"Museums and Miniature Gaming" Topic

A reflection back on 2024, a busy year where I managed to visit a fair few military museums. Rather than a blog post on how I spent 2024 gaming I thought I'd look back on how the things I saw in the museums related to my recent gaming interests. It's a fairly long blog post with a lot of pictures which you can find here link

Nicely done

Nice. Thanks for posting.

In the last uniform photo with the bush hat, is that a JApanese helmet? It looks like is although I was assuming the unform was for Australian/British forces although I guess could also be Japanese?

Nice selection of phots from the musueums and your figures in the article.

Chris

It is the late war Mk III British helmet that served for a couple of decades, 1944 until the early 70s as I recall? Most of the D Day infantry wore this…most, not all by any means

A lot of great photos there. Since I plan to paint Mahdists in 2025, the two shields you show (one whitish, one in grey) were interesting. The only one I've seen, in the Polemos (War) Museum in Athens was dark brown, almost black. Any idea if the different colors were a matter of different animal hides, different treatments of the leather, some sort of painting, or just some of the shields having not been well cared for the the intervening century?

Grelber
Who also liked the Vickers Light six-ton tank with its 3 pdr gun.

excellent post; can I suggest the Royal Jordanian tank museum in Amman is well worth a visit if you are over that way? I recently had it to myself for a tour and it is fantastic.

A lot of great photos there. Since I plan to paint Mahdists in 2025, the two shields you show (one whitish, one in grey) were interesting. The only one I've seen, in the Polemos (War) Museum in Athens was dark brown, almost black. Any idea if the different colors were a matter of different animal hides, different treatments of the leather, some sort of painting, or just some of the shields having not been well cared for the the intervening century?

I wish I was knowledgeable enough to answer that! I saw three shields in different museums and all were fairly similar in colour. None were dark, all were a similar tan/light sand colour. Are they representative? I don't know. Over a century has intervened since their capture, again, who knows what changes may have occurred? There seems to be some consensus about the lighter colour in various publications like Osprey but that research may be based on the museum examples pictured here.

I understand they were made from rhino hide, but can't confirm. Not sure any of this helps you though!

In the last uniform photo with the bush hat, is that a JApanese helmet?

It's a British helmet, but as deadhead points out it could be the MkIII helmet. A bit of research indicates those weren't issued to troops in Burma, so, if it is, it may be incorrect.

I suspect we may be misguided by the scrim netting, which changes the outline of the helmet. This photo is a good illustration of how different scrim can do that.

I have another picture of the same helmet and from this angle it looks less like a MkIII, I wonder if the other picture gives the impression of a different shape due to the angle at which I took the picture?

This could perhaps be my all time favorite post on TMP. I can't imagine anything that captures the spirit of the gaming community more. Your desire to learn, understand, model, and "play" history is an inspiration. So very well done!

Bravo. Well done!

I definitely take that back. It looks like a Mk III because the netting gives it that domed appearance, as Tactical Painter said.