Chaco War

 

On a whim I decided to convert some cheapo made in China white hunters from a jungle set into Paraguayans of the 1930s. I have the Osprey book on the Chaco War and was also inspired by the Tintin stories of fictional South American countries.

The conversion work involved cutting down most boots to resemble bare feet and cutting high boots for some of the officers. Some of the officers' hats were cut down and putty added to make peaked caps. Putty blanket rolls were added to the rank and file. The machetes looked appropriate for cutting through jungle and undergrowth. Some of thee figures had spare rifles added. I left the equipment on the figures, although it is probably not entirely correct. The Paraguayan rank and file had home made water containers, made from cow horns and minimal other equipment but that's not to say that some of them would not scavenge items. They also had, in some cases, German made metal water bottles.

The main thing I don't like about these figures is that they are more 1/35 than 1/32 so they'd be dwarfed by AIP etc. Yet I'm tempted to make some Bolivians from AIP WW1 Germans. The Bolivians, like the Peruvians and other South American countries were influenced by German military missions and advisers. The Osprey book includes a picture of a Bolivian in field grey and silver spiked cuirassier helmet. He looks like an infantryman but has the apple green facings of the cavalry. The note refers to other colour facings for the other branches but I'm not sure if they also had this type of helmet. The book says this is a service uniform although I doubt if the helmet would last long in the tropical heat. The Bolivians also had a rusty khaki uniform with peaked caps. For the record, the Bolivians were thrashed.

The figures were based on metal washers and photographed in my backyard. Some of the photos were taken before I had entirely finished the figures, hence some unpainted belt buckles etc.