Reply To: Help Identifying Infantry

[oriskany 60771xp 2]

Sorry I am late to this thread.

Yes, @warzan – I concur with others, these look like 50th Northumberland, definitely late war (NW Europe) given that PIAT one guy seems to be carrying.

Complete OOB for the division on 6th June / Normandy is below.  Includes 151st Brigade (blue) and 231st Brigade (green) – (the OOB above is correct but focuses primarily on 69th Brigade – Red)?

50th Northumbrian landed at Gold Beach (not Sword).  So the odds of getting them “exactly” on the same table as 6th Airborne for Caen / Pegasus Bridge Paras are not good – at least at the opening of Overlord.

For Market Garden, 50th Northumbrian started in XXX Corps reserve.  Partway through the battle they were transferred to VIII Corps (XXX Corps’s ground advance was supported by a flanking corps on either side, VIII on the right and XII on the left), basically tasked to hold ground already taken near Eindhoven, as @collins says.  So yes, @warzan, again in a very different location that 1st Airborne paras at Arnhem  (actually NO ONE really reached the paras at Arnhem, that was kind of the problem with Market-Garden in general).

Now, 2nd Irish Guards were at the forefront of Market Garden, part of 5th Guards Armoured Brigade, in turn part of the Guards Armoured Division.

So, whole division:

Zoom in to 5th Brigade: We see where 2nd Irish Guards Battalion is.

Guards tank battalion has no meaningful infantry:

However, back at Brigade, we see  1st Grenadier Guards Motorized Battalion, so these would be the infantry with the Irish Guards tanks (just attached at Brigade level, not battalion).

They wouldn’t be “Irish,” but would be infantry with the Irish Guards (tanks).

 

Now there IS a 3rd Irish guards that IS all infantry, just attached to 32nd Brigade instead of 5th Armoured (all part of Guards Armoured Division – so no worries there).  I just don’t know if I completely trust this Wikipedia article as it seems to confuse / conflate the commanders (Vandeleur) of 3rd IG / 32nd Brigade (infantry) and 2nd IG / 5th Armoured (tanks).

 

If you decided to go with 3 Irish Guards / 32nd Guards Brigade for these guys, I think that 50th NU patch would be close enough or if you wanted to update it …

By the way, this is why I NEVER put division patches / markings on my minis – it winds up causing problems.

Just play them as you want, and say they’re with 3rd Irish Guards / 32nd Guards Armoured Brigade. 😀