Kreighton Paints a Case Yellow Fallschirmjager Army

By Kreighton Long

During the Case Yellow period the Fallschirmjager typically wore a Luftwaffe blue-grey blouse and German Fieldgrey combat trousers. Over these was donned the green-grey step-in jump smock. The Fallschirmjager’s helmet was a modified stahlhelm with the brim removed to prevent sharp edges fraying the parachute lines and to reduce wind resistance that resulted in paratroopers with the stahlhelm being nearly strangled from their helmets lifting from their heads during their descent.

Removing the brim eliminated both these risks and created the iconic look that most veteran WWII wargamers can spot from a table away. Initially, the helmet was painted Luftwaffe blue-grey but was later painted green after early combat experience. Gloves and jump boots were black leather.

Webbing was typically black or dark brown leather. During the early-war period a Fallschirmjager would be issued a canvas gas mask container rather than the standard issue metal one in order to reduce the risk of injury during a drop. Therefore I made an attempt to remove metal gas mask containers during assembly where possible.

The early-war Fallschirmjager helmet included two details that did not last the war. On the right side of the helmet was a shield with the German tricolors and on the left side was the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) eagle.

Combat experience early in the war led the Fallschirmjagers to remove both the tricolors and the eagle from their helmets. Photographs taken of Fallschirmjager in May 1940 show both the tricolor and eagle so I decided to include them on my own pieces.

For painting the tricolor I used Vallejo’s Off White [820], Red [947], Black [950], Luftwaffe Uniform WWII [816], and German Grey [995].

German Fallschirmjager in formation at the Hague in May 1940. The German tricolor is visible on the right side of their helmets. Photo from Wiki Commons.

After painting the helmet I added a diagonal blotch of Off White to the right side of the helmet.

Next add a stripe of Red to the right of the Off White and a stripe of Black to the left of the Off White.

Finally, paint the outline of the shield shape with the helmet base color. My helmet color was a 3:1 mix of Luftwaffe Uniform WWII and German Grey.

A staged photograph of a Fallschirmjager in the correct stance before leaping from the plane. Note the Luftwaffe eagle on the left side of the helmet. Photo from Wiki Commons.

For the helmet eagle I used Vallejo’s Silver Grey [883].

For the eagle I started by painting an angled stripe using Vallejo’s Silver Grey. I constantly referenced historical photographs to try to replicate the appropriate angles. The first angle will form the eagle’s wing and the tail.

I added the second angle forming the other wing and the head of the eagle.

Next I added a circle beneath the eagle representing the Luftwaffe’s Swastika. Admittedly, this attempt was not my smoothest but we’ll clean it up a bit at the end.

Using the helmet base color, clean up the eagle where needed. I used a 3:1 mix of Luftwaffe Uniform WWII and German Grey for my helmet base color.

Because hand painting the helmet details wasn’t enough I also tried my hand at painting the rank insignia for my NCOs and Officers. NCOs and Officers wore rank insignia on both their upper arms and their collars. For sleeve insignia — the wings were silver with a black background for NCOs and Company and Field Grade Officers. Flag Officers wore gold on black. I painted my sleeve insignias with Vallejo’s German Grey [995] and Silver Grey [883] and cleaned up the edges with the Green Grey [886] smock color.

I started by painting a German Grey rectangle on each arm roughly halfway between the shoulder and the elbow.

Next I added pairs of Silver Grey dots touching in the center third of the rectangle. I made this NCO an Unterfeldwebel (Staff Sergeant) which wore two sets of wings on their arm rank insignias.

Add the wings to the dots. Mine were a tad sloppy so some clean up was needed.

Clean up where needed with the patch color — in this case German Grey.

Use the smock color to clean up the original rectangle. My smock color here is Green Grey.

Staged propaganda photograph showing Fallschirmjager deploying from a glider. Note the collar insignia on the soldiers — especially the collar border of the NCOs and Officers. Like their Heer comrades, Luftwaffe NCOs and Officers had a collar trim on their blouse. The blouse was worn under the jump smock so be sure to paint the jacket collar and not the jump smock. Photo from Wiki Commons.

Like their Heer counterparts, Fallschirmjager also wore their ranks on their collars. Collar tabs were a yellow square under the same insignia as their arms insignias. At 28mm I wanted to capture the splash of yellow color and attempted the wings though I believe few others will notice.

An Unteroffizier with the collar rank insignia showing over his jump smock. The yellow square was painted with Vallejo’s Yellow Ochre and the wings with Silver Grey.

Happy painting!