Very nice indeed!
A question, if I may. It appears that you have used two different shades for the uniforms … perhaps only for the overcoats, perhaps more (hard to judge pantalon colors from the pictures).
The last picture from the first link is perhaps the best side-by-side comparison. One overcoat is noticeably more brown, the other more green.
Was this deliberate?
I ask in part because I have a force of French 1940 infantry for my own wargaming (although in a smaller scale). I painted them some years ago using Polly-S "French Khaki" as my primary uniform color. Alas, since then, in looking at them and at various sources, I have convinced myself that they are too green, and not brown enough. I kind of feel I should repaint them, or at least repaint their overcoats (and so also all the web gear, etc.) to fix this.
Now I wonder if there is some justification for how green the Polly-S French Khaki was. If so, well, the time not spent re-painting my existing force means more time to paint some of the mountain of un-finished pewter!
It's a Vivien-Bessière system (grenade 50mm) with MAS36 or Lebel carbine.
I enjoyed the link.
An interesting weapon system. For those who don't know, the French VB rifle grenades were bullet-pass-through grenades. Put the grenade in the cup, load a regular round, and fire. The bullet goes through a tube in the grenade and continues on. It arms the grenade as it does (ingenious arming mechanism inside the tube). The grenade is launched out to 100-200m by the same gases that pushed the bullet (think of it as tapping the muzzle flash to push the grenade).
So you get to use a regular rifle (with cup added), carry regular ammo (so you have a serviceable rifle), and fire grenades. The only downsides were it shook the rifles apart after some use, and took some skill to learn how to get the range you wanted. So you didn't want to equip everyone with it … just one man per squad as a specialist.
Still, according to the website:
On the defensive, the 16 launchers in a company could send to their front 100 grenades per minute, creating automatically, at a distance varying from 80 to 150 meters, an impenetrable barrage.
(My translation. Subject to correction.)
But that leads to my next question. I know that the French put great stock in this weapon. But is there much historical evidence to justify that confidence? Has anyone read any AARs describing how French infantry on the defensive really were able to put out an impenetrable barrage?
Inquiring minds want to know.
-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)
