German Tank Training Company

The tired old Tiger moved forward with a shudder. The old beast had seen some kilometres, fighting on the Russian Front in 1943, before returning to Germany for repairs. It had become damaged again in the hard fighting of Army Group Centre in 1944. It was then allocated to a training battalion, preparing a new wave of Panzertruppen to fight in heavy tanks. Feldwebel Klienberg and his Tiger had much in common. 

Now, as the Reich becomes desperate for panzers and troops trained to use them, Klienberg found himself leading a platoon of his trainees with a motley assortment of Tigers. The workshop had done their best to get them in working order and Klienberg had made sure each tank was commanded by the more promising of his trainees. His platoon of three old Tigers had been assigned to support the defence of a small town south of their training area.

His young driver (supposedly 18, but Klienberg suspected he was somewhat younger) revved the engine and the Tiger shuddered forward again, stopping against a short brick wall. The wall bulged slightly and some bricks tumbled off the top row. The other two Tigers lined up along the wall the made up the courtyard of a warehouse at the edge of the town. They faced the road and fields from where they expected the attack to come.

His own Tiger was dark yellow with a faded green striped camouflage, an older model with the big boxy cupola. One of his other Tigers was newer, but sported a new gun barrel still in oxide red, with a mismatched three colour camouflage on the turret and hull, as the turret had obviously come from another tank. The last tank was just plain dark yellow, but oddly about half of the road wheels were either brown or green.

It was as the day’s light was beginning to fade that the sound of battle began to get closer. A few minutes later an artillery bombardment began falling on the town, centred on the town hall, a few hundred metres behind Klienberg’s position. As the rumble of the bombardment ceased, grenadiers started to trickle across the fields, making their way towards the town. The first grenadiers began to reach the courtyard walls when a line of tanks appeared though the treeline on the far side of the fields.

“Feuer frei!” shouts Klienberg, instructing his Tiger commanders to fire at will. His own gunner, a veteran like himself, had already lined-up one of the enemy tanks and sent its doom down range. The shot was greeted with a flash and erupting flames as the olive green tank began to burn.

Return fire saw the courtyard explode in dust and brick fragments. Klienberg tapped his gunner’s shoulder in acknowledgment of his good shooting before directing him to the next target, a tank advancing across the fields.

Klienberg smiled. It had been a while, but even after training troops for a year, commanding a tank in battle still came easy.

THIS PRODUCT CONTAINS:

• 3x Panther (Late) (7.5cm) Tanks
• 3x Panzer IV (7.5cm) Tanks
• 3x Hetzer (7.5cm) Tank-hunters
• 3x Panzer II (2cm) Tanks
• 2x Tiger II (8.8cm) Tanks
• 3x Wespe (10.5cm) Self-propelled Guns
• 1x Panzergrenadier Training Platoon
• Complete A5 Flames Of War rulebook
• 1x German "Start Here" Guide
• 2x Decal Sheets
• 9x Unit Cards