Royal navy 28mm crew figures

[Poiter50]

Which manufacturers makes RN crew for the WW1 era in the East Africa theatre? I'm not sure the Eureka ones would suit what I want with their bare foot pose.

[Plynkes]

Nobody really. Old Glory do a mixed bag of naval gun crews in their Boxer Rebellion range. They will do the job, but you get a mix of French, German and British style sailors all in the same bag. You take pot luck as to how many of each type you get. Not a problem for me, as I wanted all three nationalities. But it is possible to order a bag and not get any of a particular type. I imagine that would be quite annoying if you only wanted that type.

If you want armed boarding parties and such there isn't really anything much either. I think Foundry did some Royal Naval Division troops in their Great War range, but they'd probably look like midgets next to today's castings.

[Earther]

Gripping Beast/Woodbine are doing Naval Division heads in their forthcoming seperate-head range for WW1. More info here:

http://www.grippingbeast.com/webpage.php?PageID=63

If you wanted scruffy, long-in-theatre RN types, mix RN heads with the Gallipoli Aussie bodies…

[argsilverson]

crews are quite a problem.

the only available is what Plynkes said.
basically there are 4 types in each bag, distinguished by the headgear.
1 is german like with the national cockade on the cap, 2nd is english types without the cockade , 3 is the french/belgian/finnish type with the pompom [if you remove it you may also pressed into service] the 4th type is bareheaded, usually they are only 2 minis in the bag. Poses are rather suitable for deck hands, too, not only artillery crews.
I was very lucky with my orders. the first pack had no French atall and the 2nd had only 2 french types!
Anyhow till this moment this is the best figures you can have.
the link:
http://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/products.asp?cat=228

Second option: Lyzard Green miniatures available by Lond War Room. they are more generic types [little short for my taste] and they also have separate crews for light, middle and heavy artillery carrying shells and empty cartridges , plus a pack "fire fighting" deck hands with axes hoses etc. another pack has a half figure swimming with life ring. They also carry a large selection of fittings.
link:
http://www.thelondonwarroom.com/Weapons%20For%201889.htm%20page%201.htm#25mm%20Naval%20Guns%20by:%20The%20London%20War%20Room

Next option: Reviresco. I am not sure but I think they carry only French sailors [caucasian and negroid types] plus some merchan sailors, that might fit.
http://www.tin-soldier.com/

A new option: Blue Moon they have one pack with unarmed sailors, I believe suitable for RN types [they also have another pack of armed ones]:
http://bluemoonmanufacturing.com/index.php?cat_id=20

Some other useful figures maybe found in Pulp figures but they are US Pulp era sailors.

As for officers it is a problem: Some Copplestones and maybe you can us minis from other ranges (mainly WW1) like GWM, Renegade etc. OG has 3 crew figures 2 in sunhelmet and shorts the other one, the commander, in sunhelmet and skirt {!!!!) alongwith their Mimi/Toutou model.
For officers in tropical shorts you may also use one officer from Pulp Figures british. 

Copplestone also has a nice gun crew (for Gardner gun]!

The Foundry ones are not suitable for deck crew. It is some landing party.

So for landing parties apart the foundry's there are:
Copplestone casting for British or Russian sailors
AeroNaval Brigade from Parroom Station/London War Room
Suitable figures from other OG ranges [in fact OG has landing parties of: US, Spanish, French, Russians, british marines etc.
For Germans and Austrohungarians: Brigade games [a very nice range in their WW1 war in Africa range]
For more VSF types: Ironclad miniatures has a naval landing party with armour/cuirass!
If you want Ottoman Turk sailors you may use german navy bodies and heads with fez for examples from suitable egyptian infantry of the Sudan era.

Oh I forgot: Redoubt has a set of deck hands incl. strokers in their ACW range. The headgear is not suitable but a careful conversion will produce very nice figures. Same also for Ral Partha,too.

Furthermore the Perry's in their Sudan range have some nice Naval Brigade packs. Most in sialor caps. So, can be pressed for service aboard ships (there is a nice figure using a whistle! some also carry rifles].
 
Hope that I have not forgotten anything!

[Westfalia Chris]

Didn´t Copplestone do a whole bunch of European Naval Landing Parties in his "Return to Darkest Africa" line? I converted some for use as Revolutionary Russian Sailors. There´s a pack with bare feet, too, IIRC.

Hooo, just checked with the Copplestone site, and he seems to have condensed the line quite radically. There´s still the normal RN landing party with boots/shoes, but no barefoot ones.

[argsilverson]

Didn´t Copplestone do a whole bunch of European Naval Landing Parties in his "Return to Darkest Africa" line? I converted some for use as Revolutionary Russian Sailors. There´s a pack with bare feet, too, IIRC.

Hooo, just checked with the Copplestone site, and he seems to have condensed the line quite radically. There´s still the normal RN landing party with boots/shoes, but no barefoot ones.

I don't remember Copplestone barefooted sailors. Maybe you are right. The only barefooted ones I know are Eureka's gun crew.

[argsilverson]

A little addition:
For armed sailors there are some "merchant" sailors, that can be pressed in service:

Wessex games has one pack,
Blue Moon has one pack
Brigade games also. Ah, Brigade games as Reviresco has one set each with sailors preparing a diver. Maybe there is some potential to use some of these figures, too!

[Plynkes]

The Copplestone RN are Victorian. They have Martini-Henrys. I suppose you could pretend that they are Martini-Enfields, but I'm not sure the RN had them.

The Gripping Beast heads for Royal Naval Division sound great, but I got the distinct impression the original poster was looking for crews. Ship and gunboat crews probably wouldn't be dressed like army infantrymen, as the Royal Naval Division were in the Dardanelles.

Still, the heads might come in handy for conversions.

Regiment Games do an RN landing party for WWII. Some of the officers could be pressed into service for the Great War. The rank and file seem to be in 08 pattern webbing, but have tin hats, which doesn't really work for East Africa, but might do for Ostend and Zeebrugge-type capers (discounting the ones with Brens and Tommy guns). Maybe the Gripping Beast heads would go on them?

[Plynkes]

Thinking about it (and despite what I said before), in pictures you see of the Naval Africa Expedition they don't seem to have dressed in Navy uniforms at all, but standard British tropical uniform with sun helmets (except for Spicer-Simpson who topped off his outfit with a skirt, but then he was a maniac).

So if you are doing the Tanganyika gunboat war, you don't need RN figures at all, and RA gunners in tropical rig would be more the thing.


Depends what you have in mind as to what you need.

[argsilverson]

Thinking about it (and despite what I said before), in pictures you see of the Naval Africa Expedition they don't seem to have dressed in Navy uniforms at all, but standard British tropical uniform with sun helmets (except for Spicer-Simpson who topped off his outfit with a skirt, but then he was a maniac).

So if you are doing the Tanganyika gunboat war, you don't need RN figures at all, and RA gunners in tropical rig would be more the thing.


Depends what you have in mind as to what you need.

Yes and two of them insisted to have kilts instead of shorts.
shirt was blue, shorts khaki and armed with navy cutlasses! uniform was designed by Spicer-Simpson himself. As far as I remember the colour of the skirt was a bit brown. OG has him in skirt! manning Mimi/Toutou.
In almost mid winter paraded wearing their tropical uniforms, what a sight for every passer by!

But to clear up matter only 27 i.e. the whole Naval Africa Expedition carried this particular uniform. all other crews on vessels involved in east africa [Tanga landing, blokade, german Koenigsberg etc] had their own appropriate naval uniforms.
[I do not know about the Belgians, but I think Plynkes know better!]

[Poiter50]

Thanks to all who responded.

I had forgotten that some of the packs mentioned existed, the Foundry are suitable for land ops altho small but the most useful, I think, will be the Blue Moon unarmed crewmen. Plynkes was right, I want them for ships crew - small boat ops so the correct ones are the Blue Moon figures. I have the OG Mimi & Toutou on the way from the US which means I will have a spare Spicer Simpson, fruit loop tho he was! There are a number of pics of a small apparently steam powered boat in this link; http://www.geocities.com/cdferree/tanganjikasee/tangan.html?200825 . My John Jenkins river launch will be used as both a German & a Belgian gunboat and we will see some nice stoushes.

[argsilverson]

OG has also another gunboat. suitable for Kingali [no crew this time!]