British & Commonwealth (28mm) Malaya Campaign 1941

Now its time to consider how to build the sprues:

The 8th Army Sprue comes with the following heads:

Punjabi Mussalam/Yusufzai heads (x6)
Scottish Tam O’Shanter heads (x6)
Tin helmet heads (x6)
Sikh heads (x6)

The Commonwealth Infantry Sprue comes with the following heads:

Australian heads (x6)
Generic Special Forces (x10)
Tropical helmet heads (x6)
New Zealander heads (x2)

From the above the New Zealander and Generic Special Forces heads are destined for the bits box.

Per my internet research all the other heads can be used.
The Wikipedia articles on the Malaya Command and Battle of Hong Kong are a useful starting point as they outline the forces present.

UK, Canadian & Australian:
A build consisting primarily of tin helmets would enable British, Canadian, Scottish and Australians to be represented.
To add more flavour some additional figures built with Australian Slouch hats and Tam O’Shanter.

So 3 different Command Teams (6 figures)

• Tin hats,
• Australian Slouch hats,
• Tam O’Shanter

3 Sections with Tin hats (30 figures)

Then to spinkle through the platoon

• 1 Section with Australian Slouch hats (10 figures)
• 1 Section with Tam O’Shanter (10 figures)

Boys Rifle & 2″ Mortar team in Tin hats (4 figures)
[Maybe later do additional figures in Australian Slouch hats, Tam O’Shanter.]

For additional flavour a section in Tropical hats would be nice but of more limited use as less interchangeable but useful to represent fresh units maybe as the Support option (maybe in future build this up to an entire Platoon)

Looking at the history in Hong Kong some interesting units fought:
40 Royal Marines under Major Giles attached to HMS Tamar (the naval station) fought to defend the island as did a squad of Free French under Captain Jacques Egal which might make an interesting future project!
For more about the Free French click here.

On the Singapore front It would appear that Royal Marines survivors of HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse (Force Z) also fought with the the Argyll & Southern Highlanders
Click here for more information on the Plymouth Argylls and here.

Looks like I was premature in dismissing the beret heads on the sprues …..!