Since 1872, the Ludovica Military Academy had been turning out competent and efficient officers and graduated the majority of officers for the Hungarian Army. A core of competent and educated officers struggled to handle the large expansion of the Hungarian Army to meet the needs of the Eastern Front. The Hungarians enjoyed a professional and experienced core of staff officers.
Although the majority of infantry forces fielded by the Royal Hungarian Army in 1944–45 were not combat hardened, there were some experienced units after 3 years of fighting on the Eastern Front. Infantry Divisions of the Hungarian First Army had recently fought in the defence of Galicia in early 1944, and would put their experience to good use, like the 25th Division at the Battle of Tordá and the 10th Division inside the Budapest pocket.
The world’s first paratroopers to be used in large numbers, the German Fallschirmjager were at the tip of the spear when war broke out in 1939. They led daring assaults on strategic targets, such as the fortress at Eben Emael, enabling the following panzers to overrun Europe.
There are few fighting forces that can rival the fearsome reputation of the United States Marine Corps. Indeed they can trace their ancestry back to the Revolutionary War in the 18th Century, serving all over the globe up to the present day.
From their role in the ill-fated Operation Market Garden to the crossing of the River Rhine and the push into the German homeland these battle-hardened fighting men have been immortalised in film and television.
One of the best-equipped armies in the world at the time, the Americans took on, and beat, their German, Italian and Japanese adversaries.
Superbly equpped and trained, the German soldier in the early years of World War II was a formidable opponent.
With trademark red beret and armed with Sten and Bren Guns the British Airborne were determined and tenacious, as only the British Tommy can be.
Hitler was confident of a short campaign as his German army crashed over the Russian border in 1941. Heroic defence by the massive Soviet armies slowed the Nazi advance. The brave, solid, and loyal Soviet soldiers endured dreadful battle conditions and their equipment was unsophisticated but functional, much like the troops themselves. What they lacked in quality they made up for the sheer numbers in their troops and equipment available to them – as Josef Stalin famously said “Quantity has a quality all of its own.”
The army list can easily be reconfigured to suit your playing style and when you are ready to expand your force there are plenty of options in the ever-growing Bolt Action range of miniatures and vehicles.