"Mozambique army uniforms in the late '70s...." Topic

As many of you know I'm working on a big Rhodesian Bush War project in 28mm. I'm pretty much done with the ZANLA figures having painted up over 50 figures from a couple of different African Militia lines. As I usually find in the case of irregulars like these, they were a blast to paint. But now I'm looking to painting up a platoon or so of Mozambique army troops and have hit a brick wall.

The problem is that I can't find any photographic representation of what FRELIMO/FPLM uniforms of the time looked like. The only contemporary pictures I have seen have been a handful of photos of burned out vehicles destroyed by the Rhodesians with burned bodies of the crew/passengers. Obviously these are less than useful other than confirming that at least some of them wore helmets of similar shape to the Soviet M40. I have alot of good information as to what sort of vehicles and kit these guys had but very little to tell me what they looked like.

The Osprey title on Rhodesia (yes, yes, I know…) claims that FPLM soldiers wore plain green uniforms and sometimes East German or old Portuguese camouflage. I've also seen references online to the FPLM wearing khaki uniforms, although I'm not sure of the source on that. Finally just about every book I've read on the war talks about blue denim uniforms worn by some of the terrorists that came from Mozambique.

Clearly FRELIMO's army in the late '70s was is a state of transition from Portuguese rule and was in a bad state of repair. It's likely that all of the above listed uniforms were used at some point. Does anyone have any other information or, especially, photos?

I've pretty much decided to use a mix of the more uniform looking African militia figures (the ones with caps) and Soviet infantry (mostly for the helmets and kit). But the colors I want to use are still up in the air.

Thoughts?

TR

There is the osprey book you mention and I do have it somewhere. Also there are several books on little wars and brush wars from the early 80s festooned with pictures. Those I don't have any longer.

TR,
This is the same problem I had while workingon my 20mm Rhodesian forces. The best I can tell Khaki, green, soviet camo and Portugese camo are the ways to go.
Dave

Might try this link -

link

Here is a picture of FRELIMO troops in 1974, it's a bit early for the time period you want.

picture

That's a great and informative photo, Jimmy. Most of the ugys in the pic are clearly wearing a dark khaki colored uniform of some sort.

True enough that 1974 is before FRELIMO seized power after the departure of the Portuguese, but I suspect that their military uniforms remained similar.

I'm going to keep looking, but barring any other evience I'm going to paint my Mozambique figures mostly in a similar shade of dark khaki with items of East German camo mixed in to break things up a bit.

TR