South African Reinforcements

Towards the end of 2013 I completed a few more troops and vehicles for my South African 6th Armoured Division in Italy 1944.

First was an additional squad of First City/Cape Town Highlanders infantry, bring the totals up to enough to allow my Bolt Action force organisation to have two platoons. These are Warlord Games plastic British Infantry, built out of the box, with the exception of a few headswaps, and a few alterations of pose - including a prone Bren gunner (the Warlord plastic British sprues dont include a prone figure).

I used thin foil (from a scalpel blade wrapper) for the rifle sling.

I then experimented with mixing Perry and Warlord parts to try to create troops in summer kit in Italy. The difference in scale between the Perry and the Warlord plastics is significant, and is most noticable in the size of the heads and helmets, and the scale of the weapons. These figures are Perry with Warlord heads and/or helmets, and parts of the Warlord rifles.

The PIAT team was another Perry/Warlord mashup. I like the diversity of poses found in the Perry set, which I think lend themselves to some more "natural" and less dramatic poses than the Warlord figures. (Its such a pity the Perry figures are so small. Alongside my Artisan 8th army they look like a different scale.)

Lastly, I added an artillery liaison team. I think these are all Warlord figures -  I had to swap out one of the Warlord FOO team figures as it was depicted with a Sten gun - a weapon that (to my knowledge) was not used by the South Africans.

The vehicles had been on my painting desk for the longest time, and I simply had to complete them to free up space and energy for new projects. Both depict vehicles used by the Natal Mounted Rifles - the dedicated reconnaissance regiment of 6th Armoured Division.

I had completed another Stuart Recce previously, so here is a NMR family portrait: