Artizan French Senegalese Tirailleurs Command

[Arthur]

Thankfully out at last, which means we can now field complete units :



The pack isn't up on the Artizan/North Star website yet but I guess it will be soon.   

[Belisarius]

Merde ! I shall have to have these , thanks for posting.

[pacofeanor]

Very nice miniatures; and very practical for plenty periods !!

may we have machine guns for FFl and tirailleurs  next ?

best regards
paco

[italwars]

Nice...but they are useless for colonial games...pre WW1..
the main and obvious characteristic feature of those soldiers when operating in AOF and AEF was to go barefoot...very difficult to convince an African to wear boots and also putteees!!!...maybe it would have been possible for those selected braves that were allowed to parade in Champs Elysés after the Fashoda epic..
i could seem them a limited use...WW1 Campaign in the Dardanelles and late Rif War in Morocco.
Last thing...never find an evidence of them garisonning a fort or making a column together with Légion Etrangère during the 1890-1914 period. as to never find an evidence of Légionaires fighting Tuaregs

[Arthur]

Nice...but they are useless for colonial games...pre WW1..
the main and obvious characteristic feature of those soldiers when operating in AOF and AEF was to go barefoot...very difficult to convince an African to wear boots and also putteees!!!...maybe it would have been possible for those selected braves that were allowed to parade in Champs Elysés after the Fashoda epic..
i could seem them a limited use...WW1 Campaign in the Dardanelles and late Rif War in Morocco.
Last thing...never find an evidence of them garisonning a fort or making a column together with Légion Etrangère during the 1890-1914 period. as to never find an evidence of Légionaires fighting Tuaregs

The puttees and boots are a questionable choice indeed for the theater of operations under consideration.

However, the Artizan Senegalese tirailleurs are essential for those of us doing the Moroccan campaigns of 1912-1914, where several Senegalese battalions participated in military operations alongside the Legion, the colonial infantry, the Zouaves and the tirailleurs algériens. For instance, the 1912 Marrakech relief column under Mangin boasted two battalions of tirailleurs sénégalais out of a total of six infantry battalions.   

[former user]

exactly, Morocco

and never mind the boots, these are an excellent connection to using the Woodbine senegalese!
after all, they are NCO's

and here they are, puttees, boots, not WW1 western front or in the streets of france, but in Africa and in paletot de toile colonial dress

[Marine0846]

Love the figures.
Been wanting to add some units of these guys to my French.
Really not really concerned about them wearing shoes or not.

[former user]

The pack isn't up on the Artizan/North Star website yet but I guess it will be soon.  

it is now!
Does this mean we can expect the long awaited command pack for the tirailleurs Algeriens as well?

.never find an evidence of them garisonning a fort or making a column together with Légion Etrangère during the 1890-1914 period.

where several Senegalese battalions participated in military operations alongside the Legion, the colonial infantry, the Zouaves and the tirailleurs algériens.

we should not forget that most Miniatures with the melon helmet can easily be used as marsouins - basically, the whole category could be named "french colonial troops and african army"  where it started as a legion range

[italwars]

i forgot Morocco 1912...also if it was a  little boring from an iconographic point of vew..Marsouins in kaki ecc...and the senegalese engaged in the "colonnes" did 'nt saw such interesting actions..maybe a decisive charge from a spahi senégalais squadron...as regards to WW1 Cameroon i continue to have some doubts about the real look of these guys..the pict above could be a posed/parade one in which those selected tirailleurs were asked to put aside their baggy trousers and few sandals and sport shoes and puttees.

[former user]

baggy pants were worn on parade only in 1912, as a reminiscence of the "tirailleurs"  status. there are a lot of pictures that show them barefoot or with sandals, but rarely with seroual.
just google for the term an You will see

[pacofeanor]

This type of uniforms  was worn since 1889, to 1940 without important changing. The saroual end his carrier in 1898, but breeches like those miniatures were worn since 1889.

The "bare foot" dress is typical of african theatres ,  , Dahomey 1893 ( with the foreign legion) cotes d'Ivoire 1894 ,Madagascar 1896 (with the foreign legion),  Fachoda 1898-99( Marchand ), Mauritania since 1904 to 1913 (with mounted companies like those of the FFL) during WWI in Togo and Cameroun (against the germans)

The "shoes/putees dress" is ok for Marocco, Dardanelles and salonika (33 bataillons in 1918),  and during the interwar , marocco , Syria.

 In Marocco , since 1908 to 1914,    13 bataillons were  fighting in the differents "columns" . During WWI european troops were sent to europe and senegalese regiments were raised to take their places !   (the 15th BTS was entirely destroyed in the "Tafilalet " in 1918). during WWI 26 senegalese bataillons stayed in north africa (Marocco algeria and Tunisia)

those miniatures are very nice and can fit for all that campaigns!


(source:" France , soldiers anf Africa" by anthony Clayton 1988)
best regards
paco

[former user]

we had this other thread about the senegalais before, it appears now we can make a really large unit 

so, what was it :
these 8 from Artizan
8 Belgians from Brigade games
another 8 plus a lot in greatcoat from Woodbine
4 from Eureka
and??

[Arthur]

Dixon have a few figures in their Dahomey range, but they're wearing the full dress uniform with zouave jacket and baggy serouel pants instead of their actual campaign uniform. They're also Mike Owen sculpts, by the way, but much smaller than his current Artizan stuff and not really compatible size-wise.

Back to the issue of puttees, my only niggle would be more a matter of consistency than one of historical accuracy : Mike sculpted his NCO's in boots and puttees while his rank and file are in bare feet/sandals. No big deal as far as I'm concerned - I already ordered six tirailleurs packs from North Star yesterday anyway - but it would probably have been better to have matching command and rank & file. 

[Arthur]

Very nice miniatures; and very practical for plenty periods !!

may we have machine guns for FFl and tirailleurs  next ?

best regards
paco

Mike Owen is currently very busy with his brand new 2nd Afghan war range, but should he ever consider returning to colonial French subjects, there are a few essential items he has yet to cover  :

* Spahis - there's currently a dearth of those on the market and the few existing figures aren't that great - I'm thinking of the Askari figures here

* Gun crews in colonial infantry uniforms - no guns needed as there already are plenty of 75's around and Brigade Games does the M1906 65mm mountain gun.

* Legion/colonial infantry machine guns - Sidi Bou Othman would not be the same without them.   

* More opposition for the French to blow to smithereens as they don't have much of a crowd to fight at the mo'. There was talk of Moroccan cavalry and a full Tuareg range well over a year ago but these seem to have become lost in limbo.

Note to self : drop Nick Eyre an e-mail and submit the grocery list above to him, in the event Mike might still be in the mood to add to the March or Die range.     

[italwars]

we had this other thread about the senegalais before, it appears now we can make a really large unit 

so, what was it :
these 8 from Artizan
8 Belgians from Brigade games
another 8 plus a lot in greatcoat from Woodbine
4 from Eureka
and??

Yes..is a very good to have also those "force noire" guys in pur French Colonial Armies..plenty of less known possibilities to field them..Vs Tuaregs, Vs Maures (similar to Tuaregs), Vs West African (Rabah ecc...) also Vs Dervishes coming up the Nile in captured Steel Boats and clashing with Tirailleurs at Fashoda.
in addition to those mentioned above i can also suggest Reviresco ones (my favourites) and very nice Askari Miniatures ( again with boots) that offr also a very nice mountain canon  de 65 with Tirailleur crew.

Dixon have a few figures in their Dahomey range, but they're wearing the full dress uniform with zouave jacket and baggy serouel pants instead of their actual campaign uniform. They're also Mike Owen sculpts, by the way, but much smallerhm...i'm sorry i cannot agree with the codification of Dixon..they are not Tirailleurs Sénégalais..but passable Tirailleurs Algériens ..TS never used and cannot stand a Backpack..not only for their weight but a Sub Saharian warrior race guy recruited in the Tirailleurs considered himself a soldier not a porter or slave