East Africa, 1940

The next project - 20mm East Africa, 1940 - 41 is under way.

When Strelets brought out South African Union Defence Force infantry, this was a signal to start building something I've had in mind awhile -a South African / Kings African Riflles (KAR) force for East Africa. A friend of mine at the club has already built a colonial Italian army, so there is a ready opponent. If anyone is interested in raeding more about this Early War campaign, there is a very good web book by Neil Orpen over here.



Also, the S Africans fought with their solar hats a bit in early North Africa and Madagascar so can be used there, also they look quite a lot like early war British in the Far East, and African troops actually fought in the Far East from 43 to 45 (in some pretty major actions from Imphal on) so they are a decent force to give my Japanese a game - the African troops and Japanese had some major battles, including use of tanks (both sides).

The saga of provisioning the trucks is in this earlier post

Anyway, pix of progress to date

I've used the Strelets figures for the South Africans and Airfix Gurkhas and Australians for the KAR , backed up with a few SHQ heavy weapons figures for mortars, Vickers, HMG and also for Marmon Herrington armoured cars (still to be done).

(Below)- The Army as it stands so far. Two SA Battalions and a KAR one. Whole force is built to Rapid Fire Brigade size, the 2 trucks rear left are the HQ and Pioneer's trucks, still have to make the infantry models for them and get the small Tilly cars for the various Liaision vehicles and artillery spotting jobs that Jeeps took over. Also missing are a squadron of Marmon Herrington armoured cars which are on order, and a Motorcycle Recce Co for which I have no idea where to get models from.





(Below) SA Infantry Battalion - In the 30's SA had based its army on the German motorised battalion model so used that at beginning of WW2. Most HW are done, 2" Mortars still on order. I'm quite proud of my Ford "15cwt" (ahem, prob looks more like a 20cwt SWB) conversion truck (left hand truck)




(Below) Kings African Rifle (KAR) Bn used the Britih organisation. Need to get a 2" mortar and a Boyes AT rifle for them, now that SHQ make them fo Gurhas and Australians.




(Below) Close up SA Infantry with solar hats, they used these in early desert as well (and at 20mm scale, 2 feet away v difficult to tell difference with a Tin Hat )




(Below) Close up - KAR with bush hats, used Gurkhas and Australians for them - not quite right but good enough in 20mm. Will build a 2nd battalion in time. Major question for both is what flocking to use so they can also be used in other campaigns (SA in North Africa, KAR in India/Burma).




















(Below) The Guns - SA Artillery 18 pdrs with my converted Ford SWB "15cwt" 4x4 Marmon Herringon truck tows- still not sure of the gun colour, I think they were dark green but may have been dark Khaki. Shields were apparently stripped off for weight reasons. Crew are WW1 Brits with Wolsely Helmets, bought some time ago before all the Early WW2 minor Commonwealth countries' stuff was available - now you can buy SA gunners I suppose I will have to replace them with those sometime....



I'm tempted to get a battery of 3.7" Mountain Guns too as I understand it both were used in direct fire mode so can be on table.