Modelling Falklands era 1980s Paratroopers - getting it right

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

+1

[Sunray]

Just refreshing this topic as it is relevant to the questions raised by Rick regarding helmets

[Sunray]

No worries Phil - I will send you my personal email address.

One issue when one attempts to model Falklands paras in large scale - say 28mm and upwards - is that three distinct patterns of helmet were worn in the conflict by Paras and Marines.

The new M76 was in issue - it is fibre glass and developed from the N Ireland GRP, - but not enough to go around, so the old WW2 issue MkII (Arnhem) helmet was still in common use, and both feature in the images of the time.

Lemmy mentions the Royals.  The Royals are not fond of headgear other than the beret or woolly cap/artic headgear.  They did have a dedicated Marine pattern helmet, but in the Pusser's picnic to embark,  any old helmet was RASed [sourced], so many went in Mk V infantry helmet.   

My advice is to take the MK II helmet (as worn by WW2 Arnhem paras) as your baseline, and sculpt it as dripping in scrim and  hessian .  The end result in 1/150 is that it will pass for the MkII, the M76 or indeed the Marine pattern.

I believe the only overseas armies whose Airborne also  wore the MkII would have been India and the IDF.   The images of Israeli paras show the helmet quite bare. 

I stick with these comments. The MkII is a good baseline and with scrim and hessian will in 1/150 pass for M76 and Mk6.