1 January 2015

Suakin Field Force article by Michael Barthorp


Beautiful colour plate by Bob Marion accompanied these articles.
 Sometime ago I posted a few photographs of my regiment of the 15th Sikhs from the Indian Contingent that landed in Suakin in 1884.

A few of you asked if I could post the article I quoted from and the full uniform plates from the same piece which was published by the wonderful Military Modelling magazine way back in December 1984 to help commemorate the centenary of the actions of the time.


The original article.  All rights would still be with the author I assume so please acknowledge
 the very clever Michael Barthorp in any scenarios, campaigns and refights please.




Some interesting further reading material noted here at the end of the article.
This particular article was pasted in an old Sudan scrapbook that was given to me many years ago so I couldn't scan the pages traditionally and was forced to photograph and place the images up as a jpeg.  Hopefully they are legible enough for anyone who is interested.
The old Military Modelling magazine was an interesting one for me.  I used to absolutely hang out for the next wargaming magazine, be it Miniature Wargames in the very early issues (up to about 50 I still enjoyed and then they changed their editorial style which lost me).  Wargames Illustrated then became my passion.

Dave Barker from our wargaming club used to get extra Military Modelling magazines from his newsagent in the Northern suburbs and every month he would turn up with a dozen for the members.  Often they were slightly underwhelming however when they were at their best, particularly with Ian Weekley modelling tips and Charles Grant scenarios, they were top notch.

I have a good deal of articles which will be of interest I think for wargamers of this particular colonial period so I will add them whenever possible in the interests of furthering knowledge of the period and in the hope that I am not infringing anyones copyright.

Happy New Year to all until next time.




18 comments:

  1. You too Simon - best wishes to you and yours.

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  2. Many thanks for that! Also, Happy New Year...

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  3. Well that's a nice New Year present and no mistake! I've still got this somewhere - probably in the Loft of Guilt . . .

    Have a good New Year!

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    1. You too Gary...and yes we all have a "loft of guilt" in some form in our wargames lives make no mistake! They were very well written articles and the plates, especialy when they were Bob Marrion, were first rate!

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  4. Carlo,
    Happy new year and thanks for this. I skipped all my M M during the last house move. I was going to go through them all and dissect the important bits but just didn't get the time :( so thanks for this. It's great

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    1. Hi Graham and yes thats always the way! These scrapbooks were a gift to me from a mate (thanks Cookie) many, many years ago when he was getting out of gaming for a while and he had cut out all the articles he liked and pasted them in large scrap books. Great for me as so many of the articles are really very well done and the authors and artists are reknowned.

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  5. Great article, thanks for sharing. Happy New year!

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    1. Cheers AJ, glad it was interseting and legible! I think viewing these on an Ipad so you can blow them up a fair bit more is always useful.

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  6. You too Grigork. Hope your 2015 is full of great wargames with good mates.

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  7. Carlo will you have Sands Of the Sudan for sale at CANCON ?
    thanks
    Mick

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  8. Hi Mick - certainly will mate. Do you want me to put one aside for you?

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  9. Yes please mate I will pick it up on the Saturday.
    thanks
    Mick

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  10. Too easy Mick - come over and say hello whever you get the chance on that first morning.

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  11. Hi Carlo. Any update on when the scenario and campaign book will be out. We are hoping to run a campaign weekend in May or June as a tribute to Peter Gilder, and it would be nice to have a tested campaign to work from. Keep up the good work. Andy

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    1. Hi Andy - glad to see the planning and enthusiasm is there mate. At this stage I would expect the follow up to be later in the year than May or June unfortunately due yo real work commitments. However you never know what can happen.

      Cheers Andy

      Carlo

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