Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => The Second World War => Topic started by: spleenrippa on March 20, 2023, 07:01:31 PM
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My usual interests lie in 15mm sci-fi and 28mm fantasy, but I recently acquired some Warlord BA Grenadiers. They need someone to fight against and being a colonial myself, I thought that a Brit or Canadian force would be interesting.
I love the look of Empress' late war Brits in camo smocks. However, the smock seems to have been utilised primarily by airborne and commando troops, while I'm looking to assemble a platoon of regular grunts. My Googling has only turned up a single line on the Imperial War Museum's site about regular army units sometimes being issued the smock during the winter of 44/45.
Does anyone know of any regular British (or Commonwealth) army units that were issued the Denison? I'm sorely tempted to just order from Empress regardless, but I figure that if I'm going to try out historicals, I should at least try to remain historical lol
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Those are good figures, I can see why you want to use them.
I’m pretty sure there was also a non-camo smock issued in the winter of 44-45 - can’t recall how widespread it was. There was also the 52nd Division that was trained for mountain warfare, then sent to Holland (!) they also had non-camo smocks.
The Empress figures look like normal squaddies - they aren’t Paras because of the helmets.
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I'm no expert but the smock on the Empress figures is the windproof smock. It is not a Denison but a separate bit of kit. Matching trousers were also issued
From wiki "The 1942 Pattern Smock, Windproof, with matching over-trousers, in lighter-weight denim, had a similar appearance to the Denison but was designed to be worn as an outer windproof layer over Battledress. It was issued to infantry battalions from 1943. Both items were screen printed with colour-fast pigments in a bold Splinter pattern camouflage similar to that of the 'brushstroke' pattern applied to the Denison. The pattern has a base colour of pink with overlying brushstrokes of plum, pale green and dark brown. The Smock, Windproof and trousers were also issued to British troops in Korea during the winter of 1950. It is sometimes incorrectly referred to as the "SAS Windproof". It was not designed much for parachuting, and lacked a crotch flap, having a drawstring hem instead. The most distinctive point of difference between 'Windproofs' and the Denison smock are that the former are hooded."
and from the IWM
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30096055
and my attempt at the figures, which are gorgeous
(https://i.imgur.com/sES5vvP.jpg)
P
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As the others have said, they are definitely wearing the windproof smock (my original pictured here) Empress are soon to release a kickstarter for a series of British Airborne troops that will be wearing the Para smocks if you want to wait.
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This.
The Denison was pretty much confined to airborne and commandos, being a relatively expensive bit of kit. The odd senior officer can be seen sporting them and of course there's famous photo of the Canadian sniper Harold Marshall wearing one. IIRC there's even a 28mm figure of him. As an aside Denisons were apparently popular post-war with snipers, as much for the fact that the crotch strap prevented everything riding up when crawling to a hide as for their camouflage.
Windproofs are what you want, they were worn from around autumn '44 in some units and the Empress figures depict these beautifully.
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The previous posts have summed it up nicely . The Windproofs were issued to some( not all ) Infantry Divisions for the 44-45 winter, Canadians as well as Brits. Issue seems to have been patchy, quite a few units never saw one.
The Windproofs are quite light and flimsy, and unlined, whereas the Denison is much more elaborate garment, blanket-lined and considerably heavier.
Battalion snipers could obtain Denisons in time for D-Day( personal testimony from Harry Furniss). He also used Windproofs later, after a period of convalescence after being wounded.
From the model point of view the main difference, as mentioned , is the colour : Windproofs have an earth-pink fabric basis, something like Vallejo 70876, with plum-purple( 70984) and light leaf green ( 70857 ) splotches on top. The intensity of the purple and green varied quite a bit, since they seem to have been hand-painted onto the fabric.Some examples are positively vivid, others quite muted.
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Peter White mentions wearing smocks in his memoir “With the Scots” so those figures would be great for the 4th KOSB in NW Europe (Walcheren onwards to Luneberg Heath)
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This.
The Denison was pretty much confined to airborne and commandos.......
I read a blurb that mentioned them being worn by glider troops, would they be considered "airborne" as well? Usually when I see "airborne", paratroops come to mind.
Were glider troops regular infantry in the British army? I'm not familiar with how they were classified.
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I read a blurb that mentioned them being worn by glider troops, would they be considered "airborne" as well? Usually when I see "airborne", paratroops come to mind.
Were glider troops regular infantry in the British army? I'm not familiar with how they were classified.
Glider troops were dressed the same as parachute troops, they were definitely "Airborne" They were slightly looked down upon by Parachute Regiment troops, but not to the extent glider men were looked down upon by US Paras.
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Thanks a bunch for the replies and setting me straight, everyone.
WWII interest for me has always been NA or Eastern front, and it goes to show how shamefully lacking my knowledge of the Brit/Commonwealth (in NW Europe) side of things is. I just googled "wwii british camo smock" and the Denison was what came up, so I assumed I was on the right track. Oops :o
I've seen a couple Ospreys on Canadian and British forces/uniforms, so I'll be starting a proper research project with those.
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If you do a quick search on here headed 'late war British Infantry'. You'll find some magnificently painted Empress British infantry in windproof smocks.
:)