On parade! The Barryat of Lyndonia’s artillery contingents

In Part 8 of this series of postings in which I am reviewing the armies of my ‘imagi-nation’, the Barryat of Lyndonia, it’s time to take a look at the artillery contingents.

As described in Part 1, rather than having its own army, this imaginary eighteenth century state contracts its troops from real-life European countries of the time.

The artillery contingents come from Britain and France – which has no doubt led to many a fisticuffs argument in local hostelries when carousing gunners from these two habitual enemies run into each other!

The French gun and limber are made by Fife and Drum Miniatures (also available from UK company Crann Tara Miniatures).

Apart from the horses, they are all painted with GW’s wonderful Contrast paints (which have truly revolutionised my style and speed of painting).

I’ve chosen to paint the guns red, which means they are from the mid-part of the eighteenth century, as the French later converted to blue. I reckon the red looks more dramatic!

Whilst the gun crew are all glued onto the base, I’ve kept the gun itself removable so it can be attached to the limber if I wish to portray the piece on the move.

The number of horses is really just representative, as I think this would be far too much a load for just two horses to haul!

And here’s the British Royal Artillery contingent. This model also comes from Crann Tara Miniatures.

Gunners normally wore quite subdued uniforms (maybe due to how they could get so worn and dirty working the guns). But the British bucked this trend, and festooned their Royal Artillery’s uniforms with lashings of lace and piping.

I thought all this decoration would be quite hard to paint, but the Contrast paints almost did the job by themselves, with just the barest modicum of precision on my part!

I particularly like the British officer with his crimson sash, whom you can see on the left of the above photo.

Note the civilian driver on the right. During his period armies hired civilians to lug their guns about. Once in battle, I bet many drivers would’ve scarpered off, leaving the guns pretty well fixed in place.

Again, the gun can be attached to its limber.

British guns were painted a grey-blue. I must admit I didn’t get the shade quite right on the gun, compared to the limber. Maybe the gun is older and has faded in the sun!

Whilst painting the big guns, I also took the opportunity to re-base the smaller battalion guns that I had painted several years ago.

Battalion guns were the small-calibre cannon that formed integral parts of some individual infantry units.

Here we see the battalion gun of Gale’s Regiment of Foot, supporting the advance of the company of grenadiers.

These figures are by Minden Miniatures.

And here’s the battalion gun of le Régiment des Royal-Cravates.

Battalion guns were often manned by infantrymen from the regiment, rather than actual artillerists, which is why these gunners are in white rather than French Artillerie blue.

Go back to Part 7 of this series: the Truchseß Dragoons.

On parade! The Truchseß Dragoons of the Barryat of Lyndonia

In Part 7 of this series of ‘On parade!’ postings featuring the units of my ‘imagi-nation’ army, we meet these dragoons based on the real-life Prussian Truchseß dragoon regiment.  

My imagi-nation, the Barryat of Lyndonia is based on the movie Barry Lyndon. But there are only a few cavalrymen in the movie, who are basically in Prussian infantry uniforms with attached plumes, and don’t do anything for me.

So I decided to do a completely new unit, not from the movie at all, but picked for an entirely different reason. When I met my wife back in the 80s, pink and light-blue were the ‘in’ colours. She not only wore (very attractively, I might add) pink and light-blue eye-shadow, but we painted our first house together white with pink and light-blue trim. Despite being well out of fashion now, I still have a fondness of that colour combination, so how could I resist painting a real-life regiment that had light-blue uniforms with pink facings – the Prussian Truchseß dragoons?!

I don’t organise my regiments  in any historical way – they are merely for playing fun wargames, not simulating history. When I painted this regiment back in 2012, it initially had 24 figures –  two officers, one drummer and one standard bearer (all based singly) and two squadrons of 10 troopers (based in pairs).  

However, I later added a couple more troopers to each squadron, as I found 10 to be an unsatisfying number for arranging my regiment in symmetrical formations!  

The figures are all 28mm Minden Miniatures (along with Crann Tara Miniatures, the most exquisite 18th century figures around, in my opinion). The standard is merely printed out from a lovely picture on the Kronosaf website.

I was particularly pleased with how this haughty officer came out. As this figure was originally a Minden Hanovarian officer, and not a Prussian at all, he is wearing his sash incorrectly across his shoulder for a Prussian (who wore them around the waist). Even though with an imagi-nation army I’m not bound by accuracy, I decided to paint the sash as a real military decoration ribbon instead – the orange ribbon of the Order of the Black Eagle.

The horses were under-coated with rust-coloured car primer, then rubbed with burnt umber or black oil paint.  This oil paint used to belong to my Dad, who passed away in 1984, so it imbues my figures with a touch of personal memories, and also shows you how long oil paint lasts!  

Oh, and I had some expert help on painting horses from Sammy, who is seen inspecting the results in the above picture!

Go forward to Part 8 of this series: the artillery contingents

Go back to Part 6 of this series: the Lynden Hussars

On parade! The Barryat of Lyndonia’s Lynden Hussars

In Part 6 of this series of ‘On parade!’ postings reviewing all the units in the army of my wargaming ‘imagi-nation’ (imaginary nation), the Barryat of Lyndonia, here come the Lynden Hussars, looking somewhat Toytown-ish in their blue, yellow and red uniforms.

Although my army is imaginary, I like each unit to match a real-life regiment from any of the warring nations of the mid-18th century. So after I bought these wonderful Minden Miniatures French hussars a couple of years ago, I ummed and ahhed which French regiment to paint them as.

So, were they going to be France’s famous Bercheny Hussars? Or perhaps those cut-throat rogues, the Chasseurs de Fischer? I just couldn’t decide … until the decision was made for me when I found out that the French army really had a hussar regiment named the Aspremont-Lynden Hussars. How could the Barryat of Lyndonia possibly not include this unit in its army?!

The standard French light-blue hussar uniform looks striking in my army, especially with the colourful yellow facings and red horse furniture.

I painted the horses using oil paints, which gives a lovely depth of colour and a sheen that makes them look lifelike.

The regiment consists of 24 troopers, two trumpeters, a standard-bearer (yes, I know hussars didn’t carry standards into battle, but this is an imaginary nation, remember!), and an officer. They’re not based for any particular set of wargaming rules.

One problem was that I couldn’t find any information on the colour of the Lynden trumpeters’ uniforms. As French trumpeters often wore the livery of their regiment’s owner, I decided to paint them in yellow and red to mach the heraldic arms of the real-life Aspremont-Lynden family.  

Go forward to Part 7 of this series: the Truchseß Dragoons

Go back to Part 5 of this series: Le Régiment des Gardes Françaises

On parade! Le Régiment des Gardes Françaises

Some visitors to this blog will have a sense of déjà vu reading this article, as I only posted about finishing painting this unit of le Régiment des Gardes Françaises back in March this year.

But as they are one of the foreign contingents in the army of my ‘imagi-nation’, the Barryat of Lyndonia, they’re re-appearing here as Part 5 of this series in which I’m reviewing every one of the Barryat’s units.

As I’ve previously mentioned (e.g. in Wargaming Illustrated #385), the Barryat’s army is made up of contracted foreign regiments from all over 18th-century Europe.

I chose the first three regiments, British, French and Prussian, because they had appeared in ‘Barry Lyndon’, the book and movie on which I very loosely based my imagi-nation.

But I’ve now exhausted the ‘Barry Lyndon’ units, so any further regiments in the Barryat’s army are based simply on which ones I like the look of – what amazing freedom that gives me!

My favourite-ever military painting is Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux’s The Battle of Fontenoy featuring Le Régiment des Gardes Françaises.

So when I saw that Crann Tara Miniatures had a range of Gardes Françaises figures sculpted in the same 1/56th scale as my other Minden Miniatures regiments, the die was cast!

I just had to come up with a good back-story of why a contingent of such a prestigious French regiment was in the Barryat’s army.

Fellow New Zealand wargamer Wayne Stack made the suggestion that they could have been part of the dowry from the marriage of one of the younger daughters of the French king…or possibly one of his favourite illegitimate daughters. That sounds plausible enough to me!

By the way, this particular pic is not of Crann Tara miniatures, but of some old 30mm Willie figures.

As with the other regiments of foot in the Barrayt’s army, this was quite some painting effort: sixty-six privates, along with four NCOs, three officer, two ensigns, and three drummers – a total of 78 figures!

I painted this unit almost entirely with GW’s Contrast paints. These worked beautifully, flowing well and providing shading with no effort from me. Just look at the officer’s stockings, the wood of the muskets, and the men’s faces – this shading all  happened by itself!

If you want to read more on how I painted them, take a look at this earlier posting on my blog.

Here’s the massed effect of the whole battalion in line, officers to the front, NCOs to the side and rear, drummers on the flank.

And in this short video, the unit looks pretty impressive when the camera pans along the whole line, with its frontage of nearly half-a-metre.  The accompanying music is the actual march of the Gardes Françaises.

Before I based these figures for the Barryat’s army, I just had to arrange them to recreate my favourite military painting. You can see more pictures of this recreated painting here.

Go forward to Part 6 of this series: the Lynden Hussars

Go back to Part 4 of this series: Infanterie-Regiment Kubrick

On Parade! Infanterie-Regiment Kubrick

In this fourth posting in my series on the army of my imagi-nation, the Barryat of Lyndonia, we review the Prussian contingent.

As I have previously mentioned, the Barryat of Lyndonia is inspired by the novel and film ‘Barry Lyndon’. In the story, Barry is eventually enlisted into the Prussian army after being captured as a British army deserter.

The movie doesn’t name the regiment, but in the book it is called the ‘Bulow’ Regiment, which could possibly have been the von Bülow fusilier regiment that fought at Zorndorf.

But I decided to name the third regiment of the Barryat’s army in honour of the movie’s famous director, so the Infanterie-Regiment Kubrick came into being.

As with the other regiments in my army, the movie’s inaccuracies are all faithfully recreated. The soldiers’ coats have the wrong coloured turnbacks, and they wear incorrectly-coloured straps.

OK, so the movie doesn’t have any grenadiers in mitre caps. But, like Gale’s Regiment of Foot, I really wanted some of these smart-looking soldiers, so I’ve conjectured how Kubrick would have portrayed them. Basically, they’re the same as his somewhat inaccurate Prussian musketeers, but wearing mitre caps instead of tricornes.

They also carry mis-matched flags (the orange, black and white flags in the movie are actually from three different real-life Prussian regiments).

The regiment is led by Captain Potzdorf on his distinctive white horse – in the movie Barry saves Potzdorf’s life, which launches his rise in society. 

The figures are gorgeous 1/56th casting by Minden Miniatures, available through Fife and Drum.

By the way, I’ve been asked where in the social hierarchy a “barryat” might lie, for instance vis-à-vis a ‘barony’.

Well, I’m figuring “barryat” is a (mythical) kind of Western European derivative of the old term “banate”, a frontier province led by a military governor called a “ban” (or in my imagi-nation’s case, led by a “barry”).

Banate provinces really did exist, mainly in South Slavic, Hungarian and Romanian lands. For example, the Banat of Temesvár was a Habsburg province that existed between 1718 and 1778.  

Go to the next posting about Le Régiment des Gardes Françaises.

Go back to my previous posting about le Régiment des Royal-Cravates.

On parade! Le Régiment des Royal-Cravates

Welcome to Part 3 of my series looking at the army of my ‘imagi-nation’, the Barrayat of Lyndonia. Today we meet a French unit that has been contracted to join the Barryat’s forces.

This unit represents the regiment that Barry Lyndon faced in the eponymous movie ‘Barry Lyndon’. As I mentioned in my previous posting, Barry’s first taste of battle was ‘only a skirmish against a rearguard of Frenchmen who occupied an orchard beside a road down which the English main force wish to pass’.  

Those of you who know your French regiments of the eighteenth century will no doubt be shaking your heads at my photos and saying, ‘But he’s got it all wrong – that’s the flag of the Régiment de Flandre, and they wore blue facings, not red!’ 

Well, in the movie the unnamed French regiment that Barry faces in battle is clothed in uniforms with red facings and carries the flags of two real French regiments, the Grenadiers Royaux and the Régiment de Flandre. But neither of these regiments had red facings in real life!

In the Thackeray novel that the movie was based on, Barry’s first taste of battle is actually said to occur during the Battle of Minden, and the French regiments he faces are named as being those of ‘Lorraine and the Royal Cravate’. But neither of these units matches the flags in the movie.

Adding to the puzzle is that the real Royal Cravates of the time were not an infantry regiment at all, but cavalry! 

So I had to make some sort of decision on this confusion. In the end, I chose to paint them as the fictional Régiment des Royal-Cravates from the book, with the facings and flags from the movie. The result is a nice colourful hodge-podge, but still distinctly French in look and feel. 

And I can confidently state that this unit is authentic. Well, at least from the perspectives of the book and the movie it is authentic, as my whole plan with this army was to recreate the movie’s inaccuracies as accurately as I could!

I also gave the regiment the little battalion gun that is seen in the movie.  Kubrik got the gunners’ white coats right, as battalion guns were manned by men assigned from the regiment, rather than artillerymen in their blue and red French artillery uniforms. 

My gun is actually a small Napoleonic cannon by Minifigs, but with a lick of red paint it vaguely resembles the little Swedish-style cannons used as battalion guns during the period. That’s near enough for me!

Oh, by the way, these figures are all exquisite 1/56 scale sculpts from Minden Miniatures, available from Fife and Drum.

So there we have it. You have now met the British and French contingents of the army of the Barryat of Lyndonia. Next time it’ll be the Prussians.

Go forward to Part 4 of this series to see the Infanterie-Regiment Kubrick.

Go back to Part 2 of this series to see Gale’s Regiment of Foot.

On Parade! Gale’s Regiment of Foot

I mentioned in Part 1 of this series on my imagi-nation, the Barryat of Lyndonia doesn’t have its own army, but employs regiments from all round Europe, particularly those that starred in my all-time favourite war film, Barry Lyndon. 

In the film our protagonist Redmond Barry has his first taste of battle in just ‘a skirmish against a rearguard of Frenchmen who occupied an orchard beside a road down which the English main force wish to pass’.  The narrator goes on to say that though this encounter is not recorded in any history book, it was memorable enough for those who took part.

This is one of the most powerful scenes in the film, aided by a spine-tingling soundtrack of the fifes and drums playing The British Grenadiers:

It was therefore only natural that the Barrayat of Lyndonia’s first hire would be Barry’s unit, the fictional Gale’s Regiment of Foot, using the exquisite 1/56th scale figures made by Minden Miniatures (which are available through Fife and Drum).

Headed by Lt-Colonel Charles Gale, the regiment’s officers include the Irish adventurer Captain Grogan, the foppish Lieutenant Jonathon Fakenham and his particular friend Lieutenant Freddie, whose surname is not disclosed in the movie.

Somewhere in the ranks, of course, will be Private Redmond Barry. He joined Gale’s Regiment of Foot after being tricked into a duel back home in Ireland. Captain Grogan has now taken young Barry under his wing.

Lieutenants Jonathon and Freddie will later provide Barry with an intriguing opportunity to improve his status in life. But I’m not going to give anything away – you’ll need to see the movie to find out exactly how this happens!

In the movie, the regiment has no grenadiers, but I added these simply because I liked their colourful and intricate mitres so much – and what better reason could there be than that?

The movie also depicts the drummers wearing tricornes instead of mitre caps, but I kept to the latter, again because I like them so much, and also because that’s the way the Minden Miniatures drummers come anyway.

And here’s another chance to listen to those drummers. This is a company of the Kilwangen Regiment led by the ramrod-straight Captain John Quin, with whom the young Barry is later tricked into the duel that leads him to join the army:

A note on my army organisation

The unit organisation and basing of my army are not designed for any particular set of wargames rules, though they do bear somewhat of a resemblance to the regiments portrayed in Charge! Or how to play wargames.    

One of my criteria for this project was that instead of having lots of small regiments, I wanted a smaller number of really big regiments.

So each regiment of foot has 54 men, along with additional individually based officers, standard bearers, sergeants and drummers, bringing the total number to over 60 figures.

There’s no attempt at historical organisation in these units. Instead, each regiment of foot is split into just three companies. 

As the authors of Charge! Or how to play wargames wrote, ‘since an infantry battalion of three companies can be handled in exactly the same way, and can be put through exactly the same manoeuvres, as one of six or eight, there seems little point in having any more’.

The 18 rank-and-file men in each company are based on three 45mm-wide bases, each containing 6 men arranged in two ranks (thus each man having a frontage of 15mm).

This basing system provides the flexibility that I can split the regiment up if I want for varying rules, for example into three separate 18-man regiments.

I also decided not to pursue historical accuracy when painting my figures. Instead, I tried to depict my soldiers as they appear in the movie, lovingly recreating the historical inaccuracies and all.

So if someone tells me that my British belts are the wrong colour, that my French have the incorrect flag, or that the turn-backs on my Prussians should be red instead of white, I can point out that my figures aren’t supposed to represent real British, French or Prussians, but rather Kubrick’s take on them!

Go to Part 3 of this series to meet le Régiment des Royal-Cravates.

Go to Part 1 of this series on the army of the Barryat of Lyndonia.

On parade! Shogunate Japanese armies

Over the last year I’ve been gradually parading each army in my wargaming collection for inspection to take stock of what I’ve got. In this posting in my On Parade! series, it is the turn of my Shogunate Japanese armies.

For this posting, I started by taking the above photo of my entire Japanese collection on its shelf in my display case. By chance, the lighting and background almost gives the impression of a traditional Japanese kabuki theatre show! You really must click on this photo to see it at full effect.

Here’s the first samurai I ever painted. I had a great deal of trepidation when I started work on the complicated armour of this 28mm Kingsford figure. Painting the intricate silk lacing was quite a challenge. I used an almost dry brush to pick out the well-sculpted threads.  While the result doesn’t bear too close scrutiny, the overall effect has (I think) worked quite well.

I based the colour-scheme on an Angus McBride plate in the Osprey book ‘The Samurai’. The plate portrays an unnamed samurai in c.1553. This  is clothed and armoured almost the same as the samurai in the book, so I suspect they may both have used the same source.

Now my first samurai is joined by his buntai (warband) of Kingsford 28mm warriors. They carry a mix of weapon types – yari (spear), teppo (arquebus) and yumi (bow). Such a mixture of weaponry within the same unit is historically correct for Japanese soldiers of this period.

I painted these models as retainers of the Takeda clan. I used VVV decals for the small sashimono (back banner) worn by most of the figures, but I hand-painted the Takeda mon (badge) onto the large banner.

The soldiers’ armour is mainly rust-coloured, and their clothing various shades of beige or sand. Their samurai leaders are more variegated.

To oppose my Takeda buntai, here is the Hojo clad. The carry the triple triangle emblem on their yellow sashimono, which I drew with a drafting pen. Their large standard portrays the so-called ‘five lucky colours’.

The foot soldiers’ armour is mainly black, with light blue lacing and clothing. Their samurai leaders are clothed in different colours according to taste.

I’d admired this set of 28mm Perry Miniatures unarmoured samurai for many years. So although I settled on Kingsford for my armoured samurai, this set did not escape my clutches.

There are three things I particularly like about these figures:

1. The way they look so Japanese – something indefinable, but definitely there.
2. The realistic poses imbued with so much flowing movement.
3. Their wonderful facial expressions, straight out of the TV series ‘Shogun’!

These figures are from are North Star’s Koryu Buntai set, modelled after the eponymous characters from the 1952 movie Seven Samurai.

Seven Samurai is set in war-torn 16th-century Japan, where a village of farmers look for ways to ward off a band of robbers. Since they do not themselves know how to fight, they hire seven ronin (lordless samurai) to fight for them.

1. Kikuchiyo – a humorous character who initially claims to be a samurai, and even falsifies his family tree and identity. Mercurial and temperamental, he identifies with the villagers and their plight, and he reveals that he is in fact not a samurai, but rather a peasant. Eventually however, he proves his worth.
2. Shichirōji – an old friend of Kambei (the leader of the Seven Samurai) and his former lieutenant. Kambei meets Shichirōji by chance in the town, and he resumes this role.
3. Kyūzō – initially declined an offer by Kambei to join the group, though he later changes his mind. A serious, stone-faced samurai and a supremely skilled swordsman whom Katsushirō is in awe of.
4. Kambei Shimada – a ronin and the leader of the group. The first samurai recruited by the villagers, he is a wise but war-weary soldier.
5. Heihachi Hayashida – an amiable though less-skilled fighter. His charm and wit maintain his comrades’ good cheer in the face of adversity.
6. Gorōbei Katayama – a skilled archer recruited by Kambei. He acts as the second-in-command and helps create the master plan for the village’s defence.
7. Katsushirō Okamoto – a young untested warrior. The son of a wealthy landowner samurai, he left home to become a wandering samurai against his family’s wishes. After witnessing Kambei rescue a child who was taken hostage, Katsushirō desires to be Kambei’s disciple.

A busy track sometime during the Sengoku Jidai (‘Warring States’) period, in the shade of a castle and some cherry-blossom trees.

An old-timer ambles along, whilst a mother drags her bawling child, following a well-dressed lady. A ronin stands with his sword over his shoulder. Two workers hurry along, one carrying a mattock and the other with goods balanced on a pole. Meanwhile a yellow-clad monk watches the passing traffic. 

These are all Perry figures.

This geisha by Kensei practises her moves with a pair of fans.

If you’re going to do samurai skirmish gaming, you might as well go the whole hog so far as stereotypical Japanese terrain is concerned. I think I’ve pushed all the buttons here: cherry blossoms, humpbacked red footbridge, and a sturdy torii ornamental gate!

This model, which is also included in the above-mentioned North Star koryu buntai set, depicts the manga comic hero Ogami Ittō. He was the shōgun‘s executioner, but disgraced by false accusations from the Yagyū clan, he is forced to take the path of the assassin. Along with his three-year-old son, Daigorō, they seek revenge on the Yagyū clan and are known as ‘Lone Wolf and Cub’.

Don’t forget to visit my other On Parade! postings, in which I’m gradually doing inspection parades of every army in my wargaming collection.

On Parade! My WW2 Dutch army

Over the last year I’ve been gradually parading each army in my wargaming collection for inspection to take stock of what I’ve got. In this posting in my On Parade! series, it is the turn of my WW2 Dutch. You can click on each picture to inspect them more closely.  

I’ve got sufficient models to field a small mixed force of the Dutch army as it was when the Germans invaded the Netherlands in  May 1940.

My 28mm Dutch infantry are all produced by May ’40 Miniatures. They wear green M.1927 steel helmets, and the grey uniform that had changed little over the previous twenty years. 

On the right is a machine gun team. The light machine-gun squads had a M.20 Lewis light machine-gun operated by a gunner and assistant gunner.

The Dutch infantry in 1940 consisted mainly of conscripts, with only a small number of career officers and NCOs. Squads were commanded by sergeants, and had 9-12 men armed with Steyr rifles. I have sufficient figures for three squads of infantry.

Here’s my squad of the Korps Mariner, who were the only all-professional branch in the Dutch armed forces, and without any doubt the best the Dutch could field.

Marines wore a distinctive dark blue (blackish) uniform tunic or great coat, rather than the grey of the regular army, which gave them the nickname of the ‘Black Devils’.

On the left is an 81mm mortar. Like many armies, the Dutch introduced mortars based on the Stokes-Brandt principle. My force is actually quite lucky to have one, as the Dutch army were under-equipped with mortars, and had only two per battalion.

On the right is a three-man Schwarzlose M.08 machine gun team. The gun is complete with its hose and drain bucket. In May 1940 the Schwarzlose machine gun was quite outdated. Still, they proved to be highly reliable and robust, and the number of break-downs was extremely low.

On the left is a Böhler 47mm anti-tank gun. These guns would prove effective during the intensive fighting in 1940. It could easily penetrate the armour of all German tanks of that time, it had a low profile and it was easy to handle.

On the right is a Solothurn S18-1000 20mm anti-tank rifle. When it was first introduced its firepower was adequate against light tanks and other soft-skinned vehicles, but by 1940 it was insufficient to deal with newer and heavier tanks.

The Landsverk M.36 armoured car on the left was quite modern for its time. The 37mm gun was relatively heavy for an armoured car, and was better than that of a German Pz.III tank. Their only significant weakness was their poor armour. The Dutch armoured cars that served in the May war (about 35 were operational) would excel in the fighting.

On the right is a Carden-Loyd tankette. The crew comprised a driver and a machine-gunner, which allowed each to fully concentrate on his own task. Two small domes protected the crew’s heads. The Carden-Loyd was powered by a Model T Ford engine (true!) and had a road speed of 25 mph (40 km/h).

Tanks? Well, the Dutch army had none! Before the German invasion, the Dutch considered the introduction of powerful anti-tank guns as marking the end of the tank era. As the website War Over Holland says, this belief was “amazing for an army that had not seen anything of modern warfare and that got all of its ‘knowledge’ from papers or magazines.” Of course, they couldn’t have been more wrong, resulting in the Dutch being the only belligerent to have no tanks!

Here’s the crew of the Landsverk. They wear blue overalls over their grey shirts.

The chap in black standing drinking a cup of coffee is a hussar in leather tunic and trousers. Hopefully sometime in the future May ’40 Miniatures might produce a motorcycle for him!

There’s a personal reason why I have built a Dutch army. In September 1939 my father was conscripted into the Depot Battalion of the Medical Troops in Amsterdam (see my previous posting on this subject). In 1940 he was promoted to sergeant, a rank he had held for only one month when the Germans invaded on 10 May.

My Dad is the left-hand soldier of the middle row. What he experienced over those five days in May 1940, we don’t know. He never told us anything about it. My mother believes he was in Rotterdam, which was badly bombed, though as a conscript from the southern province of Limburg, it was also possible he was stationed there.

So my Dutch army includes a team of medics, in Dad’s honour.

Terrain for my Dutch army to fight over includes several modified Gungnir cardboard buildings, a MDF windmill by 4Ground, a bridge and back-gardens by Sarissa Precision, latex brick roads from Early War Miniatures, and plastic lamp-posts, power poles and brick walls from Rubicon.

That concludes the parades of the WW2 part of my collection. Next will come samurai! And don’t forget to visit my other On Parade! postings, in which I’m gradually doing inspection parades of every army in my wargaming collection.

On Parade! WW2 French colonial army

This posting from my On Parade! series, in which I’m slowly reviewing every figure in my wargaming collection, features my WW2 colonial French army. 

When I began researching which army to choose in my first foray into WW2 wargaming with 28mm figures, I was surprised to read about the amount of fighting that took place between the Allies and the Vichy French in North Africa and the Middle East. Often French were even  fighting French. Zut alors, there was my army choice – French who could fight on either side!

And what exotic troops I could take: the Foreign Legion, Moroccan Spahis, Senegalese Tirailleurs … along with weird and wonderful transports and armour.

So let’s review what I have in my colonial French army.

Starting with my infantry, here we see a squad of Foreign Legionnaires, made up of figures by Perry Miniatures. They more likely would have worn helmets in battle, but I couldn’t resist the famous white kepi! Another uniform feature of the legionnaires was the ‘cheche’ neck-scarf that my troops are all wearing.

Here’s another squad, including a prone machine gun crew. On the roof of the building are an officer and an artillery spotter.

The infantry are supported by a mortar and machine gun manned by Tirailleurs recruited from the French colony of Senegal.

On the right is the famous ‘Soixante-Quinze’, the nickname given to France’s 75mm quick-firing field artillery pieces.

All these figures and the gun are by Perry Miniatures.

To transport carry my legionnaires, I have two Berliet VUDB armoured personnel carriers by Mad Bob Miniatures.

As described by Martin Windrow in Military Modelling March 1981 (see, saving old those old MM magazines from my teenage years has paid off!), the VUDB  was ‘a four-wheel drive car bearing a strong resemblance to a hearse … guns could be mounted in any of four ports at front, back and sides. With a crew of three and a box of grenades, these underpowered but reliable old buses proved their worth many times over’.

Here’s the distinctive boxy shape of a White-Laffly AMD50 armoured car, in this model by Mad Bob Miniatures.

The turret had two guns, a 37mm gun at the front, and a machine gun at the rear.

These armoured cars were predominantly relegated to France’s overseas territories from 1937.

A Dodge Tanake by Perry Miniatures. These strange vehicles were converted Dodge 3-ton trucks with added armour.

They were armed with a 37mm gun, along with a coaxial light machine gun, as well as a second machine gun on an anti-aircraft stand at the rear left of the gun pit.

This Heath Robinson-ish contraption is a Conus auto-canon. I’ve manned it with a crew of Moroccan Spahis, recognisable by their distinctive red side-caps. The model is by Perry Miniatures.

The only tank in my force is this diminutive Renault R35 light tank, a resin model by Neucraft Models.

This was a relatively well-armoured infantry support tank, but slow (only 12mph) and lacking in good antitank-capacity, being fitted with only a low velocity short-barrelled 37mm gun.

Neucraft also supplied a second turret with this kit, so I can also use this model as a later type R35 with the long-barrelled SA38 37mm gun.

So that’s my colonial French force for WW2 (or inter-war) battles set in North Africa and the Middle East.

Don’t forget to visit my other On Parade! postings, in which I’m gradually doing inspection parades of every army in my wargaming collection.