Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - 16th Mechanized Chasseur Battalion (16éme BCP)

The 16éme BCP approaches Jolie Village on its way to Stonne in may 1940...

The 16éme BCP (Batalion de Chasseurs Portés) was the infantry unit of the 3rd DCR and had some particularities of its own. Apparently the motorcycle squadron didn't have motorcycles and the men were transported as the other two squadrons. Also the Lorraine 38L VBCP was not present in all three companies with some of the Chasseurs being transported in trucks (some say Citroen 23 other Lorraine 28). But as I had four Lorraine 38L I equipped all companies with them including the support company. As I still have no Latil M7 I used a Chenillette to tow the 25mm AT gun.

 The CO stand has a ER 17 Radio scratchbuilt in EverGreen plasticard. The 60mm mortar was made from a shortenned 81mm US mortar from Revell. The figures are from the new HAT set of French WWII artillery and the bugler is scratchbuilt. The Laffly V15 is Skytrex.

The  25mm and UE Chenillette tow are Lancer Miniatures and the figures are again HAT.

The rest of the support company has a HAT mortar stand (the mortar itself is again Revell US) and Revell French for the Hotchkiss MMG's. Here there is another problem: the 16eme BCP doesn't show up with their two MMG's (there should be eight in the real OOB) in the new RF! supplement for May 1940. But I placed them in this battalion not only because it must have existed in this unit but also because there were two LMG's per squad of 12 Chasseurs while the regular infantry only had one. So like this the unit gets more fire power as it should.

The Lorraine 38L VBCP is Lancer Miniatures.

Two of the four Lorraine 38L are in fact the 37 version that I was using for the support of the tank battalions. In RF! new book Richard and Colin ignored them and thus they were converted with styrofoam and plasticard into the carrier version.

One of the three Chasseur companies. All figures are based on the Airfix Chinese replicas of the WWI French set. I added GreenStuff goggles in all of them  carefully modelled on the helmets. The trousers and shirt are dark blue and capote is khaki according to this battalion´s regulation.

A few more conversions are the rifle grenade made fom a piece of Evergreen at the end of a rifle and the LMG Chatellerault 24/29 which is a chinese copy of the Bren LMG glued to a normal rifle firer.

Not necessarily  from the BCP I also painted the one-piece Somua MCG-5 from Lancer Miniatures. It can be used to tow artillery or used as a recovery vehicle for any unit.

Next: More French artillery for 1940.