"Belgium Uniform help (circa 1985)" Topic

My interwebs search seems to be failing me at the moment. I am looking to put some Belgian troops on the table for my Cold War project but I can't seem to find any information on painting their battle dress. I am looking to do these in 3mm so I don't need über detailed uniform guides, just enough to look the part.

Thanks!

Olive drab green except for those issued with camouflage. If you can find a copy there is a colour plate between pages 352 and 353 The Armies of the NATO Nations, Dr Friedrich Wiener, first updated English Edition, Herold Publishers, Vienna.

Click on the samples to see who got camouflage uniforms and when:
link

In 1985 only our para-commando's had camouflage uniforms. The rest of us wore green uniforms.

I have posted pictures of 1980's Belgian uniforms (of me and some colleagues) here on TMP: TMP link

Fons
mmps.asia

Awesome Fonzie!

Thanks,

I see everyone is wearing berets. Green/drab helmet?

Our helmets were the same color as US Army helmets during WW2

but the Belgian Army was big on camouflage in those days so we had to cover our helmets with home-made covers made out of potato bags or sandbags.

On top of that cover we put a camouflage net in which we spiraled up an elastic band. The whole thing was held in place by a black rubber band, usually made out of a bike tire. :-) The idea was to put grass, leaves and so on on your helmet, held in place by the elastic band.

Yeah, you had to be very creative and handy serving in the Belgian Army in the eighties as we had practically nothing.

These home-made covers are made out of burlap/hessian (don't know which is the correct word) so the color of our helmets was actually light brownish but, we would always camouflage our helmet in the field so you would very rarely see a Belgian soldier with a "bare" helmet during operations or exercises.

The helmet on the right is what I'm talking about but we would leave the cover "as is" and not spray brown and green spots on it. The helmet in the pic is Dutch I think but the "system" is the same.

Hope this helps.

Fons
mmps.asia

So Fonzie, I am working on an operational scenario… One unit is a brigade, try to put together a big simple game for some friends. Do you have any thoughts/ideas on what the Belgian Corps would be faced with?

Mechanized infantry and armor just like anyone else I think. That's what they trained us for. Can't count the hours that we spent learning how to recognize soviet equipment and its weaknesses.

I was a combat engineer squad leader and our mission in the first few hours would have been to mine roads, fell trees and load bridges from prepared, hidden caches to slow down the advancing Russian tip of the spear. We were to win time for the rest of 1BE Corps to come into the line. That is of course if we would live long enough to do so. We had a life expectancy of only a few hours due to the many Hind gunships that the Soviets were expected to deploy. Sure glad I never had to face those. :-)

Fons
mmps.asia

Hoping Fonzie is still about to give an idea of what format the webbing was in. Was it the same as the Dutch? (Crossed straps, water bottle right hip, entrenching tool centre, gas mask on left hip)