3rd Fallschirmjäger Squad

And again another squad of Fallschirmjäger is ready to join the ranks and defend the rubble strewn streets of Italy against the allied juggernaut.

Again figures are mostly from Warlord Games' excellent range of metal Fallschirmjäger. Except for the machine gun team below, which is  a Heer LMG team from Artizan. I simply 'fallschirmjägerized' it by replacing the gunners head with one from the plastic Fallschirmjäger set.

One thing I really love about Fallschirmjäger is the bewildering variety in which the smocks were manufactured. Plenty of space to get creative should one want to.

Below the famous Fallschirmjägergewehr 42 or FG 42 as it's more commonly known. It was developed in response to the problems the Fallschirmjäger experienced during the invasion of Crete. Due to the design of the German parachute the weapons had to be dropped seperately and the soldiers found themselves scrambling around under heavy enemy fire while searching for the weapons containers. So the Luftwaffe ordered the development of a leight weight rifle which could be carried on the person during the jump. It was to fire either single or automatic fire.

After the invasion of Crete Hitler changed his mind about the future role parachute operations and personally forbade the further development of the weapon. Despite this Göring secretely ordered the development to continue and thus the first few rifles were issued to the troops early in1943.
Despite beeing well liked by the soldiers it never got the approval of Hitler. This and it being rather complicated to produce meant there were only about 7500 pieces produced till the end of hostilities in May 1945. Funnily enough the Americans were so impressed by its design they used it as a template for their M60 machine gun.

Currently I'm working on some more special weapons for this force so stay tuned!