Saturday 6 November 2010

ALGERIA 1954-62.

Hello again,
I still have not finished tidying my room,but did find these knocking around.Some more older work as you can tell by the mold lines.
The Algerian war of Independence is a war I know little of,and from what I have found out it was a nasty,horrific war with atrocities carried out by both sides.I got interested in this period because of watching "the day of the jackal" with the great Edward Fox.Knowing little of the shadowy OAS or their reason for the attempt to kill De Gaulle(A dis-like for large noses might be a bit over the top.)I wanted to know more.I bought an Osprey book from amazon on the subject and was quite surprised by it.
The first figure is meant to bean Algerian ALN (Army of national liberation)fighter.They main used like any guerrilla anything that they could lay their hands on.A lot of old WWII kit US,German,British and french.
I tried to convert the classic Airfix DAK grenade thrower into something different.The scalpel was used to chop the hat down to make a Bigeard cap, and remove the water bottle and gas mask canister.A few donated pieces of kit from some ESCI American infantry glued on and there you go ready to paint.I have tried to do two styles of cammo the trousers are the sausage skin design and the other I have now idea so please feel free to let me know.I will do some more of these figures because they are different and unusual.
The next figure is a French foreign legionnaire(from ESCI)and yes the rifle is far to late for this war but its not easy finding figures for this period so bear with me.He is a victim of mold lines a problem that plagues me every waking moment.I think he looks suitably hard as nails and would not like to bump into him on a dark night.
The next figure is meant to be a French infantry NCO.Again with sausage skin cammo and armed with a 9mm SMG.I should have used a gloss black for the shades,it would have looked better.This ESCI soldier could be converted to I am sure but I become reluctant to cut up figures that cost and bomb and hard to come by.The extra Jerry cans and drums come from the academy jeep set and the wire holder is from the airfix jungle outpost set.
PLEASE CLICK ON THE IMAGES FOR A LARGER VIEW,ANY COMMENTS MORE THAN WELCOME.

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6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looking good, but why all seperate small bases? Why not one big diorama?

Paul´s Bods said...

@ Maurice
Why not one big diorama?? Have you seen the state of his room!!? :-)
The conversion of the DAK bod is a good n´. reminds me...I did one of those some time back.......errr???
maybe you should get em all together in one dio..
Cheers
Paul


This time it´s POPHOU

Paul said...

Very nice work, the lizard cam is just right, what colours did you use?

Day of the Jackal is a brilliant movie, and the book is even better.

west1871 said...

Cheers all,

Maurice it was when I just started and did not know how to.
Paul, sorry mate it was a long time ago and cannot remember.

Thanos said...

nicely painted mate!
The Airfix German: Fantastic conversion!
Well done!
T.

Al said...

Very tidy, nice choice of figures