Mike Blake on War of Independence Uniforms, Weapons and Equipment 2 German Infantry from Almark Modelworld January 1973

The second of four articles in the series by Mike Blake, from Almark Modelworld January 1973.

As the article on German Military Semaphore Signals 1939-1945 doesn't run over the page, I have left it in as a bonus.

Fred Funcken 1921-2013

The death of Fred Funcken on 16th May 2013 has recently been announced.

While also behind the Uniformology series, he is perhaps best known to wargamers for his Uniformes et Armes des Soldats series of volumes, which covered Napoleonic, Lace Wars, and World Wars 1 and 2. These books were produced together with his wife Liliane.

I thought an appropriate Vintage Wargaming way to mark his passing would be to reproduce a number of reviews of these books which appeared in Wargamer's Newsletter. These appeared in May 1969, May 1970, February 1971, and November 1971.

A fitting tribute is Don Featherstone's dictum from the second of these reviews:

Show me a wargamer who has not got Funcken on his shelves and you show me a man who is only dabbling around the fringes of the hobby.






There is a little more, including his wider comic art background, on the Storm and Conquest blog.

Rene North paint Your Own Cards Set # 103 The Black Watch

Rene North "Paint Your Own Cards" set # 59 3rd (Dutch) Grenadiers

Rene North "Paint-Your-Own Cards" set #107 French 8th Light Infantry

Thanks to Vintage Wargaming reader Mick, I have acquired a collection of around 80 sets of Rene North Paint Your Own cards, still in their original (and unopened) envelopes.

I still have to work out what to do with these but I thought I'd start with the couple of duplicate sets. I think I will have to open them all as this will be a way of compiling a reasonably comprehensive list. I may post a fair quantity of them here, or where relevant on the Hinton Hunter as period uniform information.

To start with here are the contents of set #107 French 8th Light Infantry, as an example of what you got - 6 uniform cards, text uniform instructions, and the small brown envelope they came in.

Early Birds

Here is Miniature Warfare & Model Soldiers magazine's review of the first Osprey Men at Arms titles, taken from Volume 5 Number 3 of June 1972.

René North's Military Uniform Charts #1 French Dragoons 1804-15

Further to previous posts on René North, I am posting part of the series of his Military Uniform Charts. These were additional to his Paint Your Own uniform cards and presented useful information in a one page format.

René North's Military Uniform Charts #2 British Light Dragoons and Hussars 1812-15

René North's Military Uniform Charts #3 French Hussars 1804-12

René North's Military Uniform Charts #4 British Foot Guards and Line Regiments

René North's Military Uniform Charts #5 Austrian Line Regiments 1800-8

René North's Military Uniform Charts #6 British Line Regiments part 2

René North's Military Uniform Charts #7 French Chasseurs a Cheval

René North's Uniform Charts - 2

A lsiting of the René North unifom charts from an old Hinton Hunt catalogue.

Next post will have some more of the uniform information available at the time through Hinton Hunt.

René North's Uniform Charts

Further to the post on René North's Paint Your Own Uniform Cards, here are a couple of his uniform charts - for Austrian Infantry Regiments 1800-1808 and French Dragoons

René North's "Paint Your Own" Uniform Cards

If like me you were always intrigued by René North's Paint Your Own uniform cards but never saw any, this might help - again, from Jack Scruby's 1962 catalogue.

René North,

For a long time the only uniform book I owned was Rene North's Military Uniforms 1686-1918, published by Hamlyn all-colour paperbacks. The scan is of the cover of my original copy, and it is only now looking at it for the post that I have realised the plates aren't by North himself, but by John Berry.

Rene North was also the author of the Almarks on Soldiers of the Peninsular War and on Waterloo. He published a series of colour-in-yourself uniform cards.

The biographical note from Military Uniforms reads:

Rene North is a keen student of costume and military affairs, and has lectured, written articles, and translated books about the uniforms of war. He runs a small private business producing military postcards, and travels extensively to do research from first-hand sources in museums, libraries, art galleries and private collections. He is often in demand as a consultant to theatrical and advertising agencies on matters of military dress. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Artillery and the Intelligence Corps.

Incidentally, if anyone can let me know how to put an e acute in text in blogger, I will revisit this post...

Almark Publications

Almark was a company that was hard to get your head round - prolific publisher, of books and the short-lived (I think) magazine Almark Modelworld; producer of the plastic and metal Charles Stadden designed World War 2 wargames figures (see my The Old Metal Detector blog here); and other interests including 54mm figures.

This post is mainly about the books - published in both hardback and paperback versions. With the passage of time the wisdom of investing in the hardbacks has become clear - the paperbacks were produced in the format laughingly called "perfect bound", with individual pages glued into the spine - not a good recipe for frequent use as a painting reference.

Authors included Emir Bukhari, Rene North, Alan Kemp, Michael Head and David Nash. The format included line drawings, colour plates and photographs. They could vary - the Prussian Army volume has delightful line drawings of gnome like figures who look like either children dressed up or early prototypes for Wargames Foundry figures.

I haven't been able to locate anything like a complete list of Almark titles, so have illustrated this post with some of those I have in my library (below). The three advertisments above are all taken from issues of Almark Modelworld.


The Books