Tuesday, 7 May 2024

Copplestone Back of Beyond British infantry

Well, I've done the officers, so here are some rank and file for them to command. There are ten figures in total.


The group above are led by an NCO (with raised arm). The following two groups make up the rest of his section of riflemen.


As with the officers, I think that their KD tropical uniforms are slightly too green, but I don't think it matters that much. One thing that I think does matter is that they are wearing shorts, which I don't think were introduced with the tropical KD service dress until the mid-1930s, so these infantrymen might be a bit of an anachronism in the period immediately after the First World War and in the 1920s. Still, these are intended for all manner of games, some of which will involve Egyptian mummies that walk, unspeakable eldritch horrors and all manner of other weird things, so nit-picking over uniform details seems a bit pointless.

I bought a blister pack of Lewis gunners to add some firepower to this rifle section, hoping that I might get two gunners and two loaders/spare magazine carriers. Sadly, the set only comes as pictured, three gunners plus one loader. I enquired from North Star as to whether it might be possible to buy two loaders alone but apparently this isn't possible, which means I have one Lewis team and two extra gunners that I doubt I'll bother painting up, which is a shame. I'm not sure what I'll do with them.

6 comments:

  1. Hello, the shirts should be grey. Best regards Simon

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    1. Yes, I've had that mentioned elsewhere, but I'm not going to repaint them now.

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    2. OK, I'm going to redo them in grey. Now I know, I just can't leave them alone.

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  2. Well I think the shirts and the rest of the models look just fine. Nice job!

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    Replies
    1. Actually, it's been nagging away at me now, and I will redo the shirts.

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  3. Hi Carole. I just discovered your blog. Regarding short pants, the earliest recorded instance I can recall is from around 1903. This is from memory and sorry I don’t have any references to hand. I also think it was colonial troops, like from India perhaps? But they were in use by WW1, by askaris for sure and I am pretty sure by regular troops. That makes the short pants acceptable well before the 1930s you mention in your comments above. -Carl

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