Questions about Long Range Desert Group

[madman]

Painting up some 6mm Long Range Desert Group figures from Heroics & Ros and some of the figures are wearing berets. Did a quick search of images of the LRDG but am curious what colours would the berets have been? Also for the different colours what would the units have been? Thank you in advance.

[Harry Faversham]

Best bet, go with khaki or black/dark blue. They didn't wear that sand coloured thingy beret early doors.

 

[madman]

Some better searching has the black armoured beret and the maroon parachute qualified ones as possibilities. The pictures I have found look dark or very dark (where not colourized).

[Rickf]

Individuals would wear the headgear of their parent unit, berets were not very common during the early years of the LRDG, generally the only men wearing them would be from the tankies and they are black. Sidecaps at this stage of the war were the standard headwear.

[Cubs]

What Rick said re:berets (personally I'd go tanker black with most as well), but Arab-style keffiyehs, woolly hats (it could get surprisingly cold, especially at night) and ANZAC-style bush hats were also common.

[madman]

I am limited to the hat already on the figure, this is 6mm after all.

So for the berets 2/3+ are black and the rest maroon (brick red actually). Keffiyehs are white and the sidecaps (?) are khaki. I have been doing some Spanish Civil War and as cast the headgear looks more like the cheese cutter caps of the SCW period. Before getting deep into the painting I thought they may be the woollies, but no. I have one figure may be an Aussie slouch hat, leaving it sand. The 8th army vickers teams have tin hats so they will stay sand. The mg team observer has a straight tube range finder. What colour would it be?

[carlos marighela]

The range finder could be Bronze green or wartime manufacture more likely Khaki  Green no 3* like the gun itself. It's possible but I suspect unlikely that the range finder was repainted for the desert.


* Olive green of pretty much any shade will do the trick at that scale.

[Fitz]

I have one figure may be an Aussie slouch hat, leaving it sand.

Both the Aussie slouch hat and the Kiwi lemon-squeezer were (and are) a khaki drab colour, so unless it's covered in dust it should look a bit darker than the tropical KD uniform.

[Cubs]

I wouldn't stress it overmuch - the 'irregular' units such as LRDG were even more adaptive in their kit than the rest of the army was in North Africa and to say they 'acquired' (stole) or adapted what they had to suit their needs was putting it mildly. If they wanted something a certain colour, no doubt they did their best with what was at hand (or poorly guarded in someone else's hand) to make it that colour.

[madman]

Thank you all for the replies and ideas. I have painted the minis now. Since I am working with 6mm I was not modifying the minis (I wish one had a woolly though).

[Ultravanillasmurf]

We await the results of your painting.
^__^

[madman]

So do I!