Tuesday 29 March 2016

Perry Miniatures WW2 British Yeomanry

I have had these two figures gently on the go in the background over the last few weeks. Having completed the WW1 Fly Class Gunboat figures I took some time to finish them off over the Easter Weekend. 

I originally bought the four WW2 Yeomanry codes as potential subjects for conversion to WW1 Yeomanry. To successfully do that would require a lot of greenstuff to add the necessary blankets, equipment and feedbags that are missing from these sculpts. I appreciate that a number of photographs taken in 1940-41 show the Yeomanry "on patrol" to be rather un-encumbered but a photograph, taken by a trooper of the Cheshire Yeomanry while mounted as his squadron was crossing the Litani River in  Lebanon, shows a very different picture. That image can be found in "The Cheshire (Earl of Chester's) Yeomanry. The last British Regiment to fight on horses" by Lt. Col Sir Richard Verdin (1971). The lack of  equipment means that these sculpts are fairly straightforward to paint. All are two piece castings. It is pleasing to see India pattern sun helmets but any detail you see on the pointing figure's helmet has been painted in. 

The Warwickshire Yeomanry "on patrol" in Syria, 1941. Not a feedbag, blanket or waterbottle in sight. I think this is a staged photograph and Messers Perry have done a good job at recreating this image of the WW2 Yeomanry in the Middle East.

The cover of this book has a reproduction of a painting called, rather sentimentally, "Now he's gone far far away". It was painted to mark the Cheshire Yeomanry losing their horses in 1942. This troop horse has the sort of equipment I would have expected to see on these figures.



3 comments:

Michael Awdry said...

A splendid pair Mark, bravo Sir.

tim said...

Great stuff, Mark! Love the painted-on details! I hadn't noticed those before in Perry's catalogue. Are they relatively new, or have I just not been paying attention!?

Over Open Sights said...

Hi Tim. These came out with little fuss back in late January/early February.