British Free Corps?

All the major dealers sell them, Morigi, Epic, Militaria.net, SoF, RAUnderwood.....the list goes on.
The only problem is when would you wear it? Drink und Bling? OK for that but they were considered traitors so it might ruffle feathers.
I dont think they saw any combat? There were only a handful, mostly a propaganda exercise.
They were promised they would never fight the British if I remember.
About 6 years ago the family of one member were at W&P show. Riding on the back of their relatives infamy, I remember thinking at the time what scum bags they were.

See Poacher's comments. Don't bother...

For once I agree with Poacher and yith !!

Don't bother.

If you really want to portray a British SS unit which saw some 'combat', then you might be better off with the fictional 6(?)th SS Security Divison 'Black Prince' , as portrayed in the film 'It Happened Here'.

Standard Waffen SS field grey with a natty 'Black Prince' sleeve shield. I have somewhat more sympathy with a few of the various collaborators in that.

I wouldn't touch the Britische Freikorps with a bargepole though.

Cheers
Martin

Read 'Hitlers Englishmen - Renegades' and you wont *want* to do BFC

They were an utter joke. Comprised of losers, chancers, liers and idiots.

One guy got himself off the hook post war by proving he ony joined to sabotage it from within.

As said formed as a propaganda exericse and held in poor esteem by the Brit *and* the Germans, no one took them seriously.

IIRC 12 or so of them were sent to assist a unit in the last days of the war against the russians and were sent back by th German officer as he considered them a liability and would do more harm than good if the Russians caught them.

There only 'officer' was a juniorNCO who had lied about being in the SAS and claimed to be a officer when captured and the germans believed him as well IIRC.

Re-enact the 143rd Horse Fodder Provision Detachment - there's more honour and glory with that mob than the BFC.

(aside from that BFC stuff tends to enthrawl neo nazi types and you'll get yourself pigeon holed with that if you're not careful)

Yup. Agree with everything above.

There's really no point in spending the money on it. Avoid the exotic stuff. Keep it simple.

out of the SS units (only wanting to portray them to use the peadot smock+ Helm Cover) which would be unregonzieable as SS to Normal airsoft Skrimishers, one of my other reasons for BFC was that there isnt any SS flashes, but all of your points are good reasons not to go BFC, or would it just be better to badge it up as Heer so i can take it off and just be a normal Heer infantry man?

I have just brought a generic SS impression, SS collar tabs and arm eagle but no cuff title

I plan to go to open days in this gear and have no problem portraying SS after all it's just a role.

Thought about BFC, just go Generic No cuff title, just collar tabs.

Researched the BFC as part of my job and it appears that not all were Brits there were a couple of Canadians and it was purley a properganda message no combat seems to have been undertaken by any of them but they did end up a bit sticky mess at the end of the war.

Anyone who scoffs at the SS runes probably does not have an idea about what the whole scenario is about. Wear them like I do and be prepared with condemnation but come back (After you have researched the Combat SS units a bit) with a solid answer and they don`t know how to deal with it. The ignorent amongst them think all the SS did was Kill people in concentration camps. There were infact Bakers Postmen and other such menial jobs in the SS. It was just a highly motivated efficient mini army withing the Wehrmacht.

Job done

out of the SS units (only wanting to portray them to use the peadot smock+ Helm Cover) which would be unregonzieable as SS to Normal airsoft Skrimishers, one of my other reasons for BFC was that there isnt any SS flashes, but all of your points are good reasons not to go BFC, or would it just be better to badge it up as Heer so i can take it off and just be a normal Heer infantry man?

I'm a bit confused by this?

Have you actually bought a tunic, is this what you're referring too when you say 'badge it up' or are you on about the smock and cover.

First thing is they never made smocks or helmet covers in peadot (you might be thinking of the early war 'planetree' as it can look similar in black and white photos from a distance). But, dont buy a 'peadot' smock or lid cover as they just didnt exist, you may as well wear an MARPAT smock - it would be as 'correct'

In general the Heer didnt wear very much camouflage other than the zeltbahn. Contrry to the beliefs of a lot of re-enactors and airsofers splinter pattern smocks - and more so sumpfmuster/tan and water - were quite rare indeed (some notable exceptions are 21st panzer in Normandy who had a large issue of smocks and helmet covers). In general stuff like that was issued out to engineers or assault units for a mission and then returned to stores afterwards rather than being 'your kit forever'. If you google Wehrmacht Infantry... for every hundred archive photos youll find about five will have lads wearing any camo at all (i'm basing that on once going through Brian L Davies well respected 'german army uniforms book' and out of about 200+ pics from the war about 7 were of men in camo).

*but* you probably want all the camo as it looks cool, yeah we did that at first too... it is really attractive and 'warry' as a look as we grow up with the notion of soldiers wearing full matching camo outfits as standard... but in the 40s it was *really* rare and plain field grey or khaki wool suit was the norm outside of very specialist units.

If you want to wear SS camo but don't want the runes or swastikas... wear a peadot 2 piece suit with a shirt rather than a tunic underneath. Issued in large numbers in March 44 the peadot suit was a camo oversuit (could be worn on it's own in summer) and work overalls as well. Now the good thing is that under regulations it was only authorised to have the shoulder eagle and shoulder board on it... both these were pretty commonly left off.

Putting collar runes on peadots is wrong so there you go.. logo free SS (there are some very rare cases of them being put on but again its a tiny proportion).

Just remember they only made trousers and jackets (and a there may have been a small number of reversible suits but i'm dubious about that) in Peadot (or dot44 or erbsenmuster as it's properly known). Anyone trying to sell you zelts, fieldcaps, helmet covers, sleeping bags, or anything like that in this pattern is trying to fleece you.

Also camo hardly ever matched, they'd get a supply of smocks and helmet covers in.. as they wore out new ones would come in a newer different pattern and be worn in the same unit with the old patterns. It's more historically accurate to have an oakleaf smock, peadot trousers and planetree cover than it would be to be head to toe in one pattern

Lastly it's interestin to note that all these names are collectors conventions over the years. The german armed forces didnt refer to them as anything other than 'tarnjacke' (camo smock) and veterans often refer to them as 'tiger jackets'.

Gadge
I dont yet own any kit, im thinking of getting a HBT Tunic from Hiki
I was thinking of having some German kit that i can use as both Heer and SS,
for Heer
HBT tunic, trousers, Ski cap (i think there called that)
Normal webbing
for SS
the same with a camo smock, the plane tree looks good.
but what about Oak leaf pattern?

Smocks don't cover up the collars, so you'd still see the army Litzen. A Zeltbahn used as camo sit higher up the neck so you could maybe get away with an SS badged smock and wear a splinter pattern Zelt over it for a Heer impression.

SS and Heer caps have different insignia so you'd be looking at buying 2. Much better to spend the money on a plain helmet with no decals or cover that can be used for both.

None of these ideas are of use if you crave SS camo though

The cheapest option to be able to do either SS or Heer.

Field grey tunic and trousers (you're much better off with wool than HBT, it was more common, is harder wearing and you wont freeze seven months of the year, weirdly wool can sometimes be cooler as it breathes and HBT can be a very tight weave)

A helmet with no decals as Beds suggests

Then get a dot44 jacket.

You've got a good starter heer setup and then if it's an ss only scenario put the dot 44 jacket on either instead of it or over it but cover the collar.

Oakleaf btw, more choice of items and a few variations but simply put smocks, caps and covers and reversible winter suits (cant remember if zelts) were made from it. The only thing to steer clear of it oakleaf tunics and trousers... any that did exist were field made and not the sort of thing your average soldier would have his hands on.

TBH that goes for anything other than dot44 or italian pattern trousers - I'm not an expert buti'm pretty sure apart from that they only made trousers in plain shades.

The BFC were based at hildesheim for a while , (as was i from 1991 to 1994 but they never mentioned it, wonder why ? )
there was a mental hostpital, thats still there, and from what i read a couple of years ago, the only thing they were dangerous to, was the pub beer stock, and the local ladies.

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ive got an old army mate who was a dead ringer for the BFC man on the left, and we had a few scraps with locals in hildesheim

BFC yuck! Alls been said here, so do a generic one matey.

'It happened here' is a marvellous film made with an amateur cast. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube.

Yeah, im going to leave this one i think
but i will explain my intrest in portraying them was purely non political (and i dont hold Neo Nazi views) and was simply as i have said before was purely because i think i could portray a British Solider much more realisticly than a german but seeing as A they never saw much combat B there highest strengtgh was 27 its to uniquie
Anyway would Alpine Corps as depicted in Where Eagles Dare be easy to aquire patches for?

BFC yuck! Alls been said here, so do a generic one matey.

'It happened here' is a marvellous film made with an amateur cast. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube.

have you got a direct link to it? all I seem to find is trailers for it

Yeah, im going to leave this one i think
but i will explain my intrest in portraying them was purely non political (and i dont hold Neo Nazi views) and was simply as i have said before was purely because i think i could portray a British Solider much more realisticly than a german but seeing as A they never saw much combat B there highest strengtgh was 27 its to uniquie
Anyway would Alpine Corps as depicted in Where Eagles Dare be easy to aquire patches for?

If you mean 'Gebirgsjager' mountain troops then yes, technically easy enough.

However again you're massively limting yourself by starting off with a niche 'cool' impression , and *never* use hollywood film as a source/reference unless you're genuinely going for a parody/joke/war film impression.

Gebirgsjager had some specialist mountain kit like the short peaked mountain cap, anoraks, puttees and climbin boots among other things but by 44 (when most games are set) they usually dont look all that different from regular infantry.

The wiser thing to do is start of wth a generic infantry (ss/heer) look and then over time buy the funky cool stuff.

Nearly every battle will be suitable for fieldgrey glad infantry, very few will require mountaineering kit.

To give you a relevant point viz where eagles dare (and its one of my favourite films), the unifms are odd to say the least. You have gebirgs troops but there steel helmets are FJ pattern, they wear army parkas (as said the FJ had specialist mountain anoraks) and the pattern on them is utterly made up.

I'm only giving you aword of caution as i did *exactly* what you are doing (used WED as a reference) when I started doing WWII and wasted a lot of money.

I can only echo everything Gadge has said in the above post. Here's my take on how to spend wisely, and look part of a unit.

http://www.ww2airsoft.org.uk/so-you-wanna-do-german/