Another couple of images which have inspired my thoughts today...1940 Danes and
modern ceremonial Swedes. I do find the Danish Guard uniforms very inspirational too...
More planning to do. Does anyone know of suitable figures for these and those in the previous post?
The 1940 Danes could also fit: the 'Germanic but not German' helmet looks appropriate for a Scandinavian country (then, what about *Swiss*, simply? But are they more available in minis than 1939 Danes or Dutchs?).
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid the ceremonial dress of the Swedes look very 'Germanic' for a Catholic state: the Danish Guards, with their bearskins, could be closer to the mark? But they already exist in the real world, and to change red for 'Tradgalander crimsom' would perhaps not be sufficient to make them really 'original'.
Then, I'm probably too influenced by the 18th C.: as soon as the Prussians adopted a fur-edged mitre, then the Britishs the bearskin, the old correlation 'Catholic <=> bearskin, Protestant <=> mitre -never absolute, anyway- vanished. Nonetheless the Monaco Carabiniers -or at least their helmet- would probably look more Catholic? Certainly not available in minis of wargaming size, but basically it's a matter of adding the feathers to a Victorian British infantryman in helmet -and I imagine Victorian, then Interwars (ceremonial uniforms practically unchanged) Tradgarland politically closer to Great-Britain than to Germany?
With light blue trousers and 'Swedish blue' jacket (or basically in green[s] if a Guard Jager?) , the French Saint-Cyriens could offer another possibilty, but again I'm afraid the casoar (quite similar to the featherd shako of Napoleon III's Guard chasseurs) can only be obtained by conversion?
Sorry: Saint-Cyrien -more spectacular than the Garde Republicain.
ReplyDeleteFrom the (very, very) little I know of them, interwars Dutch, Danish, Sweden... soldiers shared with the Swiss ones a 'Germanic' look taking inspiration from the late WW1 German uniforms. Thus the problem is twofold: the availability of suitable historical minis (of what I'm totally ignorant), and how to make them look 'different'.
ReplyDeleteTradgarland is a country of 'North Sea / Baltic' culture, but probably under some British influence (yet probably neutral during WW1?). As a Catholic country, some exchanges with France and independent Ireland cannot be excluded.
Swiss soldiers were in feldgrau: to turn 'Swiss' figures into Tradgarlanders, painting them (brownish?) khaki would perhaps be enough? Late WW1 French bleu horizon -or even Italian light green- could be envisaged, but their 'overall darkness' (think of a b&w photo) is perhaps too close to that of felgrau? While spinach green would perhaps look too much 'WW2 Russian'?
But their availability -and that of miniature Swedes- is doubtful, anyway. An intringuing possibility, but requiring conversion / headswapping, would be to give the late WW1 German helmet to late WW1 / early WW2 Britishs: the combination would be original enough to paint them some kind of feldgrau.
Thus the simplest possibility is probably to use late WW1 Germans (widely available, certainly more so than more original alternatives such as early Cold Wars Eastern Germans or WW2 / postwar WW2 Argentinians / Bolivians), painting them in a very distinctive hue -brown, blueish sea green?
Opeland is obviously a close neighbour of Tradgarland: may be you could exchange thoughts, sources and suggestions with Bob Cordery?
Cheers, young man!
Jean-Louis
For Tradgarlanders in Victorian field dress / Interwars ceremonial uniform, a simple solution -involving only popular minis widely available in any scale- could be to use Victorian Britishs in spiked helmet and / or Prussians, but exchanging their colours: Britishs painted in quasi-Prussian (# Swedish) colours, Prussians painted in quasi-British ('Tradgarlander crimsom' instead of red) colours.
ReplyDeleteFor the types of British origin, 'home service' uniforms seem to be the natural choice, though 'Zulu wars' type could be envisaged for the Guard, specially with a greenstuff 'Monegasque' tuft of feathers added to the 'colonial' helmet (what about Grenadier Guards in bearskin? They would, in the end, look very much like their Dutch or Danish counterpart: it's up to you to judge it a good or bad thing). Medium to dark ('Savoy'? 'Swedish'?) blue jacket (mainly with pink facings?), light blue trousers with a pink stripe, helmet same blue as jacket or trousers, or as facings. If this makes them looking too much like some historical examples, what about 'whole in sky blue, pink trousers stripe'?
For Guard cavalry, maybe British Horse Guards with a white (like Prussian cuirassiers) or yellow / chamois (18th C. cuirassiers) jacket?
For the (infantry) types of Prussian origin, pink jacket with various facings, light blue trousers with a pink stripe: rather eye-catching and unconventional, thus perhaps more appropriate for 'traditionalist' Guard types. Minis with the parade horsehair on the helmet would thus be specially appropriate.
More original types would require some amount of conversion (armswapping or headswapping at least): for instance ca. 1901 Trypheme's Good King Pausole's Horse Guards looked very much like British Horse Guards (in Tradgarland they would have a pink jacket), without the cuirass but Uhlan-lance armed -and I believe that, unlike French and Prussian cavalry by 1914, British dragoons were not armed with the lance, specially when in parade dress?