Daithi the Black | 16 Mar 2018 3:08 p.m. PST |
I ordered some British Colonial troops by Perry Bros. from thewarstore.com. I ordered last Friday, in my mailbox by Wednesday. I have been doing business with Neal longer than I can remember, and he has always been the best. I ordered a box of plastics (36 per box) and a pack of six metal soldiers to bring the whole group up to 42 models. After assembling a few plastic soldiers and basing a few metal ones, I can safely say that they scale perfectly with each other, which is not always the case with Warlord or GW. As an added bonus, each command sprue has a tiny dog, which wins high cuteness points with my wife. The box of plastics was supposed to have 36 soldiers, but instead only had 34; it appears that they included one too many 3-man command sprues (three of them) and one too few 5-man soldier sprues (five of them.) I have e-mailed Perry about this to see if it can be resolved. Does anyone know of a historic precedent for including a small dog with British infantry in either Afgahnistan or the Sudan? Thank you. |
Grelber | 16 Mar 2018 3:16 p.m. PST |
Bobby the dog was with the 66th Foot at Maiwand, and survived the battle. Also at Maiwand was a doctor, who was wounded, left the army, returned to England, and took rooms on Baker Street, in London, with one S. Holmes. Grelber |
Daithi the Black | 16 Mar 2018 3:56 p.m. PST |
Thank you for the info about Bobby :) |
GreenLeader | 16 Mar 2018 4:29 p.m. PST |
Dogs went into action in the Boer War with their regiments – so I imagine they were similarly involved in other campaigns of the period. War correspondent Donald McDonald reported, for example, how at the Battle of Wagon Hill: 'When the King's Royals went into action their regimental dog accompanied them as usual. He has never been out of the firing line, and has never had a scratch'. At the Battle of Graspan, the Naval Brigade were accompanied on their attack by a terrier of some sort (from memory). Earlier, in the Matabele Campaign, the Company Troopers are always posing with dogs in group photos. In the retreat which followed Wilson's Last Stand, some of the men had to kill their dogs to avoid their yapping giving the retreating column away in the darkness. |
Artilleryman | 17 Mar 2018 3:10 a.m. PST |
Wherever there are soldiers there are bound to be dogs. They followed the hoplites, English archers and French grenadiers. One of my favourite Napoleonic prints is called 'The Dog of the Regiment is Wounded' and shows a drummer tending to said animal while a firefight goes on in the background. Even in the Nineties there was a story of a patrol in Northern Ireland accompanied by three local dogs who just turned up each day to make friends and follow the soldiers.Needless to say, my Napoleonic units are liberally 'sprinkled' with dogs. |
Mad Guru | 18 Mar 2018 4:40 p.m. PST |
All great info above! Adding this LINK to a page on dogs in the Second Afghan War, most famous among them being the aforementioned Bobby of the 66th Berkshires included: link |
Daithi the Black | 18 Mar 2018 5:11 p.m. PST |
I am happy to report that Alan Perry has responded, and is sending a replacement sprue via mail. |
Glengarry5 | 18 Mar 2018 10:33 p.m. PST |
Don't forget during the English Civil War there was Prince Ruperts hunting poodle "Boy", who was depicted in Parliamentary propaganda as a witch's familiar or perhaps the Devil himself in disguise! Boy was killed at the battle of Marston Moor. |
Lion in the Stars | 21 Mar 2018 10:15 p.m. PST |
US troops in Vietnam trained the local stray dogs (not the actual Military Working Dogs) to hunt rats in camp. I doubt that such training is particularly new. |
Daithi the Black | 30 Mar 2018 4:47 p.m. PST |
I am pleased to report that Perry Brothers have sent me the missing sprue and I am happily able to finish assembing my company :) I would also like to thank you all for your dog stories. |
mrinku | 05 Apr 2018 1:20 p.m. PST |
Perry are easily my favourite company to deal with. |