Puppet Brigade:
The Slovak Pieces
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
October 2023

Fire in the Steppe: Puppet Brigade is a partial reprint of our old Slovakia’s War book, including included the pieces from the old First Axis book. Ideas about games and game products come to me at many times and in many places. For some reason, I remember the first thought of the supplement that became First Axis very clearly. I was sitting on a metal bench at the Birmingham Zoo, watching my then-three-year-old daughter hop about in front of the sea lions enclosure.

Why that sight suddenly made me think that Panzer Grenadier needed supplements, and that the first of them should be about Slovaks, I do not know. But it has given me a nonsensical soft spot for this project, since it reminds me of those toddler days.

I began First Axis with an idea that the Slovak contingent on the Eastern Front had been small but professional and efficient. That’s certainly the impression given by popular histories, if they mention the Slovaks at all. I soon found this notion to be quite mistaken. The Slovak rank-and-file along with most of their officers never wanted to fight alongside the Germans and took the Nazis’ murderous anti-Slavic racism rather personally.

Puppet Brigade includes nine scenarios from the old Slovakia’s War, and the 88 pieces from First Axis. We only have a small number of pieces (just one carton’s worth) and when they’re gone, that will be it for Panzer Grenadier’s Slovak experience. If you want them, you need to order now.

Though small, the Slovak Army wielded a full array of troops and weapons, thanks to the legacy of Czechoslovakia's large and well-armed pre-war army. Here’s a look at how some of them translate into the Panzer Grenadier format.

Foot Soldiers

Slovakia achieved the ideal for which most of Germany’s Axis allies strove on the Eastern Front, to dispatch a small but mobile and modern force. Infantry therefore formed a proportionately smaller part of the Slovak commitment than in the much larger German or Romanian armies. But the foot soldier remained the backbone of Slovak fighting power just as in every other army of the Second World War.

Slovak infantry carried the weapons left behind when the Czech army was dissolved. The vz.24 rifle, a licensed version of the Mauser 98, was also used by the Germans and had been bought by many foreign customers. The standard light machine gun, the ZB 26, had been widely exported before the war and was known to the British Army as the “Bren gun” from its place of manufacture, Brno.

The Slovak infantry platoon was smaller than most at 45 men. Company organization appears to have wavered between three and four platoons per company at various times during the war; the combat formations usually stuck to three platoons per company but the battalions kept at home often went to four (probably due to a shortage of field-grade officers). The Slovak platoon was hard to rate in Panzer Grenadier terms, and a firepower value of 3-2 would not have been out of bounds.

Slovakia maintained very little horsed cavalry, with bicycle troops fulfilling the reconnaissance role instead. Though numerically a very small part of the Slovak commitment to the Eastern Front, the cyclists figure in most of their battles. The engineer arm was relatively weak, as most of the highly-trained specialists and in particular their officers had been Czech in the pre-war army. Though the Slovak order of battle features a number of “engineer” units, these were almost always construction outfits wielded picks and shovels.

Slovakia had an excellent heavy machine gun, the Brno-made ZB53 that was also used by the Germans and the Romanians. The Germans seized many of these from Czech Army stocks, but left the Slovaks with large numbers of older vz.24 models (same as the service rifle), a modernized veteran of the First World War.

Tanks

For its size, the Slovak Army had a large armored establishment thanks to Czech Army’s very modern orientation. The Slovaks inherited the equipment of the Czech 3rd Rapid Division, and other vehicles in depots. They also purchased more tanks from the manufacturers and from German stocks during the course of the war.

The LT34 was an early light tank built by CKD Praga for the Czech Army, the first ordered in large quantities. By 1939 it was obsolete though the 3rd Rapid Division, having the lowest priority for new equipment among the Czech armored divisions, had about 50. The Slovaks used them for training, and some saw combat during the National Uprising of 1944.

The Czech Army’s main battle tank was the LT35, exported to Romania as the R2 and later used by the Germans as the PzKw35t. This was a very modern and effective vehicle when it was new, but by the time the Slovaks took them to Russia in 1941 it was no match for current models. When the Slovak insurgents deployed them in 1944 they had no hope of matching modern German armor — although the Germans used them against the Slovaks as well.

Slovakia was not seen as a potential economic competitor for the Third Reich and was considered completely pliable by Berlin. Thus the Slovaks had a much easier time purchasing modern arms from Czech factories than was the case for other Axis allies like Romania. The LT38 did not enter service with the 3rd Rapid Division but the Slovaks were familiar with it and ordered ten of them in 1940 from the CKD firm. Over the next several years they bought 64 more, most of them used vehicles from German stocks. This was a very well-designed vehicle with Christie suspension, good protection and a good 37mm gun (the standard for tanks of its time). The Germans issued them as the PzKw38t, and it remained in production and front-line use until 1942.

But the LT38 was clearly outdated by 1943, when most of the vehicles arrived in Slovakia, and the Slovaks wanted to buy the new German PzKw IVH with a long 75mm gun. With the Slovak Mobile Division having proven itself unfit for front-line combat and unlikely to return to action, the Germans balked at diverting any of the badly-needed vehicles. But to placate the Slovaks they did sell them five PzKw IIIN tanks to help them train crews for the new tanks that they might sell at some undefined future date. The PzKw IIIN was a close-support vehicle with the same short-barreled 75mm gun that had equipped early models of the PzKw IV. The most effective tank the Slovaks had in 1944, the four vehicles that were still in running condition saw extensive use against the Germans.

Still seeking modern armor, in 1944 the Slovaks bought 16 used German PzKw II tanks to replace their Czech OA.30 armored cars. They also obtained 18 Marder III tank destroyers, a very effective vehicle based on the LT38 chassis. These arrived just in time to be used against the Germans, and to good effect.

Artillery

The Slovaks inherited a large artillery park from the Czech Army, but a comparatively small number of artillerymen. Artillery had been a specialty of the Czech soldier since the days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and very few artillery regiments accepted Slovak recruits. Thus the Slovak Army had plenty of modern weapons, but no one to fire them. Some they sold to the Germans, but most were stored in depots and remained there throughout the war.

The 10cm vz.30 was a modern howitzer made by Skoda and bought by Turkey, Hungary, Brazil and many other foreign customers. The small artillery regiment that accompanied the Slovak Mobile Division had 10 of these, but the Slovaks had a hard time supplying them with ammunition. In 1942 the Slovaks bought two dozen new 105mm howitzers from the German firm Rheinmetall — a weapon denied to other Axis allies — so they could draw ammunition from German supply depots. The game piece also represents the Skoda vz.35 10.5 cm cannon, which had very similar performance to the German piece.

Slovakia also inherited 99 of the very effective 75mm Skoda mountain guns, which were issued directly to infantry regiments in the same manner as infantry guns in the German army. These were also used by Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania and many other armies.

Other Weapons

The standard Czech anti-tank gun in 1939, the 37mm vz.37, had good performance against enemy armor but was badly outclassed by the time Slovak forces went into combat on the Eastern Front. Slovakia had over 260 of this model and the slightly older vz.34, both of which could fire up to 23 shots per minute in semi-automatic mode.

The Slovak Mobile Division took a battery of 88mm German-made anti-aircraft guns into action on the Eastern front, handing them over to a German unit when the division was withdrawn from action in early 1943. The Germans replaced them with new weapons kept in Slovakia, as were new German-made 75mm anti-tank guns acquired in 1944. More 88mm guns were supplied in 1944 to defend Slovak arms factories and refineries from Allied bombers. Many of these saw action against the Germans during the National Uprising.

Czechoslovakia had purchased a large number of Swiss-made 20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns in 1936. Slovakia inherited 62 of them, sending about half of them to the field army and holding the rest for homeland defense. In 1944 they obtained three dozen more German-made copies.

Slovakia also had a number of 81mm mortars, Czech-made copies of the famous French Brandt weapon, but these saw relatively little action before 1944 despite their great effectiveness. Slovak doctrine preferred the 75mm mountain howitzer for infantry support, and Slovak infantry battalions usually had this weapon instead of the mortar platoon common in other armies.

Air Support

One of the Czechslovak Air Force's six regiments fell into Slovak hands in 1939, with about 300 planes including obsolete models. The front-line aircraft were 71 Avia B.534 biplane fighters and 73 Letov S.328 light bombers. Short of pilots and skilled ground crews the Slovaks could only put less than half of their planes into the air. Roughly handled by both the Hungarians and the Poles, the Slovak squadrons also lost a fair number of planes and pilots to defections as Slovak fighter pilots decided to cast their lot with the Czech exile squadrons that fought in turn for Poland, France and Britain.

The B.534 was an adequate fighter when introduced in 1935, but no match for modern monoplanes in service by 1941. They also could not use the same fuel supplies as German squadrons—the Czechs had chosen to power their aircraft with a unique fuel mixture of alcohol, benzol and gasoline. In 1942 the Germans supplied used Bf.109E fighters to replace the biplanes. The planes returned to Slovakia, where one of them shot down a Hungarian transport plane during the 1944 National Uprising, the last aerial victory recorded by a biplane.

Finland ordered a light bomber from Letov in 1932, and when the Finns beheld the prototype in 1934 they were so impressed that they immediately cancelled their order. Letov then did what any manufacturer does in a democracy - their lobbyists leaned on properly-placed politicians and the Czech Air Force was in turn strong-armed into preserving the company’s balance sheet. In all 445 of the useless craft were bought in the name of the free market, and the Slovaks used theirs for ground support and reconnaissance.

By 1942 a Slovak manufacturer was producing Ju.87 dive bombers for the Luftwaffe, and the Slovaks managed to divert six of them to their own needs along with a pair of He.111 bombers. But the Letov light bombers remained in inventory, and several participated in the National Uprising of 1944

You can order Puppet Brigade right here.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, three children, and new puppy. He misses his lizard-hunting Iron Dog, Leopold.

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