French Uniforms

[lcm1947]

I was trying to find some French uniform mods but don't seem to be able to find any. I thought Andrew's redid everthing, did he not do the French? And if so where in the world are they?

[Dandelion]

Lee

Apart from the sailor caps and anchor patches of the RBFM, and of course regimental badges, I can't really see that the French used any national combat uniform in France or Germany 44/45.

The paras (most but not all), commando, SAS and some of Leclercs men wore British uniform, the rest wore American (including some paras). There is an excellent US book called "Rearming the French" pinpointing which unit wore what nationality uniform. In fact it notes every item down to smallarms

They'd keep French details if they had any, like helmets, overcoats, insignia and rank badges. Unit insignia were originally for use in cloth on collarpatches, but on US uniform they put it on the left arm instead. They used the metal variant, intended for use with walking out dress, on combat uniforms too. It was worn on the chest.

They'd keep their walking out uniform if they could, if uniformed by the British. But US walking out uniform was modelled on French patterns, only of slightly lighter shade and much better quality, and thus would do very nicely as replacements, if they could get a hold of any.

The British gave then the "France" shoulderstripe, and many in 9 DIC used it on US uniforms. That's a bit unique I guess.

Hm. Some wore berets in combination with US uniform. Khaki, deep blue or green. That ought to be uniquely French, as the US didn't wear berets yet. Maybe you could use the beret mod and colour it khaki?

Of course, there were some tabors fighting in France/Germany, wearing Djellabah, but I'd like to see even the Fox able to mod them into place

Actually I'd really like to see a Goumier mod. That'd be something.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[lcm1947]

Hey, thanks Dandelion for the reply. So the French didn't have their own uniforms? I find that fascinating. Any idea why? I mean they surely had uniforms to begin with? What in the world happened to them I wonder. Also, it amazes me that that they wouldn't or couldn't produce their own uniform design even if they had to insist on it before agreeing to fight alongside the rest of the Allied's. How odd?

[Dandelion]

Lee,

Well the initial Free French were either those evacuated from Dunkerque or those returning from Norway. All of these troops were issued British battle dress, in spite of some 15 000 of them wearing the highly modern and practical French mountain troop uniform. The rate of wear in any army is tremendous, and there was no re-supply. The French tucked away original uniforms for wear on ceremonial occasion.

This lot was reinforced by various scattered elements from French colonies during the desert war. All of these wore French colonial uniform and tended to continue to do so when fighting in the desert, picking up British uniform only bit by bit as their originals fell apart. Many of these troops were africans.

The large influx was when the French North-African army joined the allied cause in 42-43. The great majority of these were North Africans or other "foreigners" (legionnaires, black africans). There were not all that many Frenchmen in the Free French forces by that time. Many of these guys refused to let go of uniforms simply because these were ethnic or religious symbols.

By the closing of the Tunisian campaign, the Free French were amalgated and reformed into a modern cohesive army. This is where US aid comes in, as they take over from the British (who remained the supplyer for Air Force and Naval units tho). France had no access to any production facilities of any importance. So they literally begged, borrowed and stole from their allies The French were in no position to make demands (they did anyway, as they were after all French ) and had to be satisfied with whatever surplus they got, there was a war and not even the US had limitless assets. Of course, there was some mutual annoyance as the French wanted more to be able to fight, and the US felt they were already giving away every bit of surplus they had. The US initially refused to help French troops in Asia in any way though, as well as refusing to equip any troops intended for occupational duties in Africa or the middle east. The USA being at that time still fiercely anti-colonial. This would eventually change as we know.

The result of the reform was the French expiditionary corps of 100 000 men to Italy, which looked rather motley, wearing all kinds of mixes of uniform. Not least due to the fact that they came from all kinds of nations and units. They even used German and Italian equipment of various kinds, though not uniforms.

As France was progressivley liberated, new units could be raised. These were all entirely US equipped. By the end of hostilities, France fielded about as many groundtroops as Great Britain did in Germany. All but a handful wearing US equipment from toes to eyebrows. Again, ethnic troops retained such markers, and old-timers still wore any French detail they could keep, like helmets as in this pic of French troops fighting in the Colmar pocket.

The French continued to wear US surplus uniform - and use their WWII equipment - until the mid fifties and early sixties. That's about when their economy had recovered. Much like many other wartorn countries.

In fact, the Viet Minh had better, more modern US equipment to fight them with in Indochina, because the Chinese were handing them what they took from the US in Korea. In Indochina, by the way, the French adopted the Australian bush hat full scale. Like the Dutch. Otherwise they tended to wear their pre-war berets. Regular infantry wore khaki berets, chasseurs dark green if not mountain troops, as they wore a dark green. Paras adopted their British fosterparents colours - i.e. maroon. The same was true for the French marines, adopting the british green beret.

The French provide a very interesting field of study and I've been looking into them some. A bit like the Canadians, they were all volonteers and to a high degree they were professional soldiers, mostly North African such. This created an extremly effective fighting force. And a sharp contrast to the disaffected conscripted levies of 1940.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[tooz]

Guys, look at the photo from Dandelion closely. See that ridge running down the center of the helmet? Looks a LOT like the French style "Adrian" helmet. According to my many "Editions Heimdal" books (almost all in French text), there are many, many photos of the Free French wearing their Adrian style helmets.

What WE need to do is to start whining to BFC guys and see if we can get them to add French Adrian helmets into the OB. I have asked before, and with CMBO and CMBB you cannot alter the shape/design of the helmets.

Additionally, I have discoverred that The First Free French Army also used a few surviving B1's and Somuas to augment their armored regiments. Again, photographic evidence form Heimdal supports this opinion.

I definitely agree that uniforms for the Goumiers (Ghoumiers?) is a must in CMAK. Omitting these guys would be egregious! In fact, if it weren't for these Goumiers, Cassino would have held out even longer (the Goumiers succeeded in turning the flanks, necessitating the German pullout by traversing some mountains thought inaccessible by the Germans). Think of the mods, men, think of the mods!!!

So, let's all start whining: "WE WANT FRENCH HELMETS, WE WANT FRENCH HELMETS"--and see if BFC listens. Then, instead of farting around in the desert, we can design better, more realistic Free French scenarios and place them ANYWHERE we want! Normandy, Italy--even Norway! :cool:

[Dandelion]

The Goumiers wore turbans so we are going to be needing such too. But the BFC could make a generic-ish turban, and then they'd solve the Indian troops issue also.

Actually you can simulate the Adrian ridge and badges on the allied helmet model. Ok so its not great, but then again its a very simple model, that does not look very much like British or American helmets either.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[lcm1947]

I don't think whining to BFC would do any good I'm afraid Tooz, nor would begging but I'm with you so go ahead and start the post and I'll at least jump in. Thank you Dandelion for the history lesson. Extremely interesting. You are fast becoming one of my favorite teachers on this forum and I always look forward to your replys. Thank you. So now Dandelion you sound like you have in your possession a mod that one could simulate the Adrian ridge and badge. If this were true what would one have to do to get you to email this mod to that person? Just curious.

[Dandelion]

Thanks Lee, you are always so kind

Well Mike T made the only Adrian mod I ever saw, as part of the "Fading hope" 1940 mod kit. You'll still find it here.

Looks something like this:

Myself I never used it. I always felt that trying to make any horizontal line on a helmet mod is inviting frustration. The Adrian not only had a ridge and a badge, it also had a distinct hardhat look. I've really always felt that the allied helmet, equipped with a camo-net, looks so mighty genereic that - from a distance - it could be just about any helmet from the 20th century And the Free French tended to use camo-nets on their Adrians.

I use the beret instead, either when using FF Cdo units like here

Which compares sort of favourably with actual appearance (though of course they'd wear helmets in combat like any other troops):

Or when using other FF or FFI units like here, with generic khaki beret, although here in unhistorical US markings

...and unhistorical use of US assault vests

...as it was too much of a hassle to change unikit for the screenshots

I tried to produce the Goumier, but eventually gave it up. Its not impossible, but very very difficult.

Regards

Dandelion

[AndrewTF]

I think I included a French sleeve patch option in the American uniform mod. At least I think I did. I know I made one, so I probably released it at some point.

[Dandelion]

So Andrew, tell me, don't you feel it very challenging, that nobody ever managed to make a Goumier yet..?

Cheerio

Dandelion

[tooz]

I guess I'll just wait and see what the BFC guys do with the French before tinkering with my CMBO units. I hope that their graphics are one notch up--similar the improvements made with CMBB. I think half of the fun with anticipating CMAK is with anticipating the many mods.

What do all of you think of that quote from one of the BFC guys: "CMAK will require little--if any modding at all"?

Sometimes I mod simply because it's fun.

[lcm1947]

Thanks for the reply and link Dandelion. That will work for my purposes. What I have done since I can't mod is I've used the American early khaki uniform with no insignas and the plain brown helmet so now I'll be able to use this mod you're linked me to for the helment and that will just be fine for the French. I just hated them looking like the American's. I don't recall seeing any French insignas with the American one's that Andrew was talking about but I'll go look again and see if I missed them. That would be great if one was there. Tooz I don't understand BFC saying that CMAK wouldn't need much modding but if that is the case we should be able to use the one's in CMBO for CMAK anyway so I'll be content as I don't think anyone could out do what we've got for this game.

[Dandelion]

Tooz

No modding needed. Yes, well actually they said that about CMBB too you know. Not in those words but in like. They have a fiercely proud attitude at BFC. Just read the CMBO manual. Its kind of cute-ish

There was this rather well known incident when the game nowadays called "Battlefield Command" or something (then WWII RTS I think) released a preview mpeg of a Soviet gun firing, and the graphic was so stunning that you simply lost your breath and wanted to slowly expire, and at this point a BFC representative says "bah, that's nothing". They were at the time working with CMBB.

That comment sort of raised hopes I must say

If you want to know what level of (graphic) expectation I mean, you can have a looksee at the recent preview stream

here. This all just a graphics galore. We're all into CM for the game engine anyway so it doesn't really matter.

Even so, regardless of how stunning the CMAK becomes (screenshots sure look very much like CMBO tho), there will always be modding and modders. There simply is no way of making everything just the way every half-crazed grognard likes it. At least not as long as its fun to mod. And it is. And BFC is relying on the very same global community of half-crazed grogs as its core costumers, a community proudly including some of the even more obscure and secretive sub-sect of modelpainterfanatics. So there ya go

I'm not worried about the future of modding.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[Moon]

Originally posted by tooz:

I guess I'll just wait and see what the BFC guys do with the French before tinkering with my CMBO units. I hope that their graphics are one notch up--similar the improvements made with CMBB. I think half of the fun with anticipating CMAK is with anticipating the many mods.

What do all of you think of that quote from one of the BFC guys: "CMAK will require little--if any modding at all"?

Sometimes I mod simply because it's fun.

Please do not take my quote out of context. CMAK will not require much modding to create West Front (Normandy etc.) scenarios is what I said, not that it would not require any modding at all.

Dandelion, you too are misquoting us, because we have never said that CMBB will stack up in terms of graphics to Battlefield Command, but that the new engine will. And since you have seen nothing of the new engine so far, please save your comments. One way or another, I am sure Battlefield Command will be a gorgeous game, it's coming from a great development team, as well.

CMAK will indeed look very much like CMBB, because it will be the same engine.

Martin

[Dandelion]

Well Martin old boy, I'm sorry but as much as I'd like to I am unable to comply. As you're the only one commenting on the new engine here as far as I can see, You'll have to can your own comments if you want any saved. I'll get back to you on that as soon as I have any of my own. Which will be about the same time I see the new engine I dare presume.

Delivery time for comment is short though, I can safely promise they will arrive for saving ETA JIT with no VAT.

Cheer up

Dandelion

[tooz]

Moon, thanks for the reply, and my apologies for the misunderstanding.

It struck me as odd when I first read it, and that's why I added this question(isn't Madmatt and Kwazydog members of BFC? They were the original modders, right?). Now I understand the comment about modding.

So, for all of us who crave CMBO with CMBB graphics, we WILL be able to remake ANY CMBO battle or OPs?

I know you guys have limits, but then again we are your customers. We don't want much--JUST EVERYTHING, MORE OF IT, AND EVERYTHING BETTER! Not too much to ask, right?

I'm sure all wargaming grognards (a euphemism for grown-ups who still play with army men) such as myself will rush to buy any new CM product the very minute it is available. It's still the best thing going.

I am also looking at Battlefield Command. The screenshots are cool, BUT, is it me, or does that Russian ATG crew in one of the screenshots look like coneheads? Wearing caps instead of helmets just gave me that impression. IF I buy that game (is saying this on the BFC forum sacreligious?)it will just be because of the diversity of forces involved. Hurry up with CMAK so I can play CM Blitzkrieg, then CMPTO, then CM...

[Moon]

Tooz, not sure if you will be able to remake ANY CMBO battle because we don't have a final list of units etc. yet. Probably not ANY, but many.

Yes, Matt and Dan are BFC members, hired right off the forums (like myself).

Personally, I am looking forward a lot to Battlefield Command. Coming from the IL-2 guys it holds a lot of promise. Will it kill CM? Nah. If there was space in the market for only one decent wargame, that would be a sad world...

Martin