Austro-hungarian stormtroopers

[tomek917]

I'm thinking of converting some Great War Miniatures german stormtroopers into Austro-Hungarian stormtroopers. From what I can see the uniforms are almost identical, but maybe a more trained eye out there can tell me something else?

And I'm not really sure on uniform colours, it seems to go from  blue-grey to dark grey to field-grey? And the helmets? Darkgrey to brown?

[Plynkes]

The Austrian Berndorfer helmet was a slightly different shape to the German one. Luckily the Austrians acquired lots of German ones too (though whether or not Stormtroopers had them I do not know). The main rifle of the Austrians was the Mannlicher rather than the Mauser, but they did build Mausers under licence for export, and these were diverted to the army when the war broke out. So I guess you can justify that too. 


Helmeted stormtroopers would be in the later "Field Green" uniforms rather than the bluey "Pike Grey" ones from the early part of the conflict. The colour of this uniform seems to have varied a bit from a straight grey to a greenish-grey. The Austrian stand-and-fall collar is a little higher and more pronounced than its German counterpart, but I don't think that would be very noticeable on a 28mm figure. The Austrian jacket has breast pockets (some of the German uniforms lacked breast pockets altogether as I recall) and the flaps on these have a distinctive style to them not seen at all on German uniforms (they are kind of.... pointy is the best word I can think of). If as I recall the figures are laden down with grenade bags then this won't be much of a problem as the place where the pockets should go will not be visible. Also the button arrangement is different.


Helmets were a light (slightly greenish) brown, I believe. There is a photo of some stormtroopers on the Italian front, and they all have cloth helmet covers on, which are a very pale colour, probably a sandy khaki shade.

[Gary Mitchell]

Scarab miniatures make them already in 28mm. I have some Imperial stormtroopers! Greta fun

[tomek917]

Wow, thanks for the answer Plynkes!

Yes I know what you mean about the breast pocket flaps an luckily none are visible on any of the miniatures I have. If they were I think it's easily fixed with some greenstuff or similar.

About the "field green", something along these lines?


I was planning on making some helmet covers with greenstuff actually, that will break up the colours a bit.

Scarab miniatures make them already in 28mm. I have some Imperial stormtroopers! Greta fun

I actually already had these lying around so I'll start off with these 
If you have any pictures of your Scarab ones, please share!

[Plynkes]

Yeah, those are the late war colours. The earlier uniform is much more of a blue. The photo I mentioned of stormtroopers in Italy has a wide range of shades of jacket and trousers. Even though it is a black-and-white photo you can see they definitely do not match each other, so you have plenty of leeway to get the shade "wrong" yet still be right.

Towards the end of the war Austria-Hungary was crippled with shortages, and everything was "ersatz." The inferior material used at this time was more of a brownish green, so you can go there too. Finally lots of captured Italian uniforms were used in this period, and their grigio verde jackets were very green indeed.

[area23]

Also Brigade Games do some nice Austrians.
http://www.brigadegames.com/WWI--Italian-Front_c_208.html

[tomek917]

Yeah, those are the late war colours. The earlier uniform is much more of a blue. The photo I mentioned of stormtroopers in Italy has a wide range of shades of jacket and trousers. Even though it is a black-and-white photo you can see they definitely do not match each other, so you have plenty of leeway to get the shade "wrong" yet still be right.

Towards the end of the war Austria-Hungary was crippled with shortages, and everything was "ersatz." The inferior material used at this time was more of a brownish green, so you can go there too. Finally lots of captured Italian uniforms were used in this period, and their grigio verde jackets were very green indeed.

Well this will be a fun project, I'll go colour shopping tomorrow I think!

Also Brigade Games do some nice Austrians.
http://www.brigadegames.com/WWI--Italian-Front_c_208.html

Yeah I know about those, they are lovely, but unfortunately for the early part of the war.