Expeditionary Force Royal Navy Landing Party touch up.

After I finished the Royal Navy Sailors I realized that they looked too Gilbert and Sullivan. 

 

I added colored and striped trousers and painted over the piped jackets. 

    Looking at period images, I saw plain blue and other colored jackets with white, blue, striped , and tan pants.     I also looked at  photos from the films Damn the Defiant, both Bounties, Billy Budd, Horatio Hornblower, an Master and Commander. I found that the costume departments interpreted sailors in varicolored clothing and plain blue jackets  Only a few sailors had piping on their jackets. 

I kept the Royal Marines as is. I suspect that Expeditionary Force used their stock British soldier body from the Royal Marine set as they wear trousers rather than gaiters,  

                                            

These figures are better for a landing scenario rather than a ship to ship boarding action. For our War of 1812 they would be raiding a seaport along the Atlantic or Gulf Coast. 

Painting stripes is a son of a gun.

Fun set. 

Expeditionary Force Royal Navy Landing Party Conversions.

United States Navy conversions.  I used all the shirt sleeve figures plus the tar hat heads. 

Royal Navy conversions plus Royal Marines. I used the jacket figures and top hat heads. 

The X-Force set contains mostly figures with muskets for land battle. Only one other than the officer, has a cutlass and pistol and another carries a blunderbuss. I added edged weapons including boarding pikes and axes. 

Now I have a man in a jacket with a blunderbuss.

X-Force should have made more hand-to-hand fighters. I have seen one collector remove the bases from his figures to mount them on a ships deck.  Mine will be on land for now. 

Then I realized that my figures looked too Gilbert and Sullivan!  Several good Royal Navy films such as Master and Commander, Billy Budd,  Damn the Defiant, Horatio Hornblower (film and TV series) the two Mutiny on the Bounty films, and Damn the Defiant have wardrobe choices showing well worn sailor clothing that was not officially uniform at the period. 

Next will be paint improvement to make the sailors look more worn and individualistic. 

Britains Ltd. Marching German Soldiers,

 I believe that these were sold both before and after WW II.   I was able to get 18 plus an officer for a reasonable price. The reason I got them was for political comments with miniature figures. I would be violating "Godwin's law" but Godwin himself said that now was OK for N@zi comparisons. 

So I painted them.

I was going to just paint them field gray but I saw that early in the War the German Infantry uniforms were field gray with green collars ,  silver  pebble finish buttons with white trim and insignia.  

Pants were stone gray. 

    I "suggested" the insignia decals on the helmets. Too bad the helmets are so far back on the figure's heads. I had to paint the eyes instead of dark sinister slits. My intent was to make them scary looking instead of the friendly toy soldier look of painted Britains Ltd toys. Maybe the dark gray bases for pavement helps. "Coming to city near you!" 

I hope to post a story using these guys in the near future,