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Mikey29211
Joined: 26 Aug 2006 |
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Location: Central Nebraska, USA |
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Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 11:21 pm |
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R. Kitchener wrote: | Mikey,
After seeing the photos of your Vietnam-made foreign service helmets I am convinced, as I told you in our phone conversation, that they are the late 19th-early 20th century French pattern, which you will see in paintings and period photos of French Colonial Infantry, Sailors, and Foreign Legionnaires, and given where they were made, in what was once French Indochina, it doesn't really surprise me, as I think it's extremely likely that the old dies could still exist somewhere in Vietnam.
R |
Thanks, they are WAY better than the standard so called "Foreign Service Helmets" comming out of Vietnam, shape wise but they still have the crappy velcro liner and the non functional chinstrap.
I plan on replacing them with proper liners.
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Last edited by Mikey29211 on Thu Apr 17, 2008 6:15 am; edited 2 times in total
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R. Kitchener
Joined: 09 Dec 2007 |
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Location: Iowa City, IA, USA |
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Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 7:23 pm |
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Martin Everett wrote: | Almost the same as the Anglo-Zulu war - red tunic but for 24th white facings - blue helmet. Red tunics were worn for ceremonial occasions up until WW1. |
Major Everett,
Thanks for your reply and answer, it was much as I suspected. But would RHA batteries have gone into action while on Home Service wearing their Hussar-style uniforms, with the braid and busbies, or Hussars for that matter? Would they have possibly worn at least a pillbox hat, as I so often see in photos from the turn of the century? Wells doesn't really describe the Infantry, Cavalry or Artillery units, except rather vaguely (presumably because his readers in England would already know what soldiers looked like), but he does describe 'Sappers' as wearing a red tunic, black trousers, pillbox caps, and 'boots coming up to the calf'. He also writes about grenadiers dressed in white, which I presume to be the whit drill jackets still worn by Guards and Highlanders up to the outbreak of the Great War.
Sorry to bother you with this inconsequential stuff, but any light you could shed on the subject would be helpful.
thanks again,
Rich
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R. Kitchener
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Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 7:25 pm |
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R. Kitchener wrote: | Mikey,
After seeing the photos of your Vietnam-made foreign service helmets I am convinced, as I told you in our phone conversation, that they are the late 19th-early 20th century French pattern, which you will see in paintings and period photos of French Colonial Infantry, Sailors, and Foreign Legionnaires, and given where they were made, in what was once French Indochina, it doesn't really surprise me, as I think it's extremely likely that the old dies could still exist somewhere in Vietnam.
R |
Mikey,
I suppose the primary dead giveaway that they're the French-pattern helmet is the small stamp in the back 'neath the puggaree, which I enlarged, and says in four languages: "I Surrender".
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Mikey29211
Joined: 26 Aug 2006 |
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Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 7:57 pm |
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R. Kitchener wrote: | R. Kitchener wrote: | Mikey,
After seeing the photos of your Vietnam-made foreign service helmets I am convinced, as I told you in our phone conversation, that they are the late 19th-early 20th century French pattern, which you will see in paintings and period photos of French Colonial Infantry, Sailors, and Foreign Legionnaires, and given where they were made, in what was once French Indochina, it doesn't really surprise me, as I think it's extremely likely that the old dies could still exist somewhere in Vietnam.
R |
Mikey,
I suppose the primary dead giveaway that they're the French-pattern helmet is the small stamp in the back 'neath the puggaree, which I enlarged, and says in four languages: "I Surrender". |
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Peter Ewart
Joined: 31 Aug 2005 |
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Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 9:59 pm |
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RK and Mikey
Of course, I realise you're only joking, and it is, after all, the "season of good will to all men" so I shouldn't really react adversely at all to your joke but, as far as I can detect, the current anti-French (and for some reason anti-French military) pronouncements from the direction of the USA (or should I say from some people in the USA) date back only six years. I wonder why.
Why a routine political disagreement between two present-day sovereign governments should somehow reflect adversely on the martial spirit of one of those two countries' armies, either in modern times or historically, escapes me. As close neighbours of the French - London is 60 miles from where I write but France is much nearer - we regularly have occasion to fall out with them for whatever reason, rightly or wrongly, but I don't recall anyone in this country ever disparaging their military record simply as a matter of course. After all, this country tussled with the French on the battlefield almost without a break for nearly 800 years and generally had its hands full. On the other hand, in this country one does - again, rightly or wrongly - regularly see and hear criticism, relating to both today and in the past, of political decisions and the military prowess of a certain other country. In fact, it is virtually impossible to escape them these days, even though they go back much more than six years. (Rightly or wrongly!)
Perhaps rashness, linked to bravery and disguised as elan, would be a more accurate description of the French military approach? Witness May and June 1879, or - on an incomparably larger scale - August 1914. And Dien Bien Phu, which may remind us of these particular helmets, was not exactly a walkover, was it? And a little place called Verdun readily comes to mind!!! I wonder if any civilised country which had seen the greatest confict in the history of mankind devastate its land and make off with a couple of a million of its young men over four long years would be anxious for another instalment in its own back yard just a short generation later. Nor would one expect it to rush into an ill-conceived military adventure which appeared rash, unnecessary and simply wrong to its government of the time. I certainly wouldn't. And the proof of the pudding would seem to be in the eating.
Don't worry, Mikey and RK, over here we have commonly had a similar view of the Italians during the 20th century, although closer inspection reveals much of this to be unfair too. And I believe Hollywood, for example, occasionally has Tommy "fighting to the last American" or "stopping to take tea" whenever action was required!
All good fun, I know - but now and again I feel we ought to defend our good neighbours from the current transatlantic "slings and arrows", even though they are nothing but a bit of mythology, of course ...
Merry Christmas all the same!
Peter
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R. Kitchener
Joined: 09 Dec 2007 |
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Location: Iowa City, IA, USA |
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Posted: Fri Dec 21, 2007 7:28 pm |
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Ah, but during that unpleasantness, my ancestors DID speak English (sort of) and they wore red coats. Also, as an aside, after the War of Independence, the Continental Congress almost made German the official language of the US, typical of bloodyminded Englishmen, 'We're not English anymore, so we're not going to speak English".
Enough of my ranting, you've all been very kind, and I appreciate it.
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