Here’s what I ended up doing with the French guys. Size comparison with Marx poses shown, too. A lot of guys will be happy with the blue, but the fact is France got rid of the ‘Horizon Blue’ uniform by 1927. There were not even Reservists showing up in the old uniform. It makes a difference to me, anyhow. Besides, that shade of blue Hing Fat used is about as tactical as a clown suit.
Before we go to the pictures from Greg, the Marx French reissues from Mexico, they were first done in a dark green. When I ordered them at the Mexico Toy Fair two or three years later they were in the gray. Don Ducotte of Heritage Toy got them done in blue close to the Marx color.
The4 last picture show the size comparison between the Hing Fat and Marx French.
Is the French “Bazooka” based on any real French weapon or just a Hing Fat Special??LOL.
This is proof positive, that the HING FAT FRENCH INF are a MUST!
But in all honesty, they will need a little bit of custom work, like trimming the weapons to make them smaller and replacing the Bazooka with something believable.
Just a note on the khaki Marx French – I got most of them from the re-issue Marx Battlegrounds done in the 90’s. You can still get them in a darker tan / lighter brown at Hobby Bunker. The Bazooka is useful as it is. These French can be used for the re-equipped FFL and FFI, plus all the Algerians, Moroccans, etc. still largely used French kit. It would be mixed with US and British, but that would get confusing with toy soldiers. Take a look at the pics from when Leclerc’s 2nd (Fr) Armored Div moved into Paris. French uniforms riding on US made Tanks. I’m sure the accompanying infantry happily accepted hand held AT weapons into their TO&E. Many units carried the M-1 rifle, too.
Hello all,
the way they are shown is the begining of the WW2: 1939-1940 (because of the long coats and the leather pouches) No rocket launchers in the French army at that time. The typical Adrian helmet was worn again by the French Corps in Italy (Monte-Cassino…) and later during the German campaign till the end of war. The Leclerc 2nd Armored Division was fully US equipped (except Leclerc’s “képi” or few navy guys on Sherman A1 wearing the traditional “bachi” (wren hat with a red bobble (pompons?)).
Best from France.
Mathias – Did the infantry component of the division use the Adrian or the US M-1 helmet? I can’t find any pics now that I can say for sure belong to the French 2nd Armored Div.’s Infantry Bde. In fact, I’m not even sure it had an infantry Bde. It might have had 1 infantry Bn per Bde, amounting to the same infantry strength. I’m guessing you’ll be better informed than I on this.
I think the pics I saw (which were taken in color!) may have been more staged to instill patriotism. Personally, I’m willing to let some details go like the long coats, which could be ‘imagined’ as the long dish-dasha-like garb many of the Arab and Berber Colonial French were using in Italy. I’m just bound and determined to get more use out of them than 6 weeks in 1940! For me, these guys will do their duty at the Torch landings, at Bir Hakeim, and all up the Italian peninsula.
More on the Italians – While I was placing these guys in their new ‘barracks’ I noticed that the figures with the Cockerel feathers also have the leggings that were often worn by the Bersaglieri (as opposed to the puttees of the regular infantry). The poses look familiar to me, also. Can anybody confirm or deny that some of these poses are direct copies of Ho Scale guys made by either Esci or Italeri, or some other maker? They look familiar, but I’m not a small scale figure collector.
Hello Greg,
You have some uniforms of the second Armoured Division here:
Tank crew: http://2db.free.fr/divers_uniform_501rcc.html
Engineer: http://2db.free.fr/divers_uniform_13bg.html
Navy guy: http://2db.free.fr/divers_uniform_rbfm.html (don’t pay attention to the reenacment Navy girls…)
Other Navy guys tank crew with a well known French actor: Jean Gabin (Marlene Dietrich’s lover): http://2db.free.fr/divers_gabin.html
Here a website concerning the French Expeditionary Corps in Italy:
http://rhin-et-danube.fr/wordpress/?p=1215
Best regards.
Mathias, Warrent Officer class 1, French Army (still in duty)
Firstly – A special greeting to you from one service man to another. I’ve been retired 10 years, but having worked those years as contract security and intel collector and later analyst, I don’t much feel like I’ve gotten out. Just better money and more often in the combat zones. Secondly – thanks loads for the clarification. Seems 2nd Armor was entirely equipped in US gear, except for some of the head gear, worn for tradition. The good news is it seems the French from Hing Fat will work quite well for the Italian Campaign and in North Africa as Vichy. A little bit of kit change, but not enough to worry about. The pics I saw of FF at Bir Hakeim looked like typical 1930’s tropical / desert uniforms. I saw no helmets in the pics, but I imagine they probably had their Adrians. Helmet losses were likely replaced with Brit Mk II’s. If you have more info, I’d love to see it! Thanks again!