"What Do I Need To Know About Having a Serbian Army?" Topic

I found a smoking half price sale on 28mm Battle Honors Serbians and picked up a hundred infantry.

Now all I need are a dozen cavalry, pair of machine guns and a three dozen artillerymen to complete the army. The support troops will most likely cost me more than the hundred infantry!

Besides locking the liquor cabinet, what do i need to know about having a Balkan War and Great War Serbian Army?

Colour to paint for uniform?
Grey-green
khaki green
or olive?

I prefer the 1914-16 uniform rather than looking like french hand me downs.

You Tube has several movie versions of George Bernard Shaw's "Arms and the Man" which is set during a war between Serbia and Bulgaria. The uniforms are probably going to be questionable. The show itself is a comedy.

If you have access to interlibrary loan, I was able to get a book called "Armies of the Balkan states, 1914-1918" written by the British General Staff. I'm not sure the dates are part of the title. In any case, it was written back in the early days of the 20th century. I photocopied the sections on Greece and Montenegro, but not Serbia. I recall some of the wording being . . . unexpected, like the reference to a "lorry," which turned out to be what we in the US would call a trailer, not what we'd call a truck.

Grelber

As I said, I photocopied the section on Montenegro (I don't know what i was thinking). Anyway, the last page of the Serbian section was opposite the first page of Montenegro, and it provides a breakdown of Serbian money, weights, and measures.

For measurements, the metric system was in effect, but folks also used the old Turkish measures, as well (Google pre-metric Turkish measurements).

For money, they used the dinar, equal to 9.5 British pence back then. There were gold coins--10 and 20 dinars, silver coins in 1, 2, and 5 dinars. Each dinar was broken down into 100 paras. There were nickel coins worth 5, 10, and 20 paras, and bronze coins worth 5 and 10 paras. All of which would be much more useful if I knew how many dinars a soldier was paid every month or how many paras a gyro cost.

Serbian soldiers (according to Liliane and Fred Funcken's "Arms and Uniforms: The First World War," wore the 1908 olive-grey uniform. They wore red collar patches for infantry, blue for cavalry, and black for artillery. It sounds like the Serbian reserve infantry may often have used the pre-1908 uniform, or at least parts of it. Some of the first line troops may also have had some bits of earlier uniforms. The Serbs started the war with about 2,000 cavalry, who seem to have worn blue tunics and kepis with red trousers. Serbian artillery used the Schneider-Canet 75 mm gun.

Best of luck!

Grelber

My Serbians.. nearing completion
link

I now use a Vallejo Green-Grey as my uniform colour
Ngā mihi
Robin

As far as easy to get goes, Osprey has a book on the Balkan Wars, as well as one covering WWI in the Balkans. The George Nafziger collection also contains a number of titles of interest.

Serbia had three classes of soldiers, which were the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd ban. That starts with uniformed regulars, then classifications of reserve troops. You go from new uniforms, to old uniforms, to civilian clothing. They had huge logistical problems, and war time production of munitions was abysmal. I believe they had 2 machine guns per battalion in the Balkan Wars.

I have thought about making armies for this period multiple times. The Battle Honors figures are probably smaller than what is made now, but they should have what you need.

Not sure what is driving my balkan armies drive. I have lots of Turks, mostly from previous WW1 hordings, even a compny of Bulgarian infantry from 1st Corps, now am getting a Serbian compnay. Those Eureka Schneider-Creusot field guns were a Godsend for the Bulgarians by the way.

Grey olive sounds about right.

I already have four of the Copplestone Schneider quick firing field guns so now have to decide if I cut the barrels down a bit to make them into 1912 models or leae the original marginally longer barels in place as 1914 models. I do like the longer barrels.

Scneider mountain guns,,, either the Empress 1906-8 models or the later Compnay B Danglis types???

Maybe some Krupp Export QF field guns if I do WW1.
I have some left over Monday Knight Production US field guns , the Erhardt models, that will do in a pinch given a twelve spoke wheel insead of the US sixteen spoke wheel.

A pair of support MGs can be either later from either Battle Honors or Eureka. Then Eureka has separate artillery crew too and Battle Honors has the remaining cavalry. So theoretically all set.

Just re-read "The Balkan Wars" by Hall and am currently halfway through, The Gardeners of Salonika" so I'm catching the bug again.

There is a Serbian film available on YouTube about Serbian King Peter during the fighting early in the war. Looking at the internet (so it has to be true) you would be safe using anything from light green to brown to almost white and anything in between. I suspect that there was not a great deal of "uniformity" in uniform colors after the first shots were fired. I would be slightly careful if you rely on the internet, there is one color illustration that I have seen labeled as a "Serbian" who is, I am almost certain, based upon photos of the King of Montenegro. There is a book floating around titled something like "The Serbian Army in the Great War," whose author is a guy named Dushcan (?). I have a copy, however, I moved recently and it is still packed away somewhere. I believe that there is a color section showing the variety of Serbian uniforms. If I can find it, I will follow-up.

Thanks, Have to look it up and watch it now.

Eureka, Schneider-Canet field gun oops. (Bulgaria)
Copplestone Schneider Creusot field gun.)Serbia)

Funny they chose the lighter field guns. Maybe the poor road systems made them prefer the lighter weight horse type field guns over the heavier types like the Moel 1897.
1897-3,700lbs vs 2,100lbs-2,700lbs for 1905 and 1912.
Or was it cost of the 1905 vs 1912 vs 1897?

Recreational Conflict carries the Tiger range of Balkan Wars figure. Nice looking stuff.

link

Red Jacket – I believe to movie you are referring to is King Petar The First (2018). Full movie is posted on You Tube with subtitles.

This King Petar movie looks pretty good. The Serbian and Austro-Hungarian uniforms look pretty accurate to me – as they are the same that I have painted in the past LOL.

I saw a portion of King Peter where they have the artillery and fight scene.

Using the actual artillery fom the time! Wow.

Serb artillery outranged the Austrians.

This may be useful.

YouTube link

Eric