The Great War in Greyscale - German Infantry, Officers and Maxim Machine Gun

Here are some early war Germans in their distinctive 'Pickelhaube' helmets and full packs. In planning out this project, I knew I would have to find a way to make the various nations' uniforms distinct from one another while being restricted to a fairly generic grey palette. In looking at black and white photos of the period I found the tonal diferences between the tunic of a French Poilu, a German Landser and a British Tommy quite similar, so I knew that I would need to amplify or mute certain aspects of their uniforms to better differentiate them from one another.

With this in mind I purposefully began with the Belgians as their uniform was the darkest of any in 1914. My thinking was that once I established the greyscale palette for the Belgian's almost black uniform then all the others (German, French and British) would reference from that benchmark. 

...




As an example, the photos above and below illustrate the shade/tone differences between the Belgian uniform (on the left) and that of a German infantryman. While I'm currently finding this a perversely fun challenge I know I'll be happy when I have a template set down for all the major nations.

As a subject for this group I've selected the Ober-Elassiches (Alsatian) Infantrie-Regiment Nr. 171 which was part of the 39th Division within the German 4th Army. During the first few months of the war this formation operated in Belgium and took part in the Battle of the Frontiers, the Race to the Sea and the Battle of the Yser. I thought it ironic that this regiment, being composed of men from one of the 'lost provinces' of France, ended up fighting French Marines at Dixmude and then went on to face the French again in the cauldron of Verdun.

I was very, very happy to 'discover' that the 39th Division had a regiment which had an easy-to-paint numeral designation. Freehanding a '171' on each German helmet cover is infinitely easier than something like '589' (which I know I'd continually bugger up and make a mess of). The only thing better would have been the 111th Regiment! 

These are 28mm Great War miniatures which, while are very nice castings, usually require a bit of filing and careful bending in preparation of painting. I based the rank-and-file on washers whereas the officers and NCOs are on hexagonal bases from Litko, again to better differentiate them from the other figures representing the lower ranks.

The Maxim machine gun and its crew (also from Great War) is on a 60mm round base. I added a couple of tree stumps for some variation to the groundwork.

I mentioned at the onset of this project that it was my plan to use a 'Sin City' effect with the officers and NCOs by adding a splash of colour to some aspect of their figures - with the Germans it is their helmet covers.  I'm fairly pleased how they turned out -  the light tan covers with their red numerals seems to stand out from the grey surroundings. There should be no problem knowing which figures are the 'Big Men' in games of 'Through the Mud and The Blood'.

Next up will be some French infantry and perhaps some more terrain.