Rapid Fire! Blitzkrieg in 20mm - German inflatable boats for the Meuse

This was an old idea of mine since I started my French and German armies for 1940 campaigns. The Meuse crossing by the Germans always caught my imaginaton as it involved the 5e DCL and two French infantry divisions and even some counter attacks by French tank units. The Meuse crossings are also on my visit list for the future. The boats are resin Anyscale Models and the figures are converted soft plastics. There are also ten Revell rowers from five  boxes of Engineers. They just needed some cuts in the rain coat as the original is the late war for them to look like the the feldbluse. 

These twelve boats are enough for three battalions, one per fusilier company and one for the support and command companies (quite crammed these last two). There should be more people inside the boats as the period pictures shows sometimes 12 men inside. The Anyscale models German inflatable boats in 20mm size maybe should be a bit bigger but they capture the essential. 

I used old soft plastics for the figures, mostly Airfix, Esci, Revell Hat and Matchbox. This one is the charging Airfix German and was one of the most used figures for the right hand side of the rowers. The trick was always the same: the figures got cut by the waist; the portable gun was taken out and replaced by a piece of heated plastic broom stick; a rifle or SMG was glued to the back; the legs were made in Milliput; the end of the jacket was also modelled in Milliput and the boots were glued to the trousers while the Milliput was still drying. 

This one is the Esci mortar figure with new legs and left arm. 

Now the same for the relatively useless Airfix DAK figure with a shovel. 

This one was also from the Airfix DAK figure. Its the one in shorts bayonetting the opponent , something that Rommel forbade (not bayonetting but using shorts :) 

The most used torso was the Esci grenade thrower with new arms and used in both sides of the boats. 

The Airfix MG34 gunner just got new legs and its old boots. 

In this one there is an Esci DAK torso hold a LMG, a Hat cyclist (rower) and a Matchbox figure. The two figures on the lower right corner are again Matchbox and Airfix. 

 Some of the boats have a LMG or a flamethrower lying on the floor. Nowadays you can do this using much more recent figures like Caesar and Pegasus but this is a way to use these old figures in a different and useful way. 

Next: Italians for the Russian campaign of 1812.