"Hittites in Helmets" Topic

With the addition of chariots at end of the month Miniature Designs will be able to provide a fine looking army.

I like the helmet look and seems logical. Still like however the bare head look on Egyptian reliefs. What is the general opinion.

Colin:

I like 'em with helmets: picture picture picture with horns too if you got 'em Granted, those images span several hundred years, and a couple are depictions of their gods – but the helmets must be based on what they actually wore.

Dean

I picked up a unit w/ helmets. Seems reasonable to wear something on the old noggin!
Will still use my non-helmeted for militia types. Looking forward to the MDS chariots at months end.
Wish he would make up a figure to cover the Gasgans.

Oggie

Dean: at least one of your pictures does not have helmet, but a headgear composed of an Osiris crown and horns (to emphasize godly attributes).

Gods had a specific iconography to make them distinct from human beings, and therefore may not always reflect what men (and especially common soldiers) actually wore.

Colin: where can we find pictures of these miniatures?

Renaud. pictures of infantry are on the MDS website.

I've seen the infantry. They are quite nice and seem rather accurate, although I believe that the bulk of the troops, like their Egyptian counterparts, did not wear any helmet.

For wargaming purposes, I would use Hittite helmeted troops only for royal guards, elite charioteers and marines.

I like helmets, but most of my figures are older Perry and OGs, so there aren't many in my army. However my Hittite chariotry have crews from around the area, including heavily armored Mitannian warriors, as well as the bareheaded types depicted by the Egyptians.

Are the helmets Bronze, Iron, or are they mixed?

link

MDS paints them bronze with leather padding.

Thomas. I think thats all leather. The light colour appears bronze. I do imagine guard and higher ranking soldiers to have bronze though.

Thanks for the correction Colin! I should have written 'looks like bronze.' Of course, as that is how I saw it, I now have to fix some of mine.

I've seen the infantry. They are quite nice and seem rather accurate,

I followed a thread on this on the ancmed yahoo mailing list a while back, and the conclusion come to was different. The discussion was whether the art in the Osprey book was accurate. I think this line is based closely on the Osprey book.

Nigel Tallis in particular, but others as well, seemed to think that the restorations in the book came from a Turkish tv documentary about the Hittites, and that there was little evidence that anyone knew of for it. Nigel is an archaeologist who studies this period and wrote the book Armies of the Ancient Near East so if he has doubts I'd wonder a bit myself.

That documentary is called The Hittites

link

I believe Trevor Bryce was a consultant for the documentary and is supposedly one of the Hittite experts out there.

Any update on those chariots.