Reviving my Personal interest in the RCW period

[Helen]

Hi Guys,

I've been collecting and reading RCW books and magazine articles for many years. I don't have any figures for the Reds or Whites, but I do have loads of Intervention forces and others that I can use to side with who ever.

We are blessed by so many wonderful folks who have a great wealth of knowledge on this subject and backed up by many a website or forum to assist folks who have an interest.

I'm at a stage that one must redirect their energies towards a personal goal. For me its my focus on the RCW period with continued expansion of my Russo-Finnish Winter War period. All other WW1 fronts will now be forgotten and in due time I'll have a sale of figures (mainly African) and books so that I can work on this period that is near and dear to my heart. Its just taken nearly my life-time to work this out. 

Now, I haven't photographed all of my collections todate, however,  my other collections include ANZACs, British, Sikh, Turks, French and US Marines. This is approx 1000 plus figures (just ask Lon!). A sizeable collection and one that I can use on nearly everyfront of the RCW period assisting the Whites and/or fighting the Reds or both!

Near and dear to my heart is my Great Grandfather on my Mother's side who was born and raised Estonian. Also, Australia sent a number of volunteers attached to various British units and were involved in a number of battles of which two VCs were awarded to Australian infantry. The airforce provided a small number of aircrew and the Navy was also there in different geographical areas, in addition there were other Aussies who received awards whilst others were bestowed Russian honourific awards. It also means I can have female soldiers on the gaming table in small numbers.

There are various companies that produce wonderful RCW period figures and they still continue to expand as more folks show interest and purchase more product from the company.

So what do folks want to see being released for the RCW period in 28 mm?

I've read where folks would like to see an enlarged Tchanka to fit in with Copplestone figures in particular. This would have various options to suit the factions.

I'd like to see Russians in German and British uniform wearing pogoni and with Russian weapons. Some would retain their Russian style caps and boots.

Garford and Austin A/Cs an a staff car with various seated officers.

Colt HMG, Madsen & Lewis LMGs and mortars. Mainly for the White (Imperial) forces prior (Madsen) and during (Colt & Lewis) the RCW period.

Whites can man a suite of HMGs, namely the above, the normal maxim plus British Vickers.

Whites in peakless cap. Other figures suited for officer companies. Maybe character pack.

Caucasian in various dress attire.

German Freikorps including Erhardt armoured car.

Russian naval gun crew.

Insurgents and Partizans expansion pack.

Colourful cavalry for both sides! Hungarian Hussar, Various Red hosts and cossack hosts come to mind!

Poles, Ukrainians, more Czech Legion, later war Serbians, Greeks and Roumanians involved in the RCW period.

Female Death Battalion and other females employed in various tasks.

Personalities and various character figures for both sides.

Chow for now.

[Emir of Askaristan]

Hi Helen,
Good luck with the new project. It's a fascinating period full of facts which really are stranger than fiction. So much scope for miniature game of any scale and dimension.

Personally I'd like to see the following -
Turkoman and Basmachi figures, mounted and on foot
Dismounted Mongols (for the Red Baron's Army)

And because I like little vignettes -
Civilians of relevant nationalities, (Central Asian, European, Chinese)
Medical Teams (Stretcher bearer, medic, wounded)
Radio Sections (phones,wireless, telegraphs,etc)
HQ's (Officers and Staff with binoculars and telescopes)

Cheers!

[argsilverson]

Dear Helen,

A very comprehensive list of wishes. I second it.

In the meantime we already have:
.- some hungarian hussar from HLBS (I think is still available)
.- Greeks from Tiger miniatures (In fact in this campaign they wore kepis and side caps, they had no helmets and MG, because they were shipped separately and never managed to go there due to the collapse of the french forces and hence the retreat. By the way the Greeks usually fought without their greatcoats!!!!)
.- Copplestone has one pack of mounted caucasians. Some of their Thibetan matchlock might also be pressed in service as dismounted mongols, too!


I spoke with Pete of Tiger miniatures. He is thinking of making at a later stage Serbians and Romanians, if he receives the support he deserves!
For the rest I can only hope!!!!

Once I suggested to Mark Copplestone to add some female partizans in his range but I receive no comment back.

[1ngram]

Red Guards in a mix of civilian and military clothing - eg. see Osprey page 3 with one guy in a homburg and others in a kaleidoscope of headgear and clothing.

Vehicle riders - both seated drivers to fit Lledo cars and  what i can best call running board riders who could be fitted to the sides of A/Cs or on to the running boards of cars or on to the sides of armoured trains.  They could be leather coated like the Putilov crew in the Osprey page 8 or sailors since they were the crews of many vehicles/trains etc. Staff cars to fit would be nice too.

Special Task Unit troops, young men mainly, with the floppy hat.

Motor cyclists both single and two seat with machine guns as per Osprey Armor book page 23.

Troops throwing grenades, perhaps pistol (Mauser) in the other hand, not overhand but perhaps sideways as if through a door or round a corner with a couple more tucked into their belt.

Naval gun crews certainly!

[Boggler]

Anti Aircraft guns with Red, White, Chinese, British etc crew.

[Driscoles]

Great topic Helen,

I`d like to see

Civilians.
Farmers
Russian carts.
Female soldiers
Personalities
Tank Troops
Pilots

Björn

[carlos marighela]

Actually I'm pretty satisfied with what's available. Between the various makers pretty much all of the required troop types are produced and with decent variety of figure types. When I first did RCW, in 15mm in the late 'eighties all that was available were two types of Russian inf packs and a packet of cavalry from Minifig, all figures in the packs being identical. Everything else had to be converted. Today there's an abundance of great figures.

Most of what people are asking for is available off the shelf or requiring just a little conversion work. Naval gun crew can be found in the OG range or even Eureka's crew. Whites in peakless cap are available in the OG Boxer Rebellion range. Between Copplestone, Bolt Action, Westwind, Black Tree, Cannonfodder and even Foundry I'm not sure there's a shortage of suitable partisan or Red Guard type figures.

Freikorps can be gleaned from the GW Germans in light kit. The Women's battalions were not a feature of the RCW and saw next to no active service in the Great War. Turkomens are available in Foundry's Afghan range ( currently OOP I think) but I wouldn't complain if someone decided to make more Basmachi types. Don't see much of a need for more Czechs. If you have a standard Russian figure sans pogoni, you have a Czech Legionnaire

Whites in British uniform, Moisin Nagants and Russian belt equipment is the biggest gap in the period.  For the latter part of the civil war it's almost the default uniform for the Whites. (Almost tempted to do some bulk conversions to Eureka's colonial Portuguese, in the absence of anyone producing these). Colt MG's would be nice. The gun itself is available in the OG Span -Am War range and could readily be adapted with a Eureka crew figure.

Polish Legionnaires, suitable for the Russo Polish war. My current ones are conversions of Eureka Chinese nationalists Just about everything else can be come from WW1 French, German or Austrian lines. Bolt Action make Plish uhlans, they only need some minor modifications to the headgear ( a disk of milliput/ greenstuff to make the round cap in vogue in 1920). Black Tree do suitable Poles in French kit, including a lovely looking field gun if you want to do Haller's Blue Army.

Ukrainians. Well the Blue and Grey Zhupans might be a nice figure. The Galicians can be easily converted from the aforesaid Eureka Chinese, just takes some minor work to the hat.

Garfords, yes. IIRc someone has indicated these are on their to do list, Company B from memory.

More realistically I'd like to see Mark Copplestone do some relevant command packs for the White Cavalry.  I doubt he will ever make the Japanese.

[Poliorketes]

Basmachis are the one range you can't prox at the moment. I guess the same goes for Azeris ans caucasian tribes/nations.

Cossack infantry.

Armored Train personel for reds, whites, cossacks, poles.

Japanese would be great, too, as they had a really large contingent in Wladiwostok.

[argsilverson]

In absence of more suitable Japanese types, someone can use Copplestone's chinese infantry with different paint scheme.

On the other hand there is also a lack of bayonetted guns

[Helen]

Hi Guys,

Thankyou for your thoughts and comments.

I'd very much like to mention to Carlos that the Women's Battalion of Death was very much in existent up till November 1917 as stated by Nic Cornish in his article (Military illustrated No 221, Kerensky's Stormtroopers) ) and supported by LtCol Hillman. Nic Cornish mentions in his article (Wargames Illustrated No 127, Uniforms and Equipment of the RCW 1917-1921 The Volunteer Army) quote" It was not unknown for women to fight alongside their men, as serveral cases testify, in ordinary units wearing the usual (male) uniform. It is quite possible that some of the suvivours of the Provisional Government's Women's Battalion did just that during the Civil War." unquote. This is just two articles and I've not looked into my Library of books yet.

Granted Carlos, converting figures is great, but not everyones cup of tea or cafe depending on where you come from. The suggestions on this topic are to allow both gamers/collectors to moot their thoughts and for figure manufacturers to eye what looks plausible for possible production and which will sell and in doing so keep gamers/collectors happy.

Carlos, at least Peter Pig came to the rescue for the RCW period in 15 mm. In addition, Irregular miniatures with their useful gun range.

Thanks Argsilverson for your thoughts and I do pray that Tiger Miniatures captures the flavour of the period with said figures that will fit in with other figure manufacturers.

The Japanese would be good for anti-partisan duties!

Hi Bjorn and Emir, both of your suggestions and ideas sound really great.

Hi Polio, I forgot about dismounted cossacks acting as infantry. A great suggestion.

Brigade Games have outlined that they are releasing two packs of RCW artillery crew very soon. The suggestion I made for naval crew is that both sides had them manning their trains armaments or in one case I found reading Semyon Budyonny book actually in command of the armoured train.

Thanks again for all your thoughts and comments.

[Plynkes]

You fellas sound like me in one of our Great War threads, pining after Highlanders in slouch hats, tropical Brits in tin hats with neck-flaps, Brits in serge Service Dress and Wolseleys, Schutztruppe askari for the Cameroons, Froggie Cavalry for Palestine, thirty-three different varieties of turban for Sepoys...


These wargamers, always wanting the moon... 

[Poliorketes]

Froggie Cavalry

No, really, who needs these? 

Helen, Ii like the idea with sailors manning the trains. Thinking of it, I have a train, Lt. Hazel has red sailors, but a white army. I guess he won't need them...

Back in earnest. Also useful would be some more characters. So far Copplestone dos Ungern-Sternberg and Brigade Trotzki, I want Frunse Bator, Budyonny, Semenow, Machnow and some white characters.

[axabrax]

I have been waiting for a good Freikorps range for eons.  If only we could get Copplestone or Lon to do some!

[commissarmoody]

I have been waiting for a good Freikorps range for eons.  If only we could get Copplestone or Lon to do some!

Damn right! I am all about some Freikorps actions, fighting with the sparicas, the red army of the rhien, polish natinalist, and the war in the east with the litavian, estoean and lithwanians. sorry for burchering the names all, kind of in a rush.
I just really want to get into that along with my VSF and NWF stuff

[carlos marighela]

Well I think it's always a good start point to survey what's already out there before asking for more new toys. RCW is a niche period, my expectations of too much more exotica beyond what is presently available isn't high. Hopefully my answer gave some leads on current sources. I should have added that the Black Tree Naval Infantry Machine gun and specialist pack is a fruitful source of gun crew. For even more variety for Red sailors look at the Westwind range ( in greatcoats, ideal for the Krondstat Revolt) and Bolt Action who have some lovely figures festooned with machine gun belts.

Helen, I said that Women's battalions were not a feature of the RCW. I have no doubt that individual female combatants served and served bravely. There was a small tradition of this even in Tsarist times. As formed, seperate bodies of combat troops? No. As for the Women's Battalions under the Provisional ( Kerensky) Govt, well even Nic Cornish describes them as being primarily for propaganda purposes.  The first battalion did suffer heavy casualties during the Kerensky offensive but that's outside of the RCW. The most famous action  of the most well known battalion the 1st was the defence of the Winter Palace, where their performance was less than stellar.

Peter Pig, alas came along too late for me. I disposed of all my 15mm stuff  before Martin's cahps appeared on the scene and by the time I had revitalised my interest in the period Mr Copplestone had thoughtfully started his range, much to my financial disadvantage.

I'm having a bit of a clean out at present and have around 30 or so OG Russians in peakless cap, that I won't get round to painting, they've sat that way for at least 5 years and I don't see the situation changing. They're yours if you fancy. Just pop me a PM with your address if you are interested and I can post them.