"28mm Warlord WWII US Marines for Guadalcanal" Topic

All,

You've already seen my mid-/late-war studs, so let me show you my early-ish Marines specifically for Guadalcanal. What's the difference, you ask? Well, true early war is, to me, the Philippines and Wake Island, where US Marines wore khaki uniforms, Kelly helmets (a knock-off of the Brodie helmet, as I understand it), leggings, and the service rifle was the Springfield M-1903. By the time Guadalcanal rolled around, the khakis had been replaced by green dungarees, the Kelly helmets by M-1 helmets (without camo helmet cover), but the Springfields were still there. Following Guadalcanal the Marines replaced the Springfields with M-1 Garands (and, in some cases, M-1 Carbines) and introduced 'treefrog pattern' camouflage trousers, blouses, and helmet covers, in both green and brown camo.

Where things get off track is purely with me; I was looking at some pics of Marines in the Solomons and I was seeing them wearing green-side out camouflage. It showed a dude with a Reising Gun, M-1 helmet without helmet cover, and green-side out cammie blouse, and I thought it was on Guadalcanal, but apparently it was on Bougainville (I thought the Reisings were long gone before Bougainville?). Ditto goes for some Marines in green-side out camo trouser and blouses, no helmet covers, with Springfields (I thought all the riflemen had Garands by the time of Bougainville?). I also thought I'd seen ParaMarines on Gavutu and Guadalcanal wearing green-side out camouflage, but I checked all my books and the internet and could find no supporting evidence. So, all indications are the there were zero Marines wearing camouflage uniforms on Guadalcanal… but I coudn't help myself and I painted quite a few wearing camo…

Closeup, good look at the extended barrel, compensator, and charging handle on top of the receiver of the M-1928 Thompson, vice the M-1 Thompson most of the submachine gunners have (looked for M-50 Reisings but couldn't find any). Would be even better if he had a drum rather than a stick magazine. This is what all the Marines should look like: green dungarees, M-1 helmet without helmet cover or with netting.

Originally this was the only guy in this force that I painted with any camo, as he's to be my Platoon Sergeant and I wanted him to stand out, but then I found what I thought were photos documenting cammie uniforms on Guadalcanal and I lost all discipline, started painting everything camo…

Tossing a grenade, with sword bayonet.

Showing off the guns.

A metal M-1917 .30-cal MG team by Warlord. Nicely done, but these boys ain't fond of shirts ;)

And a metal 81mm mortar crew by Warlord (since their 60mm mortar team is so messed up).

To see a bunch more photos, please check the blog at:
link

And there you have it, a platoon of Marines ready for action on The 'Canal. I'm pretty happy with them, other than the painted on sleeves mostly look like crap and I wish I hadn't painted camo on them, but I'll get over it, I sure as hell am not going back and re-painting all those dungarees!

V/R,
Jack

I love those guys. Great brush work Jack!

The 1st MarDiv rocks. The Old Breed were the original 'raggedly ass' Marines.

Speaking of raggedy, you should see the Warlord Australian Militia. They are a tattered bunch of blokes who'd fit in. I remember one account from the 39th Battalion where guys had dysentery so bad that they literally ripped holes in their trousers so they could just.. well, you know. 🤢 Those Warlords look the part.

I couldn't think of a worse place to fight a World War than those jungle hellscapes- Bataan, Guadalcanal, Papua New Guinea. Makes the desert in winter seem really cozy!

Thanks man, I appreciate it! I had the good fortune to serve with all three (active) Marine divisions, went to Iraq with 1st MarDiv (B/1/5 and K/3/1). I don't know about the desert being cozy, but yeah, the places you mentioned were certainly some inhospitable jungle (I got my fair share of inhospitable jungle in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand (also been to a lot of other areas in Asia, like Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, but didn't spend any real time out in the bush).

That's interesting about the Australian militia. What I'm really looking for is US Army for New Guinea and Guadalcanal, but I can't find any 28mm figures that look the part.

V/R,
Jack

I was with the 1st ID (Big Red One) back in the Gulf War and we were in the desert in the winter. It really wasn't that bad heat wise until April. It certainly beat the Mohave Desert in July! You could literally fry an egg on the Abrams' front slope there.

Warlord is redoing some of their lines for 3rd. Who knows? Maybe they'll do some raggedly ass GIs to go with your collection. To be honest though, the Army and the Corps wore much the same uniform (herringbone twill), so you could probably get away with using Marines as GIs, but maybe put on the divisional patches for the GIs (and helmets too). The jungle wore down everyone.

I remember a cartoon strip made by a marine at the time showing how Marines and GIs viewed each other with all the fun that comes with that. The first two panels showed the gung ho marine with his tiny battle bowler helmet, and the sad sack, dog faced GI who's helmet was a couple of sizes too big. The final panel of the cartoon was "how we really looked". It had both men, but you really couldn't tell the difference as they were two very worn out men who'd seen too much. You couldn't really tell the difference.

Ahh, gotcha on the ‘winter in the desert,' and Big Red Ine, eh? Pretty cool ;)

And yes, it's occurred to me to just buy more Warlord Marines and use them as doggies in the Pacific, but it just feels wrong, from the standpoint that I already have TWO forces comprised of those very same figures..

Yeah, in terms of telling them apart, it's really the Marine camouflage helmet covers vs the Army's bare metal helmets.

V/R,
Jack