20mm WW1 Royal Naval Division and Indian Army

The big push (excuse the pun) is one for WW1 figures and vehicles at the moment.  At the Derby/Castle Donnington show, I picked up a pack each of Shellhole Scenics Royal Naval Division infantry in helmets and hats.  Each set comprises a pack of 10 figures, one officer/petty officer with revolver, a two man Lewis gun team and seven riflemen, three advancing high port fixed bayonet, two advancing low port fixed bayonets and two attempting to fix bayonets while advancing.  The pack with tin hats also contained a bonus figure with bare head advancing at high port.

They were nice clean castings, which required very little pre-undercoat filing - there was a tiny amount of flash between the legs of two or three figures.  They were base coated in dark sea blue, khaki for gaiters and webbing/ammo packs and flat blue for scarf with white trim.  I was more impressed with the figures in tin helmets, but the figures in hats, although perfectly usable, appear to lack necks, with heads firmly growing from the shoulders, thus resembling Soltarans.  However, that isn't going to stop them making appearances on my table.

Wearing tin helmets.

Wearing hats.

These look the part and will be used for naval landing parties in WW1 and RCW scenarios and I hope they will make an appearance as part of the Empire Intervention Force heading to Andreivia in March next year.

Then we have British infantry in tropical kit from HAT Industries.  These are useful for scenarios set in WW1 in the Middle East, but can also form intervention forces for the Russian Civil War.  These, with a handful of troops in tin hats interspersed, will form the core of an Andreivian intervention force sent either from India, Persia or Palestine - pictures on the net of British soldiers in Persia (as it was then) show them in topees, tin hats and field service caps, not that different from a generation later in WW2 (think "It Aint 'Alf Hot Mum").

Then we have a 2.5" RML screw gun, crewed by Indian Army artillerymen (Sikhs I think give the turbans they are wearing).

I'm having lots of fun researching WW1 uniforms and troops who would have potentially been available at the end of the Great War to form a larger intervention force in the Russian Civil War than was actually used in real life.  This has also led to me reading around the subject of the Russian Civil War itself, which I knew very little about before, and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, which I knew nothing about.

Next up will be a couple of vehicles, which I've just about wrapped up, and then I'm working on the first batch of British infantry in tin helmets.  I was lucky enough to pick up a box of HAT Australian Light Horse and some Caesar Late WW1 Germans (?Czech Legion?), plus an Emhar MkIV female tank kit, so hope to get them going as well.

As ever, thanks for looking.