French as Germans

Odemars makes a set of historical leaders in 1/72nd scale that includes a nice figure of Charles de Gaulle. They also make a set called "German Commanders."

http://www.odemars.com/

HaT makes a set of WWII German MPs on Motorcycles, which includes an officer figure.

http://www.hat.com/Curr00/Bx99011ZU.html

In the Second World War thousands of Frenchmen served in the Waffen SS and other formations of the German armed forces. The majority of these troops wore standard German uniforms, but many wore some or all of their French uniforms during parts of their service. I have been building units for the Battle of Berlin, and French troops serving in the German armed forces were there. To create the unit, I have simply used German infantry for the bulk of the troops but I wanted my officers to be different.

I cut the heads off of one of the Odemars German Commanders, and the Odemars Charles de Gaulle figure. I took the head from the German officer in the HaT Armourfast Military Police on Motorcycles set. The HaT head I glued onto the Charles de Gaulle figure and the Charles de Gaulle head I glued onto the Odemars German Commander.

Since these are soft plastic figures, they don't take glue like regular model kits. The HaT set is made of a new glueable soft plastic, but the Odemars sets are not. I took a short piece of wire and using a needle nose pliers, pushed it into the torso, leaving about three millimeters sticking out of the body. I placed a drop of gap filling superglue on the wire and then forced the head down over the wire sticking out of the torso. The gap filling characteristic helped fill in any small spaces caused by an irregular fit.

This gave me an officer wearing a German officer uniform and a French kepi and an officer wearing a French uniform, with a German officer cap. Now my French SS unit has two distinctive French looking officers to command them.

In game terms, this will help to designate a unit that will be inclined to fight fiercely because they can't go home if the war ends in defeat for them. I give them a morale bonus to reflect this desire to avoid capture.