Home Guard? You're having a LAF..... Sentries 25/08

[Red Sveta]

Here is a real Home Guard platoon with a regular army sargent ...... and the Vicar of course.

[levied troop]

Superb painting Jon, the faces are stand-out but everything looks just spot-on.

[Harry Faversham]

Some say Dad's Army wouldn't have been much cop if adolf had landed, and they'd be wrong. Imagine two blokes in a trench with a Lewis gun and half a dozen drums. They're defending the road into their village, both mid forties, and Veterans of the first do in the trenches...
Jerry's going to pay dearly to come down that road.

[tin shed gamer]

Really Nice to see them coloured in.(I've not painted a single one )
There's a lot more to come including the younger.  (and shorter  ;. ) volunteers.Amongst others
Coulpe of musings on my workbench thread.

[SABOT]

Great work by you both. 👍

[Ewan]

The figure in the tin hat looks good, hopefully there will be more like him 😊

[Blackwolf]

They are nice figures well painted. However the home guard was not mainly made up of old men especially in the industrial areas. There were men who had reserved occupations who could be in there 20s-30s, there were men who were not quite fit enough for frontline service for one reason or another and lads like pike who were just under 18 waiting for call up. So early war British figures could be used for Home Guard not just dads army types.

Haha,indeed. Unfortunately a lot of LAF members are,which these wonderful miniatures are based on
Beautiful work Dags

[Red Sveta]

I would be in the Home Guard these days too. But the figures shouldn't have the arm band on either that was when they were without uniforms in the very beginning, it had LDV on it which stood for Local Defence Volunteer. My grand father told me some of the chaps said it stood for LOOK DUCK and VANISH.

When I was a kid after watching an episode of Dads Army I remember asking him in that child like way if they could have stopped the German invasion. He paused for a moment then said " I don't think so, but we would have fought them.....fought them hard". Looking back on the memory now I realise he had given it some thought and I do not think the home Guard would have been a walk over for the invading German Forces. Thank goodness we didn't have to find out.

[tin shed gamer]

Without wanting to highjack Jon's lovely painting thread.
The arm band was worn with a uniform(if your unit managed to get a uniform before they were renamed.)
There's also an evolution to the square arm patch .'Home Guard 'Arm bands were issued and often folded in half and stitched directly to the uniform.
This issue was in turn replaced with the cloth badge. It's simply a case of just how far down the resupply roster your unit was. The further down the more likely you were to be issued the newer kit.(the logistics being as you equip you run out of batch A and the new batch B starts straight on the tail of the first and you continue down the unit issue until all units have kit . Then the final design becomes the resupply for all units.((occasionally you can get kit ahead or out of issue order if your in with QMS .)
So your Grand father was right.As far as the regs go . But regs are often seen as more of a guideline(until your caught )

[Red Sveta]

I should imagine the units on the south coast were equipped before other areas been potentially in the front line at some point. Those are great photos btw. I didn't mean to hijack the post in any way. I think the what if scenarios could be very interesting and the availability HG figures now is great. The TFL have a campaign in one of their specials that looks very good set in Nottinghamshire. 

[tin shed gamer]

  I ment me highjacking.

Drop me a pm if you fancy volunteering your grandfather or yourself into the range.
As Jon knows (and done a lovely job on) theres Austin7's and motorcycles in the range (so far.)

[Dags]

Hijack  away boys; more comments = more views & more work enquiries 

[Johnny Boy]

Fantastic work, really inspiring to a lesser mortal. I never seem able to get that greener shade on the battledress. If it's not too cheeky may I ask is there a ready made colour or do you mix?

[Dags]

I never seem able to get that greener shade on the battledress. If it's not too cheeky may I ask is there a ready made colour or do you mix?

Not cheeky at all 

Base is a roughly 50/50 mix of Vallejo MC German Camo Black-Brown and VMC English Uniform

Very diluted wash of VMC Smoke

Add in more English Uniform to the base mix (and keep adding - 3 or 4 thin layers until almost neat English Uniform)

For highlights add in a tiny bit of Vallejo Panzer Aces British Tanker Highlight to the mix (keep adding until it 'pops')

They're all done individually so the exact proportions differs on each giving a slight variation. I also got a much greener tone at the end of the English Uniform bottle (I store them upside down and just use the pigment - more carrier makes it greener)

Hope that makes sense!

[Johnny Boy]

That's excellent! Many thanks indeed, It does make sense and I just hope I can do the scheme justice.