Red Star Miniatures' 28mm French Indochina Range

[former user]

Legion? What Legion?   

[cheminsdefeu]

Will you be selling the heads separately like you have with your Chechnya range? I could see myself buying bush hats for conversions.

Yes the heads will be sale separately

[carlos marighela]

But no, it's just one of my bugbears... nobody seems to like to add Vietnamese to a range, other than (grudgingly) the compulsory opposition. Even if the odd token pack is added, they are usually as tall as the Europeans in any case.

Ironically, in the wargaming world there's no love for the 'little people' apparently... 

Agreed. Given that anywhere between a quarter to half of the average 'French' colonial battalions were Vietnamese, Laoation or Cambodian it would not be unreasonable to see some smaller figures with recognizable Asian features.

I suspect there's a fear that the punterartii will sneer and say 'hey there's inconsistent scale in this range. I remember when one of the best sculptors currently working had the audacity to put rapelling gloves on a range of moderns and was greeted by a chorus of 'ooh giant hands' by the usual range of mindless twats on Frothers.

Mr Hicks surely has enough street cred and broad enough shoulders to pull it off.

[commissarmoody]

I am all for smaller "Asian" troopers. Could be used for troopers from all over that region. And not to forget smaller under fed indigenous peasant types in other nations history's.

[huevans]

Oh mon dieu!

Now this is worth a chorus of "Le Boudin"!

[Hildred Castaigne]

Gosh, that takes me back... you're talking about the 80's era part-work right? 

But no, it's just one of my bugbears... nobody seems to like to add Vietnamese to a range, other than (grudgingly) the compulsory opposition. Even if the odd token pack is added, they are usually as tall as the Europeans in any case.

Ironically, in the wargaming world there's no love for the 'little people' apparently... 

Yes, the very one! An excellent old magazine.
The issues covering Indo-China showed plenty of pictures of the Vietnamese in French service.

My question made more sense when I was really tired.

[huevans]

Always Histoire & Collections for info on 1950's French uniforms.

http://livres.histoireetcollections.com/publication/2821/les-paras-francais-en-algerie-1954-1962.html

http://livres.histoireetcollections.com/publication/2403/paras-francais-en-indochine-1945-1954.html

http://militaria.histoireetcollections.com/publication/1487/militaria-240-juillet-2005.html

http://militaria.histoireetcollections.com/publication/1408/militaria-n-233-decembre-2004.html

http://militaria.histoireetcollections.com/publication/343/militaria-n-211-fevrier-2003.html

http://militaria.histoireetcollections.com/publication/1396/militaria-n-232-novembre-2004.html

[carlos marighela]

Cheers for the links Huevans. Seems that French reenactors are somewhat slimmer than their US counterparts.

If people are looking for organisational information, you will probably find thislink useful:

http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/cgsc_jackson.pdf

Post Indochina, all you need to know to organise your platoons

http://daniel.rabbe.free.fr/organisation/organisation.htm

For anyone planning to use the range for Algeria, then the following article will be of interest.

http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2006/RAND_MG478-1.pdf

And the air support you will want for both Indochina and Algeria:

http://worldatwar.net/chandelle/v3/v3n1/frcoin.html

[former user]

I suspect there's a fear that the punterartii will sneer and say 'hey there's inconsistent scale in this range. I remember when one of the best sculptors currently working had the audacity to put rapelling gloves on a range of moderns and was greeted by a chorus of 'ooh giant hands' by the usual range of mindless twats on Frothers.

interesting, I remember an article in the eighties or so in Command Decision where a 20 mm range was being recommended especially because it was smaller and thus better suited to represent Asians. Then I took a break from the hobby for some years and then suddenly everyone was talking how lead dollies all should have the same height....
I am not sure if we have left this behind yet.


on another aspect - it appears that obesity is still underrepresented in sculpting 

[Arlequín]

Thanks for the links gents. 

I've found this site useful for organisation of the CEFEO and Viet Minh, along with other related stuff; http://members.multimania.co.uk/Indochine/cefeo/orgs.html

You might get a warning from your security system when trying to access it. The site itself is fine, but I wouldn't go clicking any of the adverts. However it is the only site I've found relating specifically to the CEFEO.

Part of the French Ministry of Defence site has a section with a somewhat similar style to that of the Imperial War Museum. These are the photos and videos related to Indochina; http://www.ecpad.fr/tag/fonds-guerre-dindochine

[huevans]

Cheers for the links Huevans. Seems that French reenactors are somewhat slimmer than their US counterparts.

LOL - But probably not. IIRC, the models in H&C are actually models, not reenactors.

[huevans]

Carlos, your links are interesting. But I wonder if paras would have had their own organization tables, dissimilar from ordinary infantry.

[axabrax]

So what rules will people be using for these? How could you modify say, FNG, to give it a French rather than an American flavor, or is the period basically just the same Vietnam War with a different skin and fewer weapons options? What motivates you to want to play this period rather than The US Vietnam war other than Paul's amazing sculpts? 

[carlos marighela]

Carlos, your links are interesting. But I wonder if paras would have had their own organization tables, dissimilar from ordinary infantry.

At the battalion level, yes there were significant variations both in Indochina and Algeria. The Ospreys actually have reasonable organisation tables for both, the latter being enlarged, beefed up battalions restyled regiments.


At platoon level they were essentially the same, either using the Far East organisation of the infantry from the early 1950s onwards and then later, in Algeria, the Type 107 battalion organisation. In Indochina the weapons mix would probably have seen a slightly higher mix of SMGs tyhan with line infantry. By Algeria the division of the platoon into the half platoon of Fusiliers ( fire support) and the half platoon of Grenadiers-Voltiguers (assault) was pretty much universal.

[Juan]

So what rules will people be using for these? How could you modify say, FNG, to give it a French rather than an American flavor, or is the period basically just the same Vietnam War with a different skin and fewer weapons options? What motivates you to want to play this period rather than The US Vietnam war other than Paul's amazing sculpts? 

I am thinking about to use "Force on Force" with "Ambush Valley"/"Bush Wars" rules. In my opinion, it must be difficult for the French; a Vietnam war without a lot of automatic weapons, artillery assets, etc. but with all the cunning Viet Minh in front.

About the motivation, it is, in the first place, a book I read years ago about the Dien Bien Phu battle and, of course, the wonderful Paul Hicks´figures.