poles and brick walls from Rubicon.

That concludes the parades of the WW2 part of my collection. Next will come samurai! And don’t forget to visit my other On Parade! postings, in which I’m gradually doing inspection parades of every army in my wargaming collection.

Kickstarter for early war German Fallschirmjäger

May ’40 Miniatures’ Kickstarter for 1939/1940 German Fallschirmjäger is now open.

These 28mm early war Fallschirmjäger (paratroops) will be made as historically accurate as possible in this scale.

They are designed for the 1940 German invasion of the Netherlands (but could also be used for games set in Norway, Belgium and even Crete).

As a side-note, my father was in the Dutch army at the time of the invasion of Holland (you can read his story here). Amongst a box of his photos is this one, presumably taken shortly after the invasion. 

WW2 Dutch village finished

My Dutch village is now complete. I’ll pack it away soon, to wait till I’ve painted up an enemy force from May ’40 Miniature’s forthcoming Fallschirmjäger (German paratroops) Kickstarter for my 1940 Dutch to fight.

The final addition was to make the canal. I simply sprayed some textured sandpaper dark green, then edged the banks with sand and flock. Simple and effective, especially with the addition of some random bits of fencing and a couple of boats.

The back gardens on the left are a Sarissa Precision product, which just happened to match the dimensions of two of my cardboard row houses. The only thing I had to adapt was to draw a little more crazy-paving to align the garden paths with the the back-doors of each house.

By the way, some people have asked why I use 1/72 scale buildings with 28mm figures. The answer is that I prefer my houses to have a small footprint, as they then don’t dominate the table as much. In any case, wargamers usually play with underscaled trees, rivers and hills, so also having smaller buildings makes sense.

 

A bridge too near – Fallschirmjäger for May 1940

I’m getting my Dutch village ready for May ’40 Miniatures’ forthcoming Kickstarter for a new range of early WW2 fallschirmjäger (German paratroops).

May ’40 Miniatures Fallschirmjäger Kickstarter

My 1940 Dutch army is badly in need of an opponent, so I am eagerly awaiting the Kickstarter that May ’40 Miniatures are about to launch for  a range of German early war fallschirmjäger.

These figures will be accurately modelled to represent the paratroops who took part in the 1940 invasion of the Netherlands.

Once they’re here, these fallschirmjäger will of course have to jump (ha ha!) to the top of my existing lead pile!

Sarissa Precision’s canal bridge

In readiness for wargaming the 1940 invasion of the Netherlands, I have added a typical opening bridge to my Dutch village.

Although Sarissa’s MDF canal bridge kitset is based on the bridge at Bruegel from the later Operation Market Garden in 1944, it will work perfectly for wargames set during the German invasion . 

The only additional detailing I have done to this kit is to cover the ramps with latex brick roads by Early War Miniatures.

My next project will be to make a canal for the bridge to cross over, rather than the little stream in these pictures.

 

 

Tour of a model Dutch village in 1940

At first glance, this could be a wartime newspaper photo of Dutch soldiers defending a village during the German invasion in May 1940 … until you spot the figure bases, that is,  and realise this is a wargames table with 28mm figures.

I’ve recently been adding accessories to my Dutch village, such as latex brick roads from Early War Miniatures, and plastic lamp-posts, power poles and brick walls from Rubicon.

They really bring to life the Gungnir cardboard buildings I’ve previously reported on, as you can see from this picture of Dutch soldiers and a Landsverk armoured car on patrol outside a grocer’s shop.

Let’s take a tour of the village (don’t forget to click on the images to examine them in more detail).

Soldiers follow the armoured car past a corner cafe, with period advertisements for Phoenix Dortmunder beer on the walls, and ‘3 Hoef Eisen’ beer on each window.  The miniatures and the armoured car, by the way, are all by May ’40 Miniatures.

Advertisements for van Nelle coffee and Persil washing powder adorn the side of the grocer’s shop in the Hoogstraat (High Street). The street sign comes in the Rubicon lamp-post kit.

At this intersection you can see how the latex roads give a good impression of brick roads. I painted them a dark brown-red, then dry-brushed them with beige and white paint to bring out the detail.

The Landsverk proceeds down the Hoogstraat. This photo gives you another view of the beer advertisement on the side wall of the cafe.

The crew of the Landsverk spot an enemy aircraft. The beauty of cardboard buildings is that once you have bought the file, you can print out as many as you like. Thus here we see three of the same buildings combined to make a row of houses. I varied the windows slightly before printing, but otherwise they are identical.

Around the corner from the row-houses, these typical hip-roofed buildings on the left certainly shout ‘Dutch’ all over them! On the right is a resin kit of a ruined house, made by Airfix.

A Böhler 47mm anti-tank gun is emplaced behind the ruined house. I’ve made the Airfix building taller by adding a layer to the bottom of the walls. The rubble is made up of small bits of real brick.

A team of medics rushes past an ornate farm-house. The brick wall kit by Rubicon is very cleverly designed so that you can take the pieces apart and adjust the corners and gates to suit any location.

An officer gives orders to the crew of a Carden-Loyd tankette parked outside a large farm-house. This photo gives you a good look at the very nice Rubicon lampposts.

An NCO urges caution on his troops as they ready themselves to enter the barn attached to the back of the large farmhouse.

Dutch marines in their dark-blue tunics defend the edge of the village, whilst the Landsverk prowls in the background.

Here’s the whole village. If you look carefully, you’ll spot an interloper amongst the cardboard buildings – a resin model of La Haye Sainte in the top left corner! I’ll need to make up a couple more card buildings to take its place!

Let’s finish by going back to black-and-white to show once again how effective the overall effect of the buildings and accessories is.

28mm WW2 Dutch army completed at last!

I’ve finally completed sufficient models to field a WW2 Dutch force for wargaming. The models depict a small mixed force of the Dutch army as it was when the Germans invaded the Netherlands in  May 1940.

All but one of the figures and models are made by the Dutch company May ’40 Miniatures. The exception is the little Carden-Loyd carrier, which is by Reiver Castings. The figures are all 28 millimetres tall.

The buildings in the background of all these pictures, by the way, are cardboard models by Dutch gamer ‘Gungnir’ that I had bought from WargameDownloads. I’ve added home-made detailing of windows and doors.

In my force I have three infantry squads like this one, plus one squad of Marines.

The Dutch infantry in 1940 consisted mainly of conscripts, with only a small number of career officers and NCOs. Infantry companies were commanded by a Captain, and made up of rifle or light machine-gun sections. A section was commanded by a Lieutenant, candidate officer or senior NCO, and had three or four squads. Squads were commanded by sergeants, and had 9-12 men armed with Steyr rifles.

On the left is a machine gun team. The light machine-gun squads had a M.20 Lewis light machine-gun operated by a gunner and assistant gunner. But the Lewis gun left much to be desired. In a fixed position it had a fairly acceptable level of reliability, but in more dynamic situations it often malfunctioned.

Here’s a rear-view of one of the infantry squads. They wear green M.1927 steel helmets, and the grey uniform that had changed little over the previous twenty years. The NCO wears a yellow stripe on the lower left arm to denote his rank.

The Korps Mariner were the only all-professional branch in the Dutch armed forces, and without any doubt the best the Dutch could field. Marines wore a distinctive dark blue (blackish) uniform tunic or great coat, rather than the grey of the regular army.  They were armed like regular army soldiers, but were additionally equipped with a so-called ‘storm-dagger’.

There were about 450 Marines in Rotterdam, the home town of the Korps Mariniers, when the German invasion occurred on 10 May 1940. They defended the bridges across the River Maas for four days. The story goes that when the surrender was declared and the Marines came out of their positions, the German commander was expecting a full battalion of men, but was stunned to see only a few Marines emerge in their dark uniforms. He ordered his men to salute them out of respect for their bravery and determination, and labeled them the ‘Black Devils’.

An army of course needs supporting weaponry, so I’ve assembled a number of machine guns, anti-tank capability, artillery and armour for my Dutch force. We’ll explore each of these in more detail below.

On the left is a three-man Schwarzlose M.08 machine gun team. The gun is complete with its hose and drain bucket. The Schwarzlose was produced in the Netherlands under licence from Austria. In May 1940 the Schwarzlose machine gun was quite outdated. Still, they proved to be highly reliable and robust, and the number of break-downs was extremely low.

On the right is a Solothurn S18-1000 20mm anti-tank rifle. It was a variant of the Solothurn S-18/100, featuring a larger cartridge and higher muzzle velocity for better armour penetration. When it was first introduced its firepower was adequate against light tanks and other soft-skinned vehicles, but by 1940 it was insufficient to deal with newer and heavier tanks.

On the left is a Böhler 47mm anti-tank gun. These guns would prove effective during the intensive fighting in 1940. It could easily penetrate the armour of all German tanks of that time, it had a low profile and it was easy to handle. The 9th Panzer Division lost about 25 tanks, including Pz.III and Pz.IV medium tanks, due to Dutch anti-tank guns at Rotterdam and Dordrecht.

On the right is an 81mm mortar. Like many armies, the Dutch introduced mortars based on the Stokes-Brandt principle. My force is actually quite lucky to have one, as the Dutch army were under-equipped with mortars, and had only two per battalion.

On the left is a Carden-Loyd tankette. The Dutch army  had five Mark VI versions of these little British pre-war tankettes named after big  cats: Lynx, Poema, Jaguar, Panter and Luipaard. The crew comprised a driver and a machine-gunner, which allowed each to fully concentrate on his own task. Two small domes protected the crew’s heads.

The Carden Loyd tankette was powered by a Model T Ford engine (true!) and had a road speed of 25 mph (40 km/h). The engine was mounted backwards between the two crew. The small bulge at the front of the vehicle housed the Model T’s transmission, which drove the front sprockets.

The Landsverk M.36 armoured car on the right was quite modern for its time. The 37mm gun was relatively heavy for an armoured car, and was better than that of a German Pz.III tank. Their only significant weakness was their poor armour. The Dutch armoured cars that served in the May war (about 35 were operational) would excel in the fighting.

Note the blue overalls worn by the crewmen over their grey shirts. The chap in black standing drinking a cup of coffee is a hussar in leather tunic and trousers. Hopefully sometime in the future May ’40 Miniatures might produce a motorcycle for him!

Tanks? Well, the Dutch army had none! Before the German invasion, the Dutch considered the introduction of powerful anti-tank guns as marking the end of the tank era. As the website War Over Holland says, this belief was “amazing for an army that had not seen anything of modern warfare and that got all of its ‘knowledge’ from papers or magazines.” Of course, they couldn’t have been more wrong, resulting in the Dutch being the only belligerent to have no tanks!

Here’s my headquarters section – an officer with two escorting soldiers. Dutch officers wore an impressive shako for their walking-out uniforms, but in combat they wore the  standard green helmet (nevertheless, I’d still like to add a shako-wearing officer to my force one day!)

Like the French, the Dutch had a strict chain of command, and were expected to operate ‘according to order’. This contrasted unfavourably with the Germans’ much more liberal command structure. The War Over Holland site gives an example of the difference between these two philosophies of command:

If a Dutch officer was instructed to take a certain position, he would be instructed to take that position, following a premeditated route, get a time to gain his objective and be sure about it not to go off-track. If the Dutch officer would establish that the instructed route to his objective was blocked, he would return to his senior command with the simple message that his order could not be executed.

His German equivalent would have been informed of the tactical reason why he was given a certain objective, he was given the time when to have reached his objective, possibly some relevant other information and off he went. Any obstruction on the way would be dealt with. He would adapt, he would improvise and he would overcome – anything to fulfill his objective.

OK, so why build an army that survived only five days?

Many dismiss the Dutch because they capitulated so quickly. But War Over Holland posits that there are two factors that should be considered when explaining the quick Dutch defeat:

• the first-ever use by the Germans of massive air-landing tactics
• the sudden occurrence of an instant war on five fronts from all directions.

Both of the above were unprecedented in May 1940.

But there’s another more personal reason why I have built a Dutch army. In September 1939 my father was conscripted into the Depot Battalion of the Medical Troops in Amsterdam (see my previous posting on this subject). In 1940 he was promoted to sergeant, a rank he had held for only one month when the Germans invaded on 10 May.

What Dad experienced over those five days, we don’t know. He never told us anything about the events of 1940. My mother believes he was in Rotterdam, which was badly bombed, though as a conscript from the southern province of Limburg, it was also possible he was stationed there.

So my Dutch army includes a team of medics, in Dad’s honour.

 

WW2 Dutch and 1745 Jacobites

It might have been quiet here on the blog for the last week or so, but I have actually been  progressing with all sorts of stuff. My wargaming table is groaning under the weight of several projects on the go!

My WW2 Dutch army is coming along.  I am in the throes of assembling and painting some anti-tank artillery. These intricate little models were released recently by May ’40 Miniatures. Along with the Landsverk armoured car, my Dutch army will soon pack at least a wee bit of punch.

I’ve also been busy with my scissors cutting out paper soldiers for my ‘45 Jacobite Rebellion project. I’ve now got enough units on each side to play a game. The Paperboys figures even come with a set of simple rules, so it’ll be interesting to try them out.

This British cavalry regiment looks pretty impressive, even though it just made out of paper.

The armies even include paper artillery. The guns themselves are 3D models, and are a bit fiddly to make. The gunners and their tools are all flats. This close-up view perhaps doesn’t do these paper soldiers justice – but they do look simply splendid when looking at them from a little more of a distance.

The book of Paperboys figures also includes 3D terrain, so I’ve built a typical Scottish ‘big house’. You can build this in any sort of configuration you want, so I chose to do a main building with a wing on the back, and a circular staircase turret.

Review: WW2 Dutch Landsverk armoured car in 1/56 (28mm)

“Verdorie! Those are German paratroopers!” shouts the shocked commander of a Dutch Landsverk M36 armoured car as the Germans begin to invade the Netherlands on 10 May 1940.

I’ve just completed this 1/56 scale Landsverk model produced by May ’40 Miniatures, which at last gives my 28mm WW2 Dutch army some reasonable armour to face early-war Germans.

Including a Landsverk in May ’40 Miniatures’ growing Dutch range for WW2 wargamers has long been a dream of owner Sander van der Star. The model’s development has been lengthy and torturous, as Sander is a stickler for getting everything right. But his dedication has paid off, with the recent launch of this impressive model in resin and white metal.

The model comes well-packaged in a colourful box. It consists of two resin parts, and a number of smaller white metal components such as the wheels and guns. It is accompanied by a fully-illustrated instruction sheet and a set of decals with Dutch and German markings. If you want a commander and crew, these need to be ordered separately.

I should point out here that I bought this model when it was still Version 1.0. Sander was not in fact completely satisfied with his first version, and is now onto Version 2.0, which he says is a much higher quality model. But to my eyes, Version 1.0 still looks pretty good!

Assembly was simple and straightforward. I did decide to pin the machine guns to the body for added strength, and aligning the commander to hold the open hatch was slightly fiddly. But all in all, assembly took only about half an hour.

Painting was also easy, as the Dutch Landsverks were simply painted green. I started with a black undercoat (which I did before attaching the wheels), and then dry-brushed the model with grey to bring out the detail.

I then painted the whole vehicle green, followed by a black wash over all details such as door frames and hinges, grilles, filler cap etc. To blend the black wash in, I then dry-brushed the model with the same green I had used previously.

Finally, the magic step – the absolute driest of dry-brushing with white to highlight all the edges, which makes the whole model pop.

The decals are incredibly fine and thin, so care must be taken applying them. It is fair to say I found this the most difficult step in making my model.

Make sure you trim right to the edge of the marking before dipping it in water, and be patient for the decal to slide off the backing paper. When the decals were dry, I protected them with a coat of matt varnish. The end result is so fine that you can hardly tell they are decals.

I did chicken out and decided to hand-paint the triangle on the front grille, rather than trying to mold the slippery decal over the lines of louvres. Luckily triangles aren’t too difficult to paint!

So there we a have it – a Dutch armoured car to strike fear into my German wargaming opponents!

The Landsverk is available from May ’40 Miniatures at the cost of €27.50, plus shipping from the Netherlands.

History of the Landsverk

In 1934 the Netherlands ordered twelve Landsverk L181 armoured cars and one spare chassis from the Swedish company AB Landsverk. These so-called M36 vehicles had a Daimler-Benz chassis with a Swedish body and turret. The Dutch changed the 20mm cannon to a 3.7 cm gun and fitted an extra machine-gun to the rear.

In 1937 another twelve were ordered, this time of the type L180 on a Büssing-NAG chassis, to be known as the M38. Two command variants were also ordered.

The Landsverk was quite a modern armoured car for its time. The 37mm gun was relatively heavy for an armoured car. However, the chassis was quite rigid and proved unsuitable for rough terrain. Tracks could be fitted to the rear wheels, but this was impractical under fire.

The M36 served with the 1e Eskadron Pantserwagens and the M38 with the 2e Eskadron (1^st and 2^nd armoured car squadrons). The squadrons were divided between Vesting Holland and the Grebbelinie. Two platoons were stationed at Ypenburg Airport, and the other two on the Grebbelinie.

The Landsverks performed well during the five-day war in May 1940.  They were quite capable of handling themselves in modern conflict. Not one Landsverk was taken out of action due to direct enemy fire. The cars that were disabled  had engine trouble or were damaged due to the bombing of Ypenburg.

Landsverk armoured cars took part in combat with the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler and the 227 Infantry Division, as well as the defence of Ypenburg against German paratroopers.

After the capitulation, the Landsverks were used by the Germans under the name Panzerspähwagen L202 beute (‘prize’). May ’40 Miniatures includes decals for the captured version with their model.

Specifications

• Armament: one 37mm Bofors semi-automatic gun, three M20 (7.9 mm) machine guns.
• Ammunition: high-explosive and high-explosive armour piercing.
• Crew: Five (two drivers, two gunners, one commander).
• Maximum speed: 60 km/h forwards, 40 km/h backwards.
• Armour: turret 9mm, rest 5mm.