Over on the Army Red/White and Others blog our friend AG has asked for ideas on building ships and crewing them for 54mm wargames. Many years ago I built a gunboat based on the SMS Iltis, I've put pictures of it on the Funnny Little Wars Yahoo Group site and the sailors I use to crew it are here.
At the top are two conversions made from Airfix commandos, in the middle are WW2 Lone Star and at the bottom is a close up of the bridge with two copies of Starlux? which I think were made in Hong Kong and a conversion which I think is supposed to be of Churchill.
Hi Brian,
ReplyDeleteSeeing this triggered a memory. I have tried to follow up on this before, but to no avail, so I thought I'd pick your brains.
If I remember rightly, there was a picture in "A First Book of Wargaming" by F. E. Perry, there is a single picture of a WW2 Royal Navy vessel. There are several sailors, and one animated naval officer holding a map or similar.
Some years later, I came into the possession of this Navy officer, albeit a Hong King copy scaled down to 25mm in dark green plastic. I believe it was at this time that I similarly acquired some Hong Kong figures, which looked like the same manufacturer, with figures akin to the Britains infantry that were released at the start of the 1950s, some men armed with EM2 rifles.
I haven't seen the book in years, so it is not that I have an image I could reproduce in a forum or on a blog page. Does this ring any bells, and do you know who originally made them? In later years I have become aware of the sailors made by Starlux and Lone Star/Timpo but I think it was different.
Best wishes, Keith
Hi Keith, thanks for your enquiry, I have the picture in front of me as I type! I think the figure you are referring to is the officer in white uniform on the bridge holding binoculars? He is French made by Cofalu, see this link: http://soldatplastique-1-32.forumgratuit.org/t4334-cofalu-les-marins
DeleteThe other sailors in the picture are standing at ease and a bosun by Gemodels and two by Lone Star (officer in duffle coat with binoculars and one throwing a graple hook). Back in the 1980's I visited the Perry's Wargame Centre and saw their gunboats, which inspired me to make the gunboat you see here.
Many thanks Brian. I was wondering if the other figures were also by the same manufacturer, so thanks for pre-empting that question. I had not heard of neither Cofalu nor Gemodels before.
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