British Commonwealth Indian Troops

 British Commonwealth Indian Troops

I had no plans to expand my British Indian force beyond the company or so I already had, but that fantastic painter Ray Haskins bought a job-lot of mixed 20mm figures and couldn`t identify one batch which I immediately saw were Ian Clunie`s Friend or Foe figures. Well Ray had no use for them so sold them onto me and they have been sitting in a draw for a while now as I lost my painting mojo (as usually happens during the hot months of June/July). 

Finally inspired by Steve Evans over on the Rapid Fire! Wargaming FB page I got off my arse and to finally get them done. When I really got around to sorting them out I found a mixture of packs and duplicates, far too many Sten guns and hardly any riflemen 😕 so with a sharp blade I pruned away the Stens and crudely replaced them with rifles from the spares box - not great, but at 4' across a tabletop, they`ll do for me. I still had a weird mix of figures so put in an order to Paul @ Early War Miniatures to add more riflemen.

These will serve as Indian 5th Brigade in Syria, or 4th Division in Tunisia or later Italy

This is the first batch, very mixed without pre-planning, first come first served. 

These figures confused the heck out of me, I`m no expert when it comes to WW2 and the extra length of cloth (hard to make out in these grainy pics I know) was it part of the turban? what colour would it be? Luckily I have a copy of Andrew Mollo`s 'Armed Forces of World War II' and this saved the day again.

It is just sacking wrapped around the helmet, with the trailing piece used to protect the eyes and mouth against sand/dust.

L-R converted moving 2 inch mortar (altered to an ammo bearer), 2 gunners

L-R Moving 2 inch mortar No2, moving Bren, EWM rifleman

L-R 2 of my rough converted ex-sten gunners, EWM rifleman

2 inch mortar team (though I`m pretty sure the No2 is from a Bren team

First 12 figures all together