French Unit Portraits WIP

[Philippe]

I don't care much for the standard French Unit Portraits, so I've been trying to see if I can come up with anything better.

This is most certainly a work-in-progress. I haven't had time to test any of these, and there are several points I need to research. I'm almost not happy with several of the images.

Since I've found that the images don't look the same after they've been allowed to age a bit, this might be a good time to open them up for comments.

My first research problem, which I don't have time to resolve and have tried to side-step, is that of the appropriate headgear for officers in a British-equipped French unit ( e.g. 1er DFL). At one point I had them wearing the kepi, but that was based on no research and made less sense the more I thought about it. Any light that can be shed on this would be appreciated.

I'm pretty sure the tanker types would have been wearing british-style uniforms with black berets, but haven't a clue about their cap badges, if they were even wearing any. Anyone know anything about this for certain ? I'm thinking of changing the French tank officer because, though he's from a real WWII French tank regiment, he's really from a slightly later period.

Some of the non-british style French units are wearing a blue scarf, and some a white scarf. I may try using different images, but will have to wait until I get a chance to test the portraits in-game before I can decide if mixing the colors bothers me or not. The captain and the major are wearing the kepi, everyone else has the 1940-style helmet. I haven't look through the CMAK scenarios that use the French very carefully, but I'm assuming that using American-style uniforms isn't really appropriate, since the 2e DB (LeClerc's unit) isn't the default unit type. If this were CMBO American-style units wouldn't be out of place. Once again, I'm looking for comments on this, and anything else that anyone can think of.

By the way, though I'm not entirely comfortable using the Croix-de-Lorraine version of the Tricolor, I've actually used it as the flag background. The cross is entirely invisible except in two or three images, where only a pixel or two of it shows up as a tiny red splotch next to the figure's face.

So here is the work-in-progress set up in before an after format. The original portraits are in the upper section (British-style infantry, tankers, French-style infantry, tankers), the evolving new ones are on the bottom.

[junk2drive]

Thank you for looking into this subject.

I use Dorosh's ASL portraits in my 1940 period install. Something without the cross is just what I need for pre Free French period.

In the late war period, having the troops on the map with Adrian helmets and the portraits with American style helmets is a poor match.

I am probably the only one intersted in Indochina battles but another reason for a late war mod.

Not game breakers of course but I like to look at proper stuff.

[Tagwyn]

I won't say it, I won't say it. Tag

[Philippe]

Until I can come across some more research on the images, this is probably the final state of the mod.

From what I can see, the two sets of French portraits seem to be sorted by geography and chronology rather than politics.

At first I thought that the set of portraits in British uniforms were reserved for DFL-type units, but after some light exploration the distinction seems to be North African operations and Italian operations.

Which means that if someone were to write a scenario about former-Vichy units facing off against Germans in Tunisia, the French would be wearing British uniforms, animosity over Mers-el-Khebir and Dakar notwithstanding.

Otherwise there's no problem, since, apart from the ex-regular army units, any French units that would be encountered on the Allied side would be British equipped.

The second set of French figures are appropriate for anything except the 1er DFL. So if someone were to set up a scenario involving the DFL (who made a point of wearing British uniforms to distinguish themselves politically from the ex-Vichyites, they would need to renumber the first set of portraits temporarily as the second set.

I haven't had time to test this thoroughly, but I'm starting to wonder if the second set of French tanker unit portraits even get used.

And I'm still in tears that there is no way to include Vichy French in any of this. There could have been several interesting French vs. American fights (including a counterattack by French tanks against a US landing that resulted in an American surrender), as well as French on French and Jewish Brigade on French in Syria (with a cameo appearance by Moishe Dayan).

I won't have time to post this thing for a few days, but here is essentially what it looks like. Everything after the plus sign is part of the bonus alternate image folder.

I'm still waiting for some technical comments from anyone on the images and uniforms. This will always continue to be a work in progress.

[David I]

I don't know how technical this is - but I dig them. Particularly the kepies.

DavidI

[Philippe]

The French Unit Portraits have been posted to the CMAK section of cmmods.com.

And if anyone finds a good trove of Italian images in color, please let me know by posting it on the boards.

[WindyCity]

Thanks Philippe,

They are just what the doc orderd

Well done :cool: