Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => VSF Adventures => Topic started by: a false prophet of zoom on February 24, 2010, 07:28:51 PM
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Hi there,
I've been reading stuff in this forum for a while now and decided to register. I was wondering if any of you have any idea what colour to paint rucksacks and webbing on french foreign legion troops? I'm going with the blue jackets, red trousers and white kepi's colour scheme. The minis in question are the French from the England Invaded range. All suggestions are appreciated. Cheers. :)
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I reckon a nice tan or buff colour would work well.
cheers
James
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Black leather rather than webbing. Backpack, too. Beige blanket on the backpack if there is one. If it's hot enough for a white kepi cover then it would be summer/tropical campaign dress, which is the white trousers rather than red (maybe, depending on the exact date within the period I guess). :)
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Welcome for the forum and the Dark Side. ;)
I losely base all of my VSF uniforms on historical colours but add a bit of artistic licence here and there. Saying that I usually get stick for painting the coats of my British artillery crews red. ;)
If you wanted to use your figures in a dual role of historical one week then VSF the next then obviously you'll have to go down the correct uniform colour route. When it comes to advice on historical uniforms etc., Plynkes knows his stuff.
As you've bought the Warrior Miniatures figs I think I can guess which way you're going. ;) At the end of the day its VSF so go nuts!
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These are my take on the Warrior French:
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3130/3123163230_91a8b63f41.jpg?v=0)
Legion Extraterrestriale - men of a rifle section. All figures are from Warrior Miniatures. The man on the right has a leviathan gun - a single-shot weapon capable of stopping dinosaurs or ironclads. The sergeant is a conversion.
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3117/3122337659_204dd86279.jpg?v=0)
Officers of the Legion - the man on the left is a converted Foundry Darkest Africa figure, the other is from the Warrior Miniatures French
Boots and belts painted black, packs & straps painted brown.
As Thinderchicken said, its VSF so anything goes as long as you retain the general look of the nation you're representing.
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Their breathing apparatus is very reminiscent of a tie-fighter pilot.
(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/Plynkes/tie_pilot_lg.jpg)
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These are my take on the Warrior French:
Sorry Dave, that just doesn't sound right to me ;) lol
(http://i279.photobucket.com/albums/kk138/jimbibbly/16143_188679257911_757227911_303019.jpg)
cheers
James
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To be fair the Napoleonic Wars would have been very short if that was really true.
On a different note, why are they not called the Bonaparte Wars? and how many Naps players could tell you Wellingtons full name?
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Err, Admiral Horation Wellington, wasn't it? ;D
We're just having a tiff over at WWI about whether 'Georgian' is a suitable adjective for 1910-1952, or if it can only be used for 1714-1830... personally I figure most of that is Napoleonic, or when I'm feeling whimsical, Neopolitan (as 'Napolean' means 'from Naples'...)
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Neapolitan wars? Oh, I quite like that. It will make the paint schemes simple, I'll just need strawberry, vanilla and chocolate. Then again, it could be misleading. Folks might think of more recent themes like Gommorah, which, if you haven't seen the film or read the book, I strongly recommend you do.
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Thank you for all your help. I love how the discussion veered off on a tangent after only 9 posts. Thats why i love this forum. :)
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Thank you for all your help. I love how the discussion veered off on a tangent after only 9 posts. Thats why i love this forum. :)
Sorry, that's probably my fault :D
cheers
James
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Think it might have been me. Sorry.
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I've been doing a bit of research on this recently. It's driving me crazy.
There is far more the their history than this but, for these periods, here's what I've been learning.
In the mid-late 1800s they wore the blue long coat, white pants, leather belt and "webbing" (wasn't really webbing) was black leather. http://www.beau-geste.com/imagesnew/beau-geste2.jpg
They tended to also wear two over-the-shoulder bags, one with a 2 liter canteen. This was usually black but sometimes khaki. Other side had a bag and I don't know what they put in there.
Kepis were tan but bleached to white in the sun or had white covers in gloomier regions. The French liked tall hats with covers on them - even in the Sharpe's Rifles series you can see this (Napoleonic wars). Eventually, they became just white kepis, the Legion's trademark (Sgts. and officers wear black with red tops and wore red pants around 1900).
They wore this uniform in Camaron, Mexico (the Legion's most celebrated fight). Good example: http://listverse.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/danjou1-tm.jpg Sometimes they also wore sombrero hats, but that's probably not part of your VSF scheme.
In specific areas sometimes they had different local uniforms - there are photos of legionaires in Africa wearing all light colors.
By WWI they wore standard French uniforms because that was what was available. This just meant everyone got red pants after a while.
Post-WWI the jacket shortened (like the Foundry and Artizan minis) and I've seen blue and I've seen sand colored.
I have a bunch of figures myself and I'm trying to figure out which color to use. The blue looks nice but that was iconically used for the longer, pre-WWI jackets.
By mid- to late-WWII they wore American uniforms with FFL patches simply because the US was providing their equipment at the time. (I think one of the reason that the French have such an undeserved cowardly reputation is because their soldiers were incorporated into the UK and US armies so there are very very few images of identifiably French soldiers from WWII).
Post-WWII they wore khaki, adopted green berets somewhere along the way, and now they wear a surprisingly bland 3-color camo and look like most modern soldiers (http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/6300/610xclo.jpg). Kinda boring - I would have expected something more artistic, something with more flair from the French. Go figure.
Good movies to check out - Beau Geste (old flick, I think it's in black and white) and a surprisingly good Gene Hackman movie set just after WWI (in color), and Indochine (in French, about Dienbienphu where they finally got what was coming to them).
For VSF I'd go with the long blue coats, white pants and kepis for the troops, red pants and kepis for the NCOs and officers, and if you can highlight your blue coats up enough to get good contrast with the black webbing I'd use that because it is more authentic. Khaki webbing would be alright, too, and would provide a nice contrast to those richly colored blue jackets.
I would not use brown becuase it introduces another color to the figure and would detract from the contrast, but that's just me.
This looks right in terms of colors: http://www.unfeasibly.co.uk/page8.htm
Anyway, I hope this helps. I'm working on the same kind of thing but straight historical, not sci-fi, so I have less artistic license (you lucky guy).
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I'm looking at a drawing from a Crimean War book ('The Cimean War 1853-56' pub. Altmark Publishing, 1975), of a FFL corporal... He has the same basic uniform as the rest of the French army, with red trousers and a red kepi, but with no cover. He has his black canteen, and a large black bag or case on the other side... big ammo pouch maybe? He's also wearing knee-length white gaiters and clogs.
Don't know if Crimea is too early, or whether the source 'Illustrated by G.A. Embleton' with a reference credit to a 'Martin Windrow' for French material is at all sound, but I offer it for what it's worth...
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Plynkes is right!
FFL campaign dress in tropical areas was white trousers, black leather equipment , brown rucksack and light gray blanket, dark blue greatcoat. Kepi usually with white cover (extra pouches might also be off white/light gray).
(my source: Uniforms of the french foreign legion, by Martin Windrow, illustrated by Michael Chappell, Blandford Press 1981, shows brown rucksack, maybe is also black)
If not greatcoat is used, then the whole uniform is white.
Red pants were used as dress/walking out uniform,only, after around 1872.
BTW FFL which fought during FPW war in France, wore red pants.
Around 1899 khaki uniforms were introduced. We could say that white and khaki uniforms coexisted during the early 20th century.
Again black leather equipment was used in the early years.
FFL used as Parade dress the red pants, even they were used in the early stages of WW1 in France with black leather equipment. Later it was switched to horizon blue and khaki, depending on the theater etc now with brown webbing.