Neglected and Forgotten figures? Parazuellian Women’s Revolutionary Army pipe and drum band

My entry for the March 2021 Neglected and Forgotten painting challenge by Ann Wycoff but a bit late for March 4th, International Marching Day #March4th

This interesting rusty old female figure (below) was amongst an unexpected gift of some spare battered metal band figures from Alan (Duchy of Tradgardland) Gruber. Thanks, Alan.

It gave me an idea, after watching the Morecambe and Wise comedy film The Magnificent Two, 1967. This is set in the fictional 1960s South American ImagiNation of Parazuellia (think Mexico with a dash of Castro’s Cuba).

I have written more about the film’s fictional uniforms here: https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2021/03/05/fembruary-bmc-plastic-army-women-as-the-revolutionary-womans-army-of-parazuellia/

So the Neglected and Forgotten figures?

At first she was going to be a Parazuellian Revolutionary female piper until promoted …

The female figure was marked by its maker ‘G B’ on the base, wearing what looked like 1980s British Army female uniform, possibly a band figure based on the double arm stubs.

Here are the other battered band figures along with some spare and useful heads from Alan Gruber, which were of no immediate use to his small scale infantry skirmish games. A real mixed bag …

A useful selection of heads including two useful Gurkha ones and a mixture of band figures. Many are still queueing along on the painting table.

There were several royal marine type drummers and buglers but also some headless drummers and two with pillbox hats with a feminine look.

Gurkha heads in place, new arms added with wire and masking tape … Airfix Multipose hats and Warbases MDF tuppenny bases

What emerged was a female Parazuellian Womens’ Revolutionary Army pipe and drum band, sporting their battle bowler British type Mark II helmets at a jaunty angle, as in the film screenshot below:

Isobel Black (L) and Margit Saad (R) wearing their steel helmets in he Magnificent Two

As you can see, the helmet roundels are a red star on a white circle with green surrounding line.

Green, white and red are of course the colours not only of the Parazuellian Revolutionary Army in the film but also Mexico in real life. The Revolutionary red is picked up in the scarves, the green in the khaki or olive drab costumes.

Here is that rusty female figure remade as a Parazuellian general:

This could be a General Carla type figure, leading the Women’s Revolutionary Army.

Three side drummers and a piper, all with the national colours of Revolutionary red, white and green

The side drums are in the national colours of red, white and green.

The piper’s pipe flag is in green and red to match the Revolutionary colours. Red stripes or tartan squares on the piper’s green cloak

Parazuellian female piper

I tried the figures without helmets but they lacked the charm of the ‘battle bowler’.

Two of the drummers already had quite female heads with small pill box hats.

Luckily I had four spare steel helmets from an old Airfix Multipose set of Eighth Army figures.

I used two suitable spare Gurkha heads from the head pile for the two headless drummers. After filing down these pillbox hats in order to fit the helmets, I added some bushy female hair with tissue paper and PVA.

In the same way a piper’s cape was added with tissue paper and PVA, to cover the join of these slightly outsize (man’s?) bagpiper arms.

The officer figure’s arm stubs (originally for playing a musical instrument?) were removed and after drilling through, wire and masking tape arms were added.

The figures were painted to match these BMC Plastic Army Women Parazuellian female troops

As I used dark earth skin tones on the new BMC Plastic Army Women to match or suggest the South American ImagiNation of Parazuellia, I used the same skin tones and shiny toy soldier face style including copper cheek dots. These work better on darker skin than the usual pink cheek dots.

A final coat of gloss acrylic spray varnish toned the mixture of matt and gloss acrylic together in a suitable shiny toy soldier style.

Musical accompaniment?

Music was absorbed into their layers of paint and varnish throughout their creation. Accompanying the painting was some jaunty untraditional pipe and drum music on YouTube, Indian pipe and drum bands – at one point I thought these figures had the look of Indian female troops.

A more South American / Mexican pipe and drum sound can be found with the San Patricios or St Patrick’s Battalion pipe and drums (Mexico City), apparently remembering the Scottish and Irish troops who defected from the USA to fight for Mexico in the US -Mexican War of 1847.

Earworm warning! They can be seen and heard here on a trip to Ireland:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EpTzNdVkTqI

in Mexico City
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qsdNnPHqGug

And St Patrick’s Day in Mexico with more pipers
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=foFyzdkr0os

So a unique set of band figures, made from Forgotten and Neglected figures and inspired by a parade (sadly without drums or pipes) in the closing minutes of The Magnificent Two film. Viva Torres!

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 27/28 March 2021

Wo-Manning the OP and Garden Wargames

Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog 14th March 2021:

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2021/03/14/wo-manning-the-op-bmc-plastic-army-women-take-over-the-three-man-pound-store-plastic-soldiers-patrol-post/

No Mixed Bathing (FEMbruary 2021)

Crossposted from my Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog – a wash and brush up for the new 54mm BMC Plastic Army Women figures, prior to the FEMbruary believable female figure painting challenge (started by Alex at Lead Balloony)

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2021/02/01/no-mixed-bathing-fembruary-2021/

As FEMbruary back up, I also have some lovely Bad Squiddo WW2 Pigeoneers.

Not too late to join in … grab a female figures and join in!

Crossposted by Mark Man of TIN, 1 February 2021

The Bronte Sisters and Brother’s ImagiNations – Isabel Greenberg’s Glass Town and Annie Norman Bad Squiddo female figures

Annie Norman’s Votes for Famous Women! Baggy’s Cave – Facebook group 24 January 2021

Annie Norman at her Bad Squiddo official Facebook Group Baggy’s Cave is running an interesting poll about which historical female figures that gamers, mini painters and collectors would like to pledge towards or see produced in future by Bad Squiddo.

I thought of the Bronte Sisters (and brother Branwell) who were pioneering Role Playing Gamers in the 1830s through their juvenile fictions or ImagiNations of Glass Town, Gondal and Angria, inspired by a gift of some wooden toy soldiers.

These have been a great stimulus for my gaming to continuing or exploring these sketched out but sketchy Bronte ImagiNations

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/gaming-the-bronte-family-imaginations-of-glasstown-angria-gondal-and-gaaldine/

The fragments that have survived of these ImagiNations as we have mentioned before in Bronte posts are somewhat confusing but I found that Isabel Greenberg’s charming graphic novel version Glass Town straightens or smoothed many of these story and character fragments out.

I loved Isabel Greenberg’s drawings of these four Brontes in the same Regency / early Victorian costumes as their ImagiNations characters. You can see an example of such pages of Isabel’s work here on the interesting US based Solrad comics website:

Red-haired Branwell and his sisters https://solrad.co/preview-glass-town-isabel-greenberg

Great uniforms https://solrad.co/preview-glass-town-isabel-greenberg

Annie Norman’s Bad Squiddo figures are usually 28mm. I think that Bronte figures would be excellent figures – and even better if there was a set in ImagiNations uniforms and a shadow set as they were in real life portraits, always useful as Early Victorian Civilians.

Dual Use figures – saves costs, extends their play value and their potential market of buyers, as well as the Haworth Yorkshire tourism, the Bronte Fan and literary market worldwide.

With this flag these are classic Airfix ACW confederate infantry

Adding Bronte ImagiNations command or character personality figures means that with some simple dual flagging, a Napoleonic or Colonial 19th Century unit instantly becomes an ImagiNations one.

The Bronte sisters and Branwell grew up in an age of conflict in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, during a young Queen Victoria’s expanding Empire and Charlotte living up to the Crimean War. Their tragic deaths at a relatively young age meant they were all dead ten years before the American Civil War.

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/12/21/man-of-tin-blogvent-calendar-day-21-angria-rebooted/

You can see this dual flagging in use here, saving time, storage, figures and painting costs:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/08/28/adamstown-or-angria-vintage-airfix-acw-repaired/

Arise Angria! Just add my Bronte ImagiNations flag design of a rising sun on red background

The same dual flagging works at 15mm with the addition of an Angrian flag bearer to my Peter Laing mixed ACW and ECW unit figures seen here seeing off Ashantee Warriors and rogue Highlanders in the ‘Tropical Yorkshire’ forest of the Brontes’ fevered Imaginations:

Bronte ImagiNations, Peter Laing figures, Featherstone’s Close Wars rules, Heroscape hexes … happy man!

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2017/05/20/a-skirmish-in-angria-close-little-wars-rules/

After a mad few minutes “Bronte Fan Bombing” the comments section of Baggy’s Cave on Facebook a little, I wondered what if Annie Norman and the Bad Squiddo Facebook folk don’t choose the Brontes as special figures?

I might have to scratch around in 20mm Airfix for Waggon Train women, both bare headed or in bonnets, and the Robin Hood / Sherwood Forest sets (Maid Marian on horseback!) to find suitable Bronte Sisters figures in uniform. I would have to do the same for my few Peter Laing 15mm civilian females.

And for 54mm, we start off with plucky Kate McGuffin, ‘daughter of the Fort’, in the Gondal Forests of Gondal and Pacific coasts of North Generica (America) … https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2020/05/28/a-romantic-walk-in-the-forest-interrupted-the-skirmish/

Not forgetting Celia Rees’ great young adult novel called Glass Town Wars,

if you want to add djinn, faeries, fantasy and Ancients to the Regency Napoleon Bronte ImagiNations – oh and the odd helicopter gunship ….

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/08/31/glass-town-wars-by-celia-rees-a-gaming-modern-take-on-the-bronte-imaginations/

Nor forgetting the Bronte Sisters Power Up dolls (spoof advert of action figures that sadly never made it into production) https://youtu.be/-NKXNThJ610

Who could resist? Vote for the Brontes!

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 24 January 2021

Snowball Fight at Camp Benjamin – new BMC Plastic Army Women arrive!

The new BMC Plastic Army Women have arrived from America – the first Kickstarter I have ever backed. A snowball fight breaks out at Camp Benjamin on the parade and assault course amongst the new female recruits, watched by their officers on the rope bridge …

Crossposted with other snowball fight links and rules (including by Alan Gruber) posted by Mark Man of TIN on his Pound Store Plastic Warriors blog, 26/27 December 2020

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2020/12/27/snowball-fight-at-camp-benjamin-bmc-plastic-army-women-arrive/

Celebrating International Women’s Day 2020 but sadly I’m not taking the Girl Scouts to Woking Games Day next weekend

Heading off a few weeks ago from the West Country to Woking, trek cart and all, to take part in the 54mm Games Day …

Recalled to Base: Heading back to the West Country without reaching Woking, due to the changing national situation

Daisy Patrol and the other tiny patrols of early Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts were travelling across and down from Tradgardland, Scotland and up from the West Country to meet at a tiny “lead Jamboree” in Woking and demonstrate Scouting Wide Games for the Tabletop. They have now turned homewards.

Sadly our tiny #MARCHing band of scouts who set off in #FEMbruary didn’t quite get to Woking. Maybe next year!

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Unfortunately after long preparation I won’t now be going to the Little Wars Revisited Forum 54mm Woking Games Day on the 14th March 2020.

Neither will Alan Tradgardland Gruber, my co-creator of the Scouting Wide Games for the Tabletop games be attending, for much the same reasons.

I hope that Mike Lewis the organiser and the other players have a great day. I look forward to seeing the photos on the blogs.

This is purely a personal decision, due to the changing national situation of Coronavirus, being part of that at-risk group with existing medical conditions of past lung problems and diabetes.

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Today it is International Women’s Day, IWD March 8th 2020, a good day to celebrate the past and present achievements of over half the world’s population.

IWD March 8th is also the end of #FEMbruary, the gaming, modelling and painting challenge by Alex at Lead Balloony to include more believable female miniatures in gaming and encourage more female gamers and modellers. My completed Girl Scout Patrol above is my contribution:

https://tabletopscoutingwidegames.wordpress.com/2020/02/29/fembruary-leap-day-2020-girl-scouts-patrol-finished/

So today is a good chance to celebrate the achievements of remarkable women like Agnes Baden-Powell and Juliette ‘Daisy’ Gordon Low, founders of the Girl Guides and the Girl Scouts of America.

Agnes Baden-Powell set up Guides before Olave Baden-Powell, BP’s wife, became Chief Guide

An excellent biography of Juliette Daisy Gordon Low by Stacy A. Cordery .

Archery was one of the skills Daisy Gordon Low encouraged her Girl Scouts to practice.

Boy Scouting or Scouting for Boys offered so much to Edwardian girls that many embraced the opportunities offered to boys. Baden Powell did not discourage this but aware of public opinion on boys and girls mixing unchaperoned, eventually asked his sister Agnes to create a specific movement for the thousands of Girl Scouts – and that is how Girl Guides was born.

Alan Gruber and I have been tracking down more about early scouting, both boys and girls, to add strong period flavour to our future Wide Games. Very few Girl Scout or Girl Guide gaming figures exist.

Recently as part of our #FEMbruary contribution we posted an old 1893 article from Girls Own Paper about Women Soldiers: https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2020/02/27/women-soldiers-girls-own-paper-article-1893/

However you choose to celebrate International Women’s Day, have a good weekend.

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, IWD 8 March 2020

Women Soldiers – Girl’s Own Paper Article 1893

As part of FEMbruary 2020, here’s an interesting article on Women Soldiers from a random edition of the Girl’s Own Paper that I once owned, dated November 4th 1893

G.O.P. was sister to the Boy’s Own Paper – I wonder what their boy’s take on an article about Woman Soldiers would be?

The opening page with herald – Taran Tara!

A Victorian take on women in the military:

Column 3

Article written by Laura Alex. Smith, Girl’s Own Paper November 4th 1893

The Dahomey Amazons featured in my FEMbruary blogpost of 2018: https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2018/03/10/more-dahomey-amazons/

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/colonial-amazons-women-soldiers-of-dahomey-and-siam/

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 27 FEMbruary 2020

This is the GOP edition that this Women Soldiers article came from.

And for good measure, a fine military looking gent  in GOP, December 3rd 1887:

BMC Plastic Army Women figures project Kickstarter Now Live

I have backed my first Kickstarter for a bag of these new BMC 54mm Plastic Army Women figures next Christmas!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bmctoys/plastic-army-women

https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2019/11/14/plastic-army-women-kickstarter-now-live/

You can read more about the project so far at previous blog posts such as https://poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/2019/11/09/bmc-toys-plastic-army-women-update-5/

Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN 14 November 2019

The Unwomanly Face of War – book review

It’s World Book Day on March 7th and International Women’s Day on March 8th (so unofficially the end of this year’s  painting and modelling challenge #FEMbruary 2019).

To mark these dates I thought that I would review this fascinating military oral history book about Russian women in WW2. It is possibly one of the freshest and most interesting military or social history books that I have read about WW2 for several years since The Taste of War: WW2 and the Battle for Food by Lizzie Collingham (2011).

One of the downsides of reading many WW2 books is having to (skim) read the same material  over and over again in different books, which makes finding new material or insights all the more interesting.

The author Svetlana Alexievich interviewed many Russian servicewomen in the 1970s and 1980s about their war experiences in WW2. She used the same ‘polyphonic’ oral history approach in her other work such as Boys in Zinc (1991) about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which I have not yet read.

The Unwomanly Face of War was published first in Russian in 1985, then translated into English in Moscow in 1988. The book was rejected by several Russian publishers as ‘unsuitable’ history. When this book was first written and the oral histories recorded, Russia was still the old USSR then. Glasnost and Perestroika were still several years away.

Svetlana Alexievich returned to the subject of the book in the early 2002-2004 and added or restored more material, presumably as some forms of Soviet 1980s censorship had changed by then. This is what is featured in this recent translation published by Penguin in 2017 / 2018.

Extracts here https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2016/on-the-battle-lost-by-svetlana-alexievich.html

There are some updated or  presumably new sections in the preface – “what the censors threw out”, “from a conversation with a censor” and “what I threw out” – that are interesting to read in light of this self censorship and official censorship of what is suitable national history.

Svetlana Alexievich won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2015 for her well curated “polyphonic” oral histories  on Chernobyl, the Russian war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, the break up of the USSR, children in WW2 and this unusual book on Russian women at war in WW2.

Why am I reading this book?

I began reading this book as part of my 2019 FEMbruary figure challenge to paint or celebrate your believable female gaming or model miniatures.

The recent 28mm Women of WW2 Bad Squiddo Miniatures range by Annie Norman  had not only female soldiers, tank crews and snipers but also a command group of medics and radio operators, which I chose to paint. They are almost complete as of the end of #FEMbruary.

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/01/31/fembruary-2019-and-new-bad-squiddo-figures-arrive/

This FEMbruary blogpost also links to some interesting Guardian interviews with Svetlana Alexievich.

Fellow FEMbruary challenge acceptor Marvin at Suburban Militarism chose the Female sniper and spotter pair.

https://suburbanmilitarism.wordpress.com/2019/02/17/fembruary-2019-soviet-sniper-sisters-in-snow/

What makes the book unusual and fascinating is that it is skilfully curated directly from the words of the women themselves, presumably transcribed from tape recordings or letters. Their job roles go beyond the somewhat known – female snipers, the first female fighter pilots – and into the less well known but more stereotypically ‘feminine’ jobs. Surgeon. Nurse. Medical Assistants to infantry or Army Regiments  – armed Combat Medics.

There were plenty of women who worked with or fought with the Partisans. Other women served on the front line as sappers, engineers, mechanics, radio and telegraph engineers.

Even more surprising were the oral histories from women proud of their patriotic service as Laundrywomen.  Mobile bath units. Cooks. Bakers. You forget that someone had to clean and repair uniforms. Cook the bread. Boil the water for soldiers to have a hot bath.

These women are  the equivalent to the unromantic duties of the ATS women in Britain who cooked, cleaned, baked and repaired for the war effort – but often in the war in Russia these jobs took women well into the combat zone and front line.

A quick scan through of the ranks listed after each woman’s name shows everything from Private and Partisan fighter through junior officers (“Lieutenant, Political Commissar of  a Field Laundry Unit” was one of the most unusual) up to high ranking posts such as airforce officers and a rare, almost accidental female Naval Commander post!

The range of jobs listed by the interviewees is fascinating:

Factory Labour Front Worker

Partisan Underground Fighter / Liaison / Medic

Militia Commander

Anti-Aircraft Gunner

Commander MG Platoon

Field Bath and Laundry Unit, Laundress

Searchlight Operator

Construction Unit, Engineer / Sapper / Miner (land mines?)

Art Singer

Armorer

Political Journalist

Rifleman

Radio Operator

Military Journalist

Cook

Logistics / Driver / Traffic Controller

Postal Worker / Communications

Telegrapher / Telephone Operator

Scout

Sniper

Nurse / Nurse Aide / Matron through to Surgeon

Paramedic and Private, Motorised infantry

(Front line) Medical Assistant  to an Army Company or Cavalry Squadron

Airplane Mechanic / Car Mechanic

Pilot / Airforce Captain

Naval Fleet Commander

Crypotographer

Some jobs I had never heard of such as an Aerostat Operator – I had to look this up. Surprsingly such odd or old fashioned sounding jobs are still advertised today! An aerostat (from Greek aer (air) + statos (standing) via French) is a “lighter than air aircraft that gains its lift through the use of a buoyant gas. Aerostats include unpowered balloons and powered airships. Especially with airships, the gasbags are often protected by an outer envelope.” (Wikipedia)

Maybe these aerostat operators are the equivalent of the WAAF girls who handled Barrage Balloons in Britain.  These Aerostat balloons  were known as ‘Pigs’ not just because of their shape but also stubbornly annoying “temperament”. Such balloon girls were immortalised in paint by British war artist Laura Knight. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/15503

The Unwomanly Face of War sadly has no such illustrations, aside from the striking cover image of Natalya Kravtsova, commander of the 46th Guards Air Regiment, well decorated  ‘Hero of the Soviet Union’. It would have been interesting to have seen wartime photos of these women at work or when they were interviewed in the 1970s and 1980s. However I’m sure a trawl through Soviet wartime art would reveal many Laura Knight style, realist/ Soviet heroic style portrait paintings of Russian servicewomen. Pinterest has many ‘recoloured’ portrait photos of Russian servicewomen, decorated, famous or otherwise.

It is not a pleasant read in parts, dealing plainly with frontline combat, injury and also the atrocities inflicted on Russian civilians.

There is also however friendship, romance, patriotic pride, occasional humour, stoic self sacrifice, postwar denial and a relief at finally being able to tell or record these stories and experiences many years later.

The end of my FEMbruary challenge 2019?

Bad Squiddo Games website image of 28mm painted Russian Women’s Command figures, sculpted by Alan Marsh .

My almost finished 28mm Bad Squiddo Games Russian Soviet Command – Officer, Field Telephonist and Armed Medic. Gloss paint and gloss varnish style.

I am not sure what use this book would be to wargamers or tabletop gamers who focus on the Eastern Front in WW2 or what they would make of this book.

As I have no intention of gaming the Eastern Front in 28mm, I bought these Bad Squiddo figures more for diorama or vignette purposes. They could potentially be converted to female troops of other nationalities.

Annie Norman at Bad Squiddo Miniatures has a widening range of varied Soviet / Russian Military Women https://badsquiddogames.com/shop#!/WW2

There is an interview about this range with Annie Norman on the Meeples and Miniatures podcast about this Women of the Red Army range  with Annie’s further book recommendations: https://meeples.wordpress.com/2016/04/06/meeples-miniatures-episode-168-bad-squiddo-games-women-of-the-red-army/

Just as many of the roles undertaken in wartime in Russia were mirrored in some ways in Britain in WW2, there’s a Bad Squiddo British Women of WW2 range. I have also painted some more of Annie Norman’s Land Girls from her Bad Squiddo Women of WW2 range as my challenge for FEMbruary 2019.  https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2019/03/02/back-to-the-land-for-fembruary-2019

Blogposted for International Women’s Day (8th) and World Book Day (7th) March 2019 by Mark, Man of TIN blog.

Wargaming Warrior Women on The Raft blog

With FEMbruary in mind, you could do well to visit the interesting blogposts, references and figure lists at The Raft blog section on Wargaming Warrior Women.  I visited this site for the Dahomey Warrior Women section last year https://wargamingraft.wordpress.com/wargaming-warrior-women/

Some of the interesting Warrior Women articles on this blog (screenshot).

Well worth spending some time reading and browsing here.

Here are some of my last year’s FEMbruary posts which link with The Raft’s history research:

https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2018/03/10/dahomey-amazons/

https://wordpress.com/post/poundstoreplasticwarriors.wordpress.com/4016

Blog posted by Mark, Man of TIN on 5th FEMbruary 2019.