Reply To: Where to put decals on British Starter Force, should I bother?

[oriskany 60789xp 3]

No worries, @lloyd –

Okay, looks like you’ve got red and blue squadron markings.  This allows for some choices, some of which you’ve already got figured out:

ONE:  Guards Arm’d Division  (Blue eye) > Senior Regiment (Red 51) > Red triangles for A Squadron, Squares for B Squadron, Circles for C Squadron.  This would be for “2nd Bn, Grenadier Guards, Guards Armoured Division”

TWO: Guards Arm’d Division (Blue eye) > Third Regiment (Red 53) > Blue triangles for A Squadron, Squares for B Squadron, Circles for C Squadron.  This would be for “2nd Bn, Irish Guards, Guards Armoured Division”

THREE: 7th Armored Division (Red Rat) Senior Regiment (Red 51) > Red triangles for A Squadron, Squares for B Squadron, Circles for C Squadron.  I think this would be for “1st Royal Tank Regiment, 22nd Armoured Brigade, 7th Armoured Division”

FOUR:  7th Armored Division (Red Rat) Third Regiment (Red 53) > Blue triangles for A Squadron, Squares for B Squadron, Circles for C Squadron.  I think this would be for “5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, 22nd Armoured Brigade, 7th Armoured Division”

For some reason those transfer sheets don’t have any yellow squadron markings, so this leaves out any “Second Battalion” choices.  Thus we either have “Senior Regiment” or “Third Regiment”, as listed above.

Don’t worry about no diamonds, you just won’t have any regimental commanders in your force.  No worries, they have no business that close to the front in a company-scale battle anyway.  😀  They also don’t give you any red “50” brigade HQ markings, so this also works out well.

I also don’t see any green regiment / brigade numbers on there for units of an infantry brigade.  Makes sense, the boxed set specifies an armoured force.  So you can use the red “54”s on the bren carriers – designating them as part of  the motorized battalion of whatever armoured regiment you choose to put together.

I would strongly suggest using the red-blue “77s” on those M10s, designating them as antitank artillery.

Doesn’t look like they gave you any blue 41s or 46s (Royal Engineers) – so I don’t know what regimental numbers you would use on those Crocodiles.  Side note, if you want you can leave off those trailers (fuel tanks for the flame throwers) and just use them as standard Churchill heavy “infantry” tanks.

Regarding Scots in tanks, I concur with @khusrau on two of the easiest choices:

Scots Greys were a famous battalion and regiment.  In WW2 they were part of 4th Armoured Brigade.  The 4th Brigade fought as part of 7th Armoured Division Desert Rats … in the desert 1942-43.  By the time we get to NW Europe, 4th Armoured Brigade (and the Scots Greys) were an independent unit moved around to different divisions as the mission required.  For example, during Market Garden they were with 43rd Riding (Infantry) Division (?? – don’t ask me why).

So … I’m not really sure how the divisional markings would work for that since the Scots Greys / 4th Arm’d Brigade were permanently part of no division in 44-45.

The other likely choice  @khusrau mentions is the 2nd Bn, Fife and Forfar Yeomanry.  This battalion was attached to the 29th Armored Brigade in 44-45, which in turn was part of 11th Armored Division (the yellow and black bull in my pics above).  To do this one 100% correct, you’d need not only those yellow and black bulls for 11th Armoured Division, but also yellow triangle, square, and circle squadron markings as I believe this was the “second” regiment (Red “52”) with the 29th Armoured Brigade.

So you could do it, you’d just need some additional decal sheets.

If you want to stick with the decal sheets you have, I would go with one of the four choices listed at the top of this post.

Oh, and yes … British military units are f***ing BEWILDERING.  And this is from someone who spends most of his time on the Eastern Front with German and Soviet units / tables of organization.  🙁 🙁 🙁