Campaign Stalingrad – Don’t believe everything you see!

[Paul Nettle]

On page 22 of the Campaign Stalingrad book there is a picture titled: “German infantry crossing the Don by Steve Noon Osprey Publishing. Taken from Campaign 281: The Caucasus 1942-43.  The picture is indeed by Steve Noon.  The picture is indeed from Osprey’s ‘Campaign 281: The Caucasus 1942-43.’

However, on page 78 of Campaign 281 the painting is correctly titled “Assault crossing of the Terek River, 0500 hours, 2 September 1942.”

So it is the Terek river, not the Don river!

[invisible officer]

Hmm, it’s  an artist impression without any local details. First publication location may be as wrong as the Stalingrad one. Floßsäcke crossing  a muddy river……. Only the artist may know.

 

It’s not like the wrong captions on contemporary photos used as sources.   One of the worst such xxxx use was in the crimes of Wehrmacht exhibition. The same pics used as illustration for some different  crimes, sometimes just turned, sometimes cut  out. Big mistake not to mention that.   Giving right wing idiots arguments to state that the crimes did not happen.

[Paul Nettle]

The central figure in the painting depicts Hauptmann Lyhme of 3rd Bn IR 50 crossing the Terek.  First across was 11 Kompanie at 0200, but the rest of the Bn arrived by 0500, which is depicted in the picture  (Hauptmann Lyhme was battalion commander at the time).  Only 16 rafts were available, and to achieve suprise there was no preliminary bombardment.  But the Soviet 8th Guards Rifle Brigade were alert and opposed the crossing.  I am pretty sure the Terek is depicted.  Osprey commission a lot of bespoke paintings for their books.  And they don’t make really basic errors, like on page 131 of Campaign Salingrad which has a picture of a tank labelled “a Romanian Pz38(t)”.  The tank is clearly wearing Hungarian symbols.  And the Romanian R2 tank was based on the Pz 35(t), not the Pz 38(t).

[invisible officer]

Well, Noon had done the Hauptmann and the others without any unit ID on Schulterklappen.  An omission that might be intentional to make it a pic that can be used for other books?

 

The wrong crosses on a 38 t are  a pitty. But Romania got some 38 t from Germany.

The Tacam R 2 AT for example was mainly built on R2 / 35 t vehicles but also on some old 38 t that they got from Germany.

 

The book makers simply had no R 1 pic available.  No model in Warlord range.  For same reason you see no Panzer III E model in Battle of France.

[Kar98k]

“For same reason you see no Panzer III E model in Battle of France.”

If only had Rubicon Models’ excellent Panzer III Ausf E/F/G model kit been available when they were taking photos for the Battle of France campaign book.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 6 months ago by Kar98k.

[invisible officer]

Hardly.      R………   in a Warlord / Osprey product?  Even the naming here is a …………      😉

 

Hmmm, yes, I have it in my Blitzkrieg collection.

 

 

[Kar98k]

I doubt Warlord Games can be as overly controlling about this as Games Workshop. In fact, I don’t think anyone could be as overly controlling as Games Workshop even if they tried.

That being said, you do make a good point. Still, we can’t overlook the fact that R……. M……. gives us, the 28mm WW2 gamer, a lot of fantastic plastic models to add to our collection. Remember those days when we only had available to us those crappy mis-shaped resin and metal vehicles?

[Author]

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