Regimental Colonels Names

Sorry, no pictures this time, I've been far too hard at work, coming home and sleeping quite a lot of the evening away.

I have been busy buying referencxe books from the internet, and deciding which units of the various volunteers I shall be using for the main parts of what I'm beginning to think of as 'Army Grey' as that seems to be the basic uniform colour for the infantry. I shall be looking out for castings of appropriate figures when I go to the Toy Soldier Show in December but in the meantime I've placed an order with Langley for an assortment of casting to replace the broken figures in my collectrion, and to 'top-up' the regiments to full strength.

I'm working on the Order Of Battle at the moment (when I;m awake) and have Regiments commanded by Colonels. These will all be named and I'm using the names of fictional Colonels. So far I've made a list of 27, without even consulting any Military novels. These come from various sources, with Conan Doyles Holmes stories and Agatha Christies 'Miss Marple' stories contributing a good selection. Remember Colonel Protheroe?.

The Brigades will be overseen by Brigadier Generals, and these are being approached in a slightly different way. I'm using the lower ranks of British aristocracy as inspiration, and they will all be 'sirs' from recent lists. Sir Alan Sugar, Sir Norman Wisdom, and (though he wasn't a sir as far as I know, Sir John Ravenscroft - Margrave of the Marches.

A long way to go yet, perhaps some pictures next time.

Dennis Wheatley

Thanks for the comments. The Wheatley map came from 'Stranger Than Fiction' of 1959 covering his work for the WW2 Joint Planning Commitee. As well as his plan for the post war reconstruction of Europe he includes various projects on civil defence and resistance to invasion, a scenario for the German invasion of the UK, and taking over Sardinia for use as a stepping-stone for a European invasion. Well worth reading for 'alternative' scenarios.

Something About Maps

I'm a bit undecided on the setting of my new 'imagi-nation'. My original intention was to use the counties of the East Midlands as a basis for a small group of countiries around the French/German/Dutch border,

Then I thought of option two, which is to use the pre-Norman seven kingdoms, supposing that a) the Normans were held at Hastings and only managed to conquer the bottom part of the country, leaving Wessex to Harold and the Saxons, while the Danes end up with Northumbria.

Finally, I came across Dennis Wheatley's 1941 plan for the redivision of Europe after WW11. His idea was to cut Germany down to size and fit two buffer zones, one between Germany and France, the other between Europe and Communist Russia. I'm not sure exactly how he would have convinced the various countries thus dissapearing (i.e. Switzerland) to conform but it makes for useful alternative history fantasy. I,ve only put up the first of his maps to give an idea.

I've been playing with my new camera macro settings as well. Here are a couple of the resulting photos. Most seemed to cut of heads, legs, or be hideously out of focus.

And I thought I was a reasonably tidy painter. Must practice. The staff figures are castings from Replica Models, while the East Kent Mounted Rifles figure is a Langley casting.

I'm slowly getting my idea for a force based on Yeomanry and Volunteer units together. I have some books on the subjects, but have received a couple of CD's from a company (http://www.uniformsotw.com/) that are full of diagramatic uniform colour schemes, and been in touch with a firm I used to deal with, D.P.&.G. of Doncaster, who, among other things, have a massive library of photos and prints. To save a large list and avoid dissapointment in ordering, this firm run a subscription scheme, whereby you pay an initial deposit, they send you a selection of pictures (5x7) geared to your interests and you then choose which you want to keep, return the rest with payment and they send you a further selection. This continues till you have what you want, at which point your deposit comes back.

I think I've gone on long enough. Thanks for reading. I will return soon. 

More Filling in the Backstory

I spent Sunday morning sifting through more boxes in the loft. It seems I have saved more than I thought, mostly 54mm stuff with a lot of unpainted castings. Mainly infantry figures with a few unrelated cavalry pieces. If I top up the collection I should have enough to make up a small force so it looks like my first project will be a part of my large scale plan.

My intention is to build up an army using only the uniforms of the various Volunteer and Yeomanry units of the Victorian era, hence the prescence of the Lincolnshire Yeomanry for starters. I also have a unit of Rifle Volunteers half painted from previously, GBE castings, and am finishing them off at the moment. Photos to follow when they are finished.

I have names for the C-in-C of this force and his staff. The Duke of Rothesay is in overall charge, with the Earl of Carrick as his Quartermaster General and the Earl of Chester as Attorney General. It is said that these three are so alike in thought and temperament that any one of them can speak for the others.

Also, among my fretwork bits and pieces I have a number of Hobbies model plans, some going back to the 30's, and among them are a number of forts, castles and farmyards, as well as a three foot long model of Buckingham Palace. The latter I think would be ideal as a backdrop for 'parade' style photo shoots.

Photos will follow after I've practised with my camera a little more, in the meantime here is a page from my (30 year old) notebook.

Some of the old stuff

current painting table contents

some very early conversions, all based on the same Britains ACW figure

Langley lancers painted as Lincolnshire Yeomanry and unknown castings of Fort Henry Guard

Hopefully, if this works, you should see some pictures of some of my old figures. I obviously need to work on my photography skills.

INTRODUCTION

I am due to semi-retire at the end of next March and my wife tells me that I need something to take up my time. Over the years I have dabbled in various types of modelmaking, whether it be railways (where I degenerated to narrow gauge to 7mm scale on 16.5mm track) or boats (I currently have a pond yacht awaiting restoration and a 1.72 scale wooden static Flower Class Corvette that has been ongoing since about 1979). Years ago I dabbled in 'toy' soldiers, joining the BMSS (lapsed) and never winning their competitions, and having a small collection of Hinton Hunt Napoleonics (long gone, I'm sorry to say, before the days of internet auctions) and all the usual wargames titles. Although I never actually useed these they are still on my shelves.

Rooting round in the loft recently I was sidetracked by a wooden box that had the lid nailed on. This seemed unusual so I opened it and found an assorted collection of figures. These were military and civilian, a mix of makes, ages and composition, and sight of them rekindled a spark. Also in the box were a few scraps of paper I'd scribbled notes about a fictional set of countries down on.

These countries were of middle European origin, the geography being that of the Counties of the East Midlands (Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire and rutland) and named after TV series or films of the era (Rubovia, Borsovia, Grand Fenwick, etc.), You'll hear more of these later.

I'm now in the process of surfing the net about wargaming (the wife says it's too quiet), finding rules, looking at figure ranges ( ain't there a lot), scales and periods, to find out what it's all about. I've been posing questions on various sites, and will spend some time sorting out my intentions. When these are finalised I'll be back, if not before.

Plea. A Suffolk gamer prepared to help out with a beginner would be welcomed with open arms, though I have discovered over the years that I am not a 'club' person I'll give it a go.

Ian

ps - The Blog title. I thought quite hard about this, and find that STEAM, STEEL AND TORPEDOES, while being the title of a book on the early steam navy, also reflects my three areas of interest qite well.