So my tropical British force for Bolt Action is finally complete with the addition of the last of the command, weapon teams, and vehicles.
The command section is made of metal 8th army figures from Warlord (plus one plastic) that have either been given a generic look or marked as members of the Royal Norfork Regiment out of Singapore.
The heavy mortar team are painted as members of the 81st (West African) Division, while the machine gun team is another group of Norfolk soldiers. These are again Warlord metal figures.
Finally, I have a few more vehicles for the army. For this part, I cannot emphasize enough how useful Jemima Fawr's blog was in figuring out the paint colors and markings. It is a treasure trove of information.
The first piece is a Universal Carrier Mk. II, produced from the plastic Warlord kit. I've painted it as part of the 81st's Recce Regiment. The kit comes with the decals for the unit number, but the Anansi insignia decal had to be created from scratch. As it seems a lot of African troops did not know how to drive, I wasn't sure if the white NCO would sit in the forward gunner seat as in Europe, or need to drive the carrier. I opted to go to with the driver's seat; worst case if I'm wrong, the African driver could have been killed and he is stepping in.
For the M3 Stuart, I've opted to paint it as part of the 2nd Royal Tank Regiment, under the 7th Armoured Brigade. Jemima's research showed that for some reason the 7th Brigade did not follow standard marking patterns and reversed the position of the unit ID and unit icon on the fenders; as such, I've done that on my tank. The kit decals did not include the appropriate markings for Burma, so I took the number from the above UC kit, and made the green version of the jerboa icon.
With that, my army's storage box is full and I'm considering this Bolt Action force complete. I'm very happy with the final composition and I think this should give me a good modular skirmish force that I can adapt various timeframes and battle locations.
In George MacDonald-Fraser's book 'Quartered Safe out here' he mentions being transported by lorry across a mountainous area of southern Burma. He recalls how the West African division soldier drove like a maniac, he and his mate shrieking with laughter as they took hairpin bends over sheer drops at speed. Enough to add years to a chap, I think.
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