Late War French Pt. 2

Here we go with the next installment of my French and it is quite an update. The troops I've done up so far are predominantly for the Corps Expéditionnaire Français (FEC) which were the troops that deployed in Italy and helped break through the Gustav line before being transfered to France for operation dragoon. The uniforms didn't really change much so these troops work for 1943 on, the predominant reason I went with the Italian campaign was because of how some of the M3 scout cars were painted which I will elaborate on in a minute. 

I'll start with my favorite part of the platoon which are my Moroccan Spahis. The Spahis were horse mounted cavalry in the desert war but with the flow of American equipment they were mechanized with M3 scout cars and M3 or M5 Stuarts and formed the recon element for the FEC. They're my favorite unit visually because most photos show them wearing the French tanker helmet which is my favorite helmet to be developed in WWII.

Even though they were mounted in M3 scout out cars I figured they would sometimes have to do reconnaissance on foot so I put together a platoon of 19, it was supposed to be 20 but one of the miniatures vanished.

I have a 3 man HQ, this was supposed to be where the missing mam goes because they were going to have an attached intelligence officer. All the figures in this platoon are black tree American infantry with heads swaps from ludocortorum, which are excellent sculpts and the customer service is great.

The rest of the platoon is 2 identical squads of 8 men with 5 Thompsons and 3 M1 carbines each. I think technically the most men that would be in an M3 crew is 5 but the practicalities of bolt action mean that I need slightly bulkier squads.

Next up I have the bulk of my regular infantry, these are representative of Algerian or Moroccan Tirailleurs.

I went with warlord USMC as the basis for these so that I could arm them with M1903 Springfields as that was a fairly common weapon issued to French troops and some of the colonial units were issued HBT uniforms. The heads and FM 24/29s are from ludocortorum.

These squads aren't set up in a way I would actually run them, instead I've just distributed the weapons evenly across the three squads pictured. There's 33 men total and each 11 man group has 3 SMGs, 1 LMG/BAR, and 7 rifles. Plenty of versatility in how I can build a couple of squads.

The last of the infantry was the biggest pain in the ass to paint but the most visually striking and those are the Morrocan goumiers.

Nothing crazy as far as loadout goes, it's 24 riflemen with a couple LMGs and SMGs in my to do pile. What they lack in firepower they make up in their ability to be stubborn tough fighting mountain troops and I could run 2 squads of 12 if I wanted to pay the points which is interesting. 

I mentioned earlier I made this an FEC force based on how some of the M3 scout cars were painted and that's because they painted them up in a traditional French camouflage. 

So I just had to do one myself.

The M3 itself came out okay but I don't like the crew much. This is the Rubicon kit but the Rubicon crew were too small for my 3d printed tanker heads from ludocortorum so I went with kepis from empress and my wash went bad on me while i painted so it may get a new crew at some point.

Lastly we have an M10 with crew converted from USMC and 3d printed heads attached. This one isn't quite done yet but it's good enough I've put It on the table a time or two. I still need to paint up more support weapons for the French but for now my infantry needs are well met.

Late War French for Bolt Action Pt. 1

I use the Late War French list from the Battle of the Bulge campaign book quite frequently but I am usually using my Indochina war French figures and recently I've wanted to actually start playing with late war French miniatures. I took stock of what I could maybe double up from my Indochina stuff and was incredibly disappointed to find that a lot of the WWII surplus they used in Indochina they did not use in the later stages of WWII. In fact it was mostly just some armor that I had in WWII markings that are incorrect for Indochina that I can use. I sat down and started scouring the internet for sources of figures that would be good for conversions and was incredibly disappointed. Uniform wise French troops were in American uniforms by 1943 but there weren't enough M1 Garands to go around so French troops were usually issued with M1903 Springfields or the M1917 Enfield and nobody makes American figures armed with either rifle except for some early war Phillipines campaign stuff which wouldn't be correct for 1943 and I don't want to use the old Warlord plastics because they just aren't that good of figures which drastically limits what I can do. I started with a somewhat unusual route for the start of my forces. 

 

I picked up some dragones portes from Ceusader miniatures and added some US ammunition pouches and on one NCO I removed his arm and used a spare plastic arm from I think the Perry US box and then painted their uniforms in American colors but I'm not too happy with the result but they work in a pinch. I need to find a way to get some decent looking American figures with Springfields to replace these guys.

I also have some legionarres that I painted a while ago when I was going to start this project and then a couple of newer figures I painted up alongside the guys above and I can't make much of a squad out of this either.

I painted up a foreign legion officer who doesn't have to be a foreign legion officer necessarily, red is just the color for infantry forces and all types wore kepis. 

There were some French forces that did get issued Garands and one of those was the Batalion du Marche du T'Chad which formed the infantry component of the French 2nd armored division which landed at Omaha and liberated Paris so I painted up some random Garand armed figures that I think came out great but aren't very unique because the only French thing about them is the anchor painted on the helmet. They would be more unique of I could find figures in tanker coveralls since that look is what first drew me to the idea. I know, I'm picky.

For my armor selection I'm in good shape, I have an M5 stuart platoon in 2nd armor markings and an M8 Scott. 

I also have 2 Shermans and 2 half tracks in markings for 1st army so I have a couple of directions to go for my forces when I can cobble together better, more accurate infantry. I have some stuff in the pipeline that may work so stay tuned for a hopefully good looking and reasonably accurate late war French force.