28mm Warlord WWII US Marines for Guadalcanal

All,

You've already seen my mid-/late-war studs, so let me show you my early-ish Marines specifically for Guadalcanal.  What's the difference, you ask?  Well, true early war is, to me, the Philippines and Wake Island, where US Marines wore khaki uniforms, Kelly helmets (a knock-off of the Brodie helmet, as I understand it), leggings, and the service rifle was the Springfield M-1903.  By the time Guadalcanal rolled around, the khakis had been replaced by green dungarees, the Kelly helmets by M-1 helmets (without camo helmet cover), but the Springfields were still there.  Following Guadalcanal the Marines replaced the Springfields with M-1 Garands (and, in some cases, M-1 Carbines) and introduced 'treefrog pattern' camouflage trousers, blouses, and helmet covers, in both green and brown camo.

The Warlord Box comes with a decent amount of M-1903 Springfields, but not nearly enough to equip a full rifle platoon, so I had to buy a bunch more of the weapons sprues in order to get enough.  No big deal, was happy to do it.  A bigger problem is that when 1st Marine Division shipped to Guadalcanal they had vanishingly few Thompson submachine guns; the vast majority of the SMGs in the division were the dreadful M-50 Reising Guns, and then the Tommy Guns they had were M-1928 Thompsons, not M-1 Thompsons, which is all the Warlord box comes with.  I searched the internet and couldn't find any Reising Guns, so I bit the bullet and made my Tommy Gunners with M-1 Thompsons.  Later on I bought the Warlord 8th Army box and it has M-1928 Thompsons, but even these aren't correct, as far as I'm aware.  As I understand it, the US Marines had M-1928s (chambered in .45-cal, as opposed to the .30-cal in the M-1 Thompsons), but they were the short Thompsons (same length as the M-1 Thompson, but with Cutts compensator on muzzle and charging handle on top of the receiver, not on the side), whereas the 8th Army had the long-barreled Thompsons with the wooden foregrip.  Nevertheless, I stole a few of those for my Guadalcanal Marines ;)

Where things get off track is purely with me; I was looking at some pics of Marines in the Solomons and I was seeing them wearing green-side out camouflage.  It showed a dude with a Reising Gun, M-1 helmet without helmet cover, and green-side out cammie blouse, and I thought it was on Guadalcanal, but apparently it was on Bougainville (I thought the Reisings were long gone before Bougainville?).  Ditto goes for some Marines in green-side out camo trouser and blouses, no helmet covers, with Springfields (I thought all the riflemen had Garands by the time of Bougainville?).  I also thought I'd seen ParaMarines on Gavutu and Guadalcanal wearing green-side out camouflage, but I checked all my books and the internet and could find no supporting evidence.  So, all indications are the there were zero Marines wearing camouflage uniforms on Guadalcanal... but I coudn't help myself and I painted quite a few wearing camo...

The whole mess.  We've got five HQ types, six automatic riflemen, fifteen Marines with Tommy Guns, an MG team, a mortar team, and thirty riflemen armed with M-1903 Springfields.

Some HQ types.

A Zero with field glasses and his M-1911 pulled.

Side.

Other side.  And here is where I realize I didn't shave off the butt of the pistol in his holster, so I guess he's carrying two M-1911s ;)

Gotta have a Doc.

Other side.

Coming at ya.

An engineer carrying his Springfield and a satchel charge.  Lots of green-side out cammie on this guy...

Reverse.

My Forward Observer crew, with field glasses on left and Tommy Gun on right.

Another look.

The Tommy Gunners.  Eleven have M-1 Thompsons, four have long M-1928 Thompsons.

Three of the long M-1928s (missed one, you'll see him in a second).

Closeup, good look at the extended barrel, compensator, and charging handle on top of the receiver.  Would be even better if he had a drum rather than a stick magazine.  This is what all the Marines should look like: green dungarees, M-1 helmet without helmet cover or with netting.

Reverse.

Another dude sporting the camo that didn't exist yet (please, someone give me proof there was at least one Marine on Guadalcanal wearing camouflage).

Trench sweeper.

Reverse.

There's the other one, in a kneeling pose.

Reverse.  He's got a Ka-Bar, and those weren't issued yet, either...

A couple NCO-types, pointing.

Three crouching.

Closeup.

Another, tossing a frag.  Good closeup of the M-1 Thompson, with shorter barrel, no compensator, and charging handle on the right side.

I like this guy, nice and gungy.

Look at that undergrowth on his face, he's gone Asiatic (another relic from my comic books)!

Two Marines advancing with Tommy Guns.

Reverse.

Three more.

Large and in charge.

Laying it down.

Originally this was the only guy in this force that I painted with any camo, as he's to be my Platoon Sergeant and I wanted him to stand out, but then I found what I thought were photos documenting cammie uniforms on Guadalcanal and I lost all discipline, started painting everything camo...

The riflemen, all armed with the trusty, bolt-action Springfield.  Some of the poses are a bit hokey, but that's down to me just trying to create as many unique poses as possible, and again you'll see some dudes without sleeves and you'll see some dudes without sleeves that I painted sleeves on.

A group of riflemen sauntering around.

Tossing a grenade, with sword bayonet.

Pointing.

Moving up.

Showing off the guns.

Don't like the hand placement, but it's all I could get to work.

A group advancing.

A wolfman with some painted on sleeves.

More tickets to the gun show.

Popping one off.

Dashing forward.

Painted on sleeves.

One grenade thrower.

And another, with beard.

More painted on sleeves.

Sprinting ahead.

Pondering, with painted on sleeves.

A group of kneeling Marines with Springfields.

Arms a little low, but passable.

Another.

Chucking a frag.

Look at the guns.

Taking a breather.

"They went that away."

Group of Marines with Springfields crouching.

Taking stock of the situation.

Chilling, painted on sleeves (and a bad seam line there on his arm, ugh).

Frag out!

Nice tight kneeling position.

The automatic riflemen, all in the prone position.  Not sure why I did all of them prone, other than I'm not really a fan of prone figures, and these were probably the best looking I could make any of them, plus easy to tell the BARs apart, I guess.

A closeup.

Another.

Again.

Another.

Made this one a bit different, kinda of a Leatherneck manning an outpost or something, I guess.  Kinda cool.

A metal M-1917 .30-cal MG team by Warlord.  Nicely done, but these boys ain't fond of shirts ;)

Another look.

One more.

And a metal 81mm mortar crew by Warlord (since their 60mm mortar team is so @#$%ed up).

Again.

And one more.

This guy is actually from the 60mm mortar team (they're missing their baseplate, sitting next to him on the wooden box).  I don't recall why I kept him in this force and put a Springfield on his base...

Reverse.

And there you have it, a platoon of Marines ready for action on The 'Canal.  I'm pretty happy with them, other than the painted on sleeves mostly look like crap and I wish I hadn't painted camo on them, but I'll get over it, I sure as hell am not going back and re-painting all those dungarees!

V/R,
Jack