I is for I'm Not Going to Embarrass Myself . . .

. . . by pretending I know anything of import about Turbans, Pagris ("pugerees"), Khullas or the wearing of Shemagh/Keffiyeh's as full headdresses! So the best thing to do is consult this page if you want the full 'gen.

We're looking at my small collection of colonial troops wearing such headresses, and hopefully I've sped-read the link sufficiently to not make any big boo-boos!

From the left; A Gormasa-'Soldis' reissue of the old Reamsa Spanish Moroccan legionnaire, Franco found a use for them (right wing Fascists have no principles!), and bribed them with a new mosque, among other things! They still exist, but seem to be confined to the Ceuta enclave in Morocco (sort of like, err . . . Gibraltar, but not won in a war!), they now wear an Ottoman style Fez and the new Spanish Right don't like them as much as Franco did . . . fancy that!

Next to him is a French hollow-cast take on a British Indian Army soldier, presumably in France (WWI), and made by Xavier Raphanel (XR), the firm apparently ran between 1895-1935 (thanking the plagiarist 'GTO' for that), I really like him, his bayonet means business and could hurt! A quick Google search reveals the dark tunic is an XR invention, and he should be all-over khaki.

Then the Malleable Mouldings chap, taken from Comet/Authenticast metal moulds brought over from Comet-Gaeltec in the Republic of Ireland, there is some debate over who exactly made these soft polyethylene versions (Malleable used either a frangible phenolic or a 'styrene polymer for most of their non-metal production), but as no one seems to have a name for the person (or persons) unknown who may (or may not) have taken over the IP of Malleable, they might as well be called Malleable Mouldings until more information comes to light . . . must check my Chase files!

Finally the little chap on the end is from Swedish-African Engineers (SAE), and, like the previous figure is a Holgar Erikson sculpting. From the painting, I'm guessing a French Colonial soldier is being depicted, but I wouldn't like to say for certain what type, Moroccan Zouave, 1939'ish?

As we saw in the previous post, this chap came in a few months back, and note he is a third sculpt, a Sikh I think, with bloused-trousers and no apron/frock coat (or whatever it is, trying to pretend you know about colonial uniforms is a slippery slope!). Basic painting suggests boots not leggings, and the plastic colour could indicate Indian Air force, I don’t think it does but . . . ? Another might be/might not be Malleable Mouldings, and again in soft polyethylene.

Now I had hoped to have the Charbens-Cherilea-Crescent Indians here, but they haven't turned up? I thought they were in the 'big purchase' of 2010, but if they were they should have turned-up when I blogged the Russians a couple of years ago, and they didn't, so I must have imagined them. It's annoying as I have passed on some nice lots over the intervening years, but at some point I will have to bite the bullet and invest in decent sets of all three!

Here are three pretty scruffy Cherilea Bren-gunners who have trickled-in with mixed lots, the best is probably the middle one, and you can find them with yellow, white and pale-blue turbans (in the Sikh style?) I think, maybe a bright green too?

I do have a reasonable sample of the King's African Rifles, also Cherilea, although I need more of the OG uniform chaps (bottom left), these are pretty whacky poses, but not quite as lunatic as the UN set, I suspect the same sculptor, and he improved quickly from the UN set.

I shot another one! No paint to speak of!

I have some of the Marx marching bloke in tall fez (reissues in bright colours), but they are with all the jungle stuff as German East African's or Belgian native troops heading into the 'Heart of Darkness'! I ought to keep the Cherilea with them.

A is for Antipodean and African Action Men!

More box-ticking and I still haven't found a hunter! Two sets in one with this mob, as they got themselves a second paint-job at some point and jointed the King's African Rifles, but they got their start as ANZAC's, although I think they were called Australians by Lone Star, the two national contingents of the Corps were similarly dressed and equipped and usually served side-by-side, so I'll go with ANZAC!

Ten ANZAC's from Lone Star, showing a variety of paint in hats and webbing and all the standard 'toy soldier' poses covered except 'casualty' where some makers are keener than others to represent the negatives of making war, although LS's khaki infantry have a lovely stretcher-team as we saw last year.

The KAR (King's African Rifles), same figures but with darker skin-tones and a typically; a darker green for hats and socks than the ANZAC's. Although - as he's snuck into the shot - the prone'ish Bren-gunner (front left)is an ANZAC with the darker greens of the KAR's. I don't know how he ended-up in the shot, there is a dark-skinned gunner, but clearly I wasn't paying attention!

Closer comparisons; showing typical Lone Star base-type variations. I suspect the larger bases are a later change to the tool, it's easier to make a component larger than to reduce it? However it's not totally clear as while the larger bases on the unpainted figure and/or KAR might suggest logically a later issue . . .

. . . here we find the KAR is the smaller base! A situation mirrored in . . .

. . . the kneeling firer. Assuming the grey-green bases were even later, would leave the conclusion some bases got bigger, while some got smaller? I know this has been pored-over elsewhere in the past, with an equal lack of a firm-conclusion, so I'm not going to try calling it, suffice to say there are a lot of variations out there!

Also I suspect the officer on the right-hand end of the rank has been home-painted/re-painted, but it's not clear.

Some more comparisons (they're not rare!). Black grenades seem to be less common and may be earlier, but one gets the impression Lone Star's out-painters had a freer hand than say Britains' did?

I have two unpainted figures in the sample; this advancing chap and the officer above, who (or which?) may have been stripped of paint by previous owners, but are more-, or as-likely to have snuck on to the market from factory-filches or old, forgotten, out-worker's stock?

Recent re-issues, these aren't the softer PVC of my Toyway stuff, so I guess Dorset or Marlborough? The colour of polymer chosen however (un-pigmented neutral granules?) is bloody insipid and hard to photograph! Although the kneeling Tommy-gunner is a better shot with more substance to his 'mass'.

Lower shots reveal that these Afro-Antipodeans are a bunch of big boys, with a buckshee Hong Kong copy, Airfix's Gurkah and a French Indo-Chinese (or Algerian campaign?) soldier from JIM (it's all in the hat!) all dwarfed by Lone Star's chap, although the usually larger (in shots of this type) Atlantic machine-gunner holds his own . . . a couple of six-footers if they are an inch in 54mm!