Followers

Thursday, December 21, 2023

WOTW Militia Troops

Part of my War of the Worlds plan is to have local militia units who can immediately respond to the scene of the crisis.  So some of those local militia units will be based on real units that actually existed.  I will use a few of them in their iconic parade outfits only because it makes them more distinctive on the battlefield.  It also may be the only uniform some of them own.
Remember there was no interstate highway system in 1898, 1918 or 1938 when I intend to stage invasions.  So it will take some time for Federal Regular troops to arrive at the scene of a Martian cylinder down.  We don't even have large aircraft to carry tanks, nor do we have vast fleets of trucks to carry everything.  It all has to go by train from rail-head to rail-head.
These troops have a peg on their backs where the backpack attaches, I may not put them on all the troops.
Mostly I am interested in the busby hat, and those may end up getting transferred to more heavily armed troops, particularly for machine gun crews.
Part of the plan is these guys and their mounted counterparts would only be the HQ troop rather than the whole unit, however some of these militia units were very small with only a platoon size strength of 40 or 50 troops so we shall see how it actually shapes up.  For 1898 the majority of the troops will be Union and Confederate ACW troops and a few Airfix WWI Americans in Montana Peak hats.
The backpacks.  They are very nice and I may use them for a few other troops also.  For 1918 of course I will use mostly Airfix WWI Americans with Montana Peak hats, since most of the regulars would be in Europe, but there will also be better equipped US troops as well.  By 1938 my troops will be the Airfix WWI and Strelets early WWII troops with Thompsons and other early WWII weapons.
 

4 comments:

Wayne W said...

Strelets did some Boers that might be useful, too. Just a thought.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek said...

Great comment WW. I am already using them as un-organized milita and ordinary citizens. The Boers look a lot like Americans from the last 150 years. I see folks just like them here in KY!

Thanks for reading.
Bunkermeister

jeigheff said...

It's amazing how many great 1/72 scale figures are available these days.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek said...

I know. It took about 10 years to get 100 sets between about 1963 when I started buying figures and 1973. Now we get 50 to 100 almost every year for the last 20 years or longer.
It's amazing and the quality is so good.

Thanks for reading.
Bunkermeister