I'm working on a Polish Black Brigade (10th Mechanized Cav) army in 15mm scale, and I'd like to discuss how to paint the infantry. The current standard seems to be to paint all of the infantry in the eponymous black leather coat, as with the Forged in Battle miniatures:
link
If you pick up the Osprey book on the Polish Army, the color plate also has a "rifleman" in the black coat as well. However, if you look at the photo on page 8 of that work, you'll see some of the infantry in cloth greatcoats rather than the leather coat. Furthermore, Majka's "Invincible Black Brigade" book shows the unit in a mix of uniforms and states only the officers and NCO's received the black coats.
I've got the True North miniatures at this point, and since it appears that only the officers and the NCO's got the black coats, while the rifle privates made do with a wz. 36 trench coat in the normal green. I found translated version of a 1934 Polish Army infantry manual online and it gave the breakdown of an infantry platoon as follows:
Commanding officer "Plutonowy" (Master corporal)
Second in command, "Kapral" (Corporal)
Light machinegun crew (BAR) made up of a "Starszy strzelecz" (Private first class) and two riflemen carrying ammunition.
13 riflemen of which two are of the "Starszy strzelecz" rank.
Granted, this is an infantry, not a cavalry organization, so the numbers for the cavalry are likely to be slightly different. Assuming that everyone down to the Starszy strzelecz rank received the black leather greatcoat, that would give a ratio of about five black leather coats to thirteen standard cloth coats. Does anyone have a good cavalry organization that could help verify these numbers?
Also, what color paint are people using for the 1916 pattern helmet? Most references say "khaki", but the Vallejo khaki seems a bit dark and not yellow enough. Buff (976) seems closer, but it may be a tough light. Thoughts?