B is for Battle Dressed Combat Soldiers!

When this post was in the queue for Rack Toy Month last year, it consisted of about 20 appallingly bad shots of the contents of the bag, with tons of reflection, in which I was trying to shoot at least one good shot of each pose, for collaging into groups, but I ran-out of time to crop and edit them.

There weren't all the poses in the bag which was another spoiler of the project and then, when getting toward the end of the garage emptying, I found their box, and managed a whole new shoot with loose figures and a few silver 'plated' ones!

The oddity with this set (and the reason I had them stored separately in two 'zones'), is that the ANZAC clones are, generally, a tad bigger than the 8th Army clones (both from the Airfix 1:32nd/54mm figures), so, for years, I thought I was seeking two sources! I still am of course, but now it's to find the chromium-guys set, rather than two nationalities of set!

 

How many officers? You can see here that the ANZAC Officer with pistol (converted from the Airfix Commando) is heading for 45mm, the other ANZAC's being around 40mm, with some of the 8th Army no more than 35-mil! And they go very well with the Rado Industries/Ri-Toys, definitely not Blue Box ANZAC's! Which means they could be used with the actual Blue Box too!

The mark shows up better on the metallic-sprayed set, and err, that's it for now, currently an unknown originator's 'generics', I'll return to them when more comes to light! I aught to add that I think the two chromium ones here were from Chris or Peter, as the officer wasn't in the storage lot and these images were from the old folder, so thanks - as always - to both.

L is for London, HMS London - Gallipoli and the Dardanelles

These all come from an old envelope with an Edwardian stamp and the faded message "Taken aboard HMS London" in pencil, although some of them have clearly been taken ashore at 'Anzac Cove'. My Grandfather, eventually Admiral Hall, was conscripted across from the Merchant Marine (in 1915 - I think?) and served on HMS London, from Wikipedia;

"HMS London was the lead ship of the London class of pre-dreadnought battleships built for the British Royal Navy. The Londons were near repeats of the preceding Formidable-class battleships, but with modified armour protection. The ship was laid down in December 1898, was launched in September 1899, and was completed in June 1902. Commissioned the same month, she served with the Mediterranean Fleet until early 1907. She was assigned to the Nore Division of the Home Fleet for nearly a year before transferring to the Channel Fleet. Rendered obsolete with the emergence of the new dreadnoughts in late 1906, she underwent an extensive refit in 1909, after which she served with the Atlantic Fleet. She was assigned to the Second Home Fleet in 1912 as part of the 5th Battle Squadron, and was temporarily fitted with a makeshift ramp for experiments with naval aircraft until 1913.

Following the outbreak of World War I, the squadron was attached to the Channel Fleet before London was detached in March 1915 to participate in the Dardanelles Campaign, supporting ANZAC forces as they landed at Gaba Tepe and Anzac Cove on 25 April 1915. She remained in the Mediterranean, supporting the Italian Royal Navy in the Adriatic Sea until October 1916. Returning to the United Kingdom, she was inactive until being converted to a minelayer in early 1918, which entailed the removal of her main armament. She served with the Grand Fleet's 1st Minelaying Squadron until the end of the war. Placed in reserve in 1919, she was eventually broken up for scrap in 1920."

The photographs appear to be 'official' or semi-official enough to assume there will be copies in national archives somewhere (IWM or NMM), and apart from the developers stamp and a penciled number (suggesting they are from a larger set) there is nothing else to date or place them, so I can only post them here with minimal blurb and the requested acknowledgement to Alfieri!

Convoying

Seems to be a ship's service with the ship's company to the left, a god-botherer and some officers in the middle and soldiers (presumably ANZAC's) to the right. I don't think this is on London - too many turrets?

Some soldiers getting a bit of sun on deck - note the shadows.

Bombardment in support of the landings?

Landing Fleet

On Board Ship

Summer dress.

Winter dress.

My brief research seems to say London only lost seven crew in the whole war, each death having a different date, so likely to be accidental or medical/natural causes rather than a major action; she had a 'quiet' war, however, there is a second series of Dardanelles shots, which I packed, sealed and took to storage before remembering I wanted to scan them as well (so we'll have them in a year or two now!), among which was a shot which appears to show one of the main six-inch guns blown-up (overheating, cooked-off round, lucky Turkish shot?), which - in doing so - appears to have damaged the pom-pom/12-pounder (?) in the center of the anchor-chain capstan (?) to the left here; that is not their normal configuration!

So; it may be that what we see here is someone getting an award for actions undertaken in that incident? Equally it could be something as boring as a pay-parade, they seem to be receiving something in their hats, and there's a queue behind the guy in the center.

ANZAC Positions

Remarkably similar to the scenes at the end of 'Gallipoli' the movie as Mel Gibson's 'Franc' is running through the line to try and get the message through.

One of those Light Horsemen?

A limber, a stack of bicycles (?) and landing barges in the background.

Relaxing on an unloading pontoon.

Look at the pile of stores at the foot of the scarp.

The previous shot must have been taken from the far pontoon, looking across the nearer pontoon toward where the photographer is standing in this picture, the stores now to the left.

A landing barge up against a pontoon

Eventually I will hand all this archival material to a museum, but this is only a fraction of what I've found, and while most of it is going to storage without being scanned, I will get it all up here over the next few years, god willing! There is a fascinating sequence taken off Murmansk/Archangel, obviously of the 1919 Anglo-American invasion of Russia (one of the last boxes we had to tick! There's only about 15 nations on the planet we haven't at least shot-at now!), which shows shell-damage (presumably from 'Red' shore-batteries), one hole being inspected by a member of the Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service, who was on-board ship! While the bulk of it is later inter-war or RIN/IN stuff.

U is for Uniform Info!

The title of a favorite page in the old Military Modelling magazine (which I believe has recently announced it's demise?), but absolutely fitting to this post.

I have found among my mothers possessions all sorts of things she never mentioned, one of which was this, which I initially assumed was Great Aunt Nina's (my mother's GA, I'm not sure what her relation to me is, great aunt once removed, great-great aunt?), better known as Helena Hall, an artist/designer who worked with Eric and Gordon Gill and others of that late Arts & Craft/ early Modernist movement in Sussex, but it's not really her style (I have a lot of her work from my Mother's late cousin Betty (of odd jobs in occupied Vietnam!)), so I suspect it's actually the work of John Henry Sheren Hall, one of my Grandfather's brothers.

He was a known naive artist (also of Suffolk) but these are quite different from his pastels and watercolours, so, because I'm not sure, and know nothing else about it, I'm just putting them up here for the figure modellers and painters, as they are clearly studies from the 1900-30's (some clues suggest pre-WWI and no later that 1922 - the amalgamation of the two Life Guard's regiments?) of uniforms, mostly colonial-ceremonial, but one or two fit WWI era regular barrack/parade-dress.

There are other things in the sketch book, none signed, which we will look at another day, and the book itself is tiny, an imperial size closest to modern A6 or A7 (or 'policeman's notebook') which made it easy to crop them all at the A4 setting, and is a 36 leaf George Rowney 'Cartridge Ring Bound' (No.7268) undated, but it might help date them.

The sketches are all pen & ink with some having added colour, probably watercolour, or thinned gouache? I hope you enjoy; I think they are rather lovely.

12th Lancers

7th Dragoon Guards (left), 60th (Royal American) Regiment of Foot (right)?

60th was AKA the Kings Royal Rifle Corps (KRRC)

Generic Line Infantry officer

Gordon Highlanders (left), 17th lancers (right)

8th Hussars (left), Gordon Highlanders (right)

Generic Infantry of the line private (left) - a popular pose at the time?

42nd Highlanders 'The Black Watch' (right)

 

I would say these two are better sketches - anatomically - than the rest and may be taken from statues, cigarette cards or something similar?

2nd Life Guards (left) - stable dress? 13th Hussars (right)

The 13th amalgamated with the 18th 'Royal' Hussars after WWI

Field Artillery (left), unknown Guardsman and mascot (right)

The artilleryman's uniform suggests either pre-WWI or Mesopotamian campaign?

 

Again these are superior draftsmanship and may be static studies against the from-life sketches of the majority, his legs and shoulders are distinctive in the majority of the drawings, here they look more 'professional'?

Horse Guards (left), 1st life Guards (right)

16th Lancers

2nd Life Guards

Unknown . . . infantry mess-dress?

Ditto

17th Lancers (left), Royal Canadian Dragoons (right)

Typical - most interesting sketch . . . no notes!

Got to be ANZAC?

Or Southern African units/native 'horse'/militias?

Coldstream Guards (left), RHA (right)

These two are still with us pretty-much unchanged.

E is for Eye Candy - ANZAC Patrol

Mucking about with Lone Star Australians and a lovely bunch of coconuts! I colourised it to try and give it some atmosphere . . .

 

Papua New Guinea, 1944

D is for Down Under

I've had a few days monging-about with man flu (a mild head-cold!), so am a bit late posting for Tuesday, but there seems to be a full programme for the week depending on how much I get posted-up in the next couple of hours - eMails may have to wait until tomorrow!

Main post today isn't here; it's next door at the Airfix site, where I've posted the 1:32nd scale/54mm Australians / ANZAC's with comparisons and blurb. I know I still have to do a lot of blurbing over there, and still have to produce most of the 54mm pages, but some of it is in the pipeline.

There are to be a couple little posts here later-today, which I will schedule around tea-time our time, hour-or so, wot-wot!

A is for Antipodean and African Action Men!

More box-ticking and I still haven't found a hunter! Two sets in one with this mob, as they got themselves a second paint-job at some point and jointed the King's African Rifles, but they got their start as ANZAC's, although I think they were called Australians by Lone Star, the two national contingents of the Corps were similarly dressed and equipped and usually served side-by-side, so I'll go with ANZAC!

Ten ANZAC's from Lone Star, showing a variety of paint in hats and webbing and all the standard 'toy soldier' poses covered except 'casualty' where some makers are keener than others to represent the negatives of making war, although LS's khaki infantry have a lovely stretcher-team as we saw last year.

The KAR (King's African Rifles), same figures but with darker skin-tones and a typically; a darker green for hats and socks than the ANZAC's. Although - as he's snuck into the shot - the prone'ish Bren-gunner (front left)is an ANZAC with the darker greens of the KAR's. I don't know how he ended-up in the shot, there is a dark-skinned gunner, but clearly I wasn't paying attention!

Closer comparisons; showing typical Lone Star base-type variations. I suspect the larger bases are a later change to the tool, it's easier to make a component larger than to reduce it? However it's not totally clear as while the larger bases on the unpainted figure and/or KAR might suggest logically a later issue . . .

. . . here we find the KAR is the smaller base! A situation mirrored in . . .

. . . the kneeling firer. Assuming the grey-green bases were even later, would leave the conclusion some bases got bigger, while some got smaller? I know this has been pored-over elsewhere in the past, with an equal lack of a firm-conclusion, so I'm not going to try calling it, suffice to say there are a lot of variations out there!

Also I suspect the officer on the right-hand end of the rank has been home-painted/re-painted, but it's not clear.

Some more comparisons (they're not rare!). Black grenades seem to be less common and may be earlier, but one gets the impression Lone Star's out-painters had a freer hand than say Britains' did?

I have two unpainted figures in the sample; this advancing chap and the officer above, who (or which?) may have been stripped of paint by previous owners, but are more-, or as-likely to have snuck on to the market from factory-filches or old, forgotten, out-worker's stock?

Recent re-issues, these aren't the softer PVC of my Toyway stuff, so I guess Dorset or Marlborough? The colour of polymer chosen however (un-pigmented neutral granules?) is bloody insipid and hard to photograph! Although the kneeling Tommy-gunner is a better shot with more substance to his 'mass'.

Lower shots reveal that these Afro-Antipodeans are a bunch of big boys, with a buckshee Hong Kong copy, Airfix's Gurkah and a French Indo-Chinese (or Algerian campaign?) soldier from JIM (it's all in the hat!) all dwarfed by Lone Star's chap, although the usually larger (in shots of this type) Atlantic machine-gunner holds his own . . . a couple of six-footers if they are an inch in 54mm!

NZNAM is for New Zealand's National Army Museum - Gift Shop Figures

Reinforcing the figures in the museum's display cabinets are a small number of figures for sale, for which I have no details as to manufacturer if any NZ reader happens to know? Seem to be modern 54mm (that is closer to 60!), 'new metal'  to match K&C, Figarti, Gunn, Atkinns & co.?

WWI ANZAC's; interestingly, after the end of the previous post; the officer seems to be wearing a slouch hat, but un-pinned, the troops sport a slightly shorter 'spike' more like a Mounties, while - and it's not clear - the pack-mule handler, half-out of frame to the right, seems to have the standard 'British' service-cap?

A nice group of resisting Moari and two figures (also in service caps) who I suspect are not WWII, but - from the blue-ish shirts - WWI Mesopotamia or Gallipoli? There seems to be a WWII figure advancing out of the frame, to the right.

Many-thanks again to Brian for the images, he explained that they are all shot from the rear as the reflection on the glass-fronts of the cabinets was too bright for photography. Has anyone got some at home they can shoot for us?

NZNAM is for New Zealand's National Army Museum - Other Exhibits

Brain also sent me shots of other items of interest within the museum, along with some items from the gift shop (next post), and what we have here are a set of probably commercial metal kit figures painted to represent New Zealand military uniforms through the ages.

Colonising and 'colonial period in the two full line-ups with WWI ANZAC uniforms visible below. I don't know enough to start attributing units/eras, but the Cavalryman looks like the sort who might have been sent to help against the Zulu's or Boars?

I rather like the cavalry guards uniform - middle left - which looks like the Hampshire Yeomanry mess-dress, although I think the local version was more ostentatious with even greater swathes of silver-braid! The Victorian period seems to have made a big thing of formal dress . . . 'All those parties - don't you know, what-what!'

And what's Windsor Davis doing next to him . . . "Luverlyboy-luverlyboy"!

Some modern uniforms here, I don't know enough about metal production either, but would imagine some Stadden's, New Hope and Under Two Flags to be here, maybe the odd Cavalier or even a Scrubby? Anyone recognise any of them? I like the knackered dog.

The whole display; gluing them to a mirror is a brilliant idea, by moving your head slightly you get to view all the backs of the figures, so the equal effort the painter went to isn't wasted! Mr. B didn't get the artists name, but they all look to be by the same hand, and a different hand to those of the dioramist we saw earlier.

Note also the 'Lemon Squeezer' hat, from mentions in posts on the NZNAM fund-raising figures, which we saw after Glenn Sibald generously sent them to the Blog at the beginning of the year.

Another; from an alternate angle, you can see it's different to the US or Canadian versions, I think, with a taller, sharper point and wider head-band area? While it lacks the turned-up side of its neighbouring Aussie, smooth-peaked one (shared - with detail differences - with the Ghurkhas). However, it is similar to the old boy-scout version, but then Baden Powell would have worked with colonial troops?

There's a book in there somewhere? One of the little Shire Albums perhaps, or a rather esoteric Osprey! It would be interesting to know when which version was adopted, by whom and why, formally or casually.

The metal figure of the colonial cavalryman in jodhpurs (first image) has one more like the Australian slouch-hat, suggesting a common 'colonial troop' heritage, but was the Canadian Mounties' shorter-version also born out of 'Empire & Africa;, or taken from the US 'Smokey Bear'.

Or did the Americans take it from the Canadians? Were ex-colonial troops wearing their old hats while working on the railways, being built 'out west', or while rushing for gold? An 'etymology' of the squeezed-peak and/or slouch-hat, would be an amusing read, and not less than a little interesting!

I suppose the 'cowboy hat', Stetson and Fedora must be on earlier branches of the family tree, and the leather forerunner of Richelieu's musketeers or Cap'n Jack are ultimately to blame!

And thanks again to Brain for the images.