Reenacting Thread

This was once a great thread in the old forums. No reason not to have it here! If you're a reenactor, or are interested to be a reenactor, here's a good place to share photos, knowledge, contacts etc.

I'l start off. For the past eight years I've been doing doing Italian WW2 impressions. Our group, Mediterraneo (named after a brilliant Italian film, highly recommended), has gone from strength to strength, showing the public that the Italians do not deserve the lambasted reputation they have. I am also building up a WW2 French Foreign Legion impression that should be complete soon.

We do a number of impressions.

Genio Guastatori - Combat Engineers, Egypt 1942

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Divisione Folgore - Paratroopers, Tunisia 1943. Not a lot of people know that the first combat parachutist unit was set up by the Italians in 1928 to fight against rebels in Libya.

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Bersaglieri - Light Infantry, Tunisia 1943. The Bersaglieri are world famous due to their easily recognizable headdress; a capercaillie tail. They still wear these on their combat helmets to this day.

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Tridentina Alpini - Mountain Troops, Don Front 1943. Again, the distinctive headgear of the Italian Alpini; a mountain cap with eagle feather and coloured pom-pom (which denotes the battalion), has made them relatively well known. 100,000 Italians fought on the Russian front, with about a quarter of that number perishing during the Operation Uranus.

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Decima MAS - RSI Marines, Anzio 1944. After Italy signed an armistice in 1943, the country was effectively thrown into a civil war between the Allied-aligned South, and the German-aligned North. The Decima MAS had originally been frogmen, specially trained to launched manned torpedo (see Raid of Alexandria), but by 1944 they were an elite formation of the RSI, the German supported north.

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Comments

  • edited May 2015

    I have been reenacting for over six years at this point doing a variety of different impressions(an impression is a uniform and gear set up that reflects a certain unit at a certain time or place) and have loved reenacting since I started.
    My impressions:
    SS Totenkopf Regiment 1, 1939-1942. Before WW2 started, the SS was looking to expand its combat branch. They took concentration camp guards and formed them into a infantry regiment. They wore the same insignia as the camp guards but with the exception of wearing the white infantry branch color on their shoulder boards. My unit(2.Kompanie) has this as their main impression with a focus on the 1941-1942 when the majority of the camp guards were already KIA or sent back to the camps. I do not like the impression very much, but it is a very good unit to belong to mainly because of the youth of the group(not consisting of 40-50 year olds like other SS units) as well as having the highest standards for kit.

    SS-VT Regiment 1 "Duetchland", 1941. This is another early war SS unit that we represent for any invasion of France scenario. Almost the same as SS-TK 1 but with different insignia.

    Those are my two SS impressions, I do also do Heer(regular German army)
    95. GebirgsPioneer Battalion, 5. Gebirgs Division, 1943. This is my standard impression for most events. This impression is that of a combat engineer assigned to a mountain division during the defense of Italy in 1943. My persona was a combat engineer that was transferred from the 2. Gebirgs Division after the invasion of Russia to help form the 5. Gebirgs Division. My rank is that of a Obergefreiter which we use as a Cpl. In my group I am an Unteroffizer(Sgt) but I hate sewing so I haven't sewed my tress onto my tunic.

    In the past I have also done the following:
    26. SS Panzer-Grenadier Regiment, 12th SS Division "Hitlerjugend", 1944
    6. Fallschirmjager Regiment, 6. Fallschirm Division, 1944
    6. Infantrie Regiment, 30. Infantrie Division, 1944
    6. Infantrie Regiment, 30. Infantrie Division, 1941
    30. Feldgendarmerie Zug, 30. Infantrie Division, 1944

    Impressions I want to start:
    US 4th ID-DDay and Normandy

    US 28th ID- Hurtgen Forest

    US 88th ID-Italy, 1944

    Canadian Paratrooper-1944

    Panzer-Lehr-Pionier-Bataillon 130, 1944

    Italian Paratrooper, 1944

  • edited May 2015

    Oh man, all the impression I could want to do!!

    I'm already near complete with my 13th Demi-Brigade, French Foreign Legion, 1942 impression. Others that I could consider in the future?

    1er Bataillon Étranger de Parachutistes, Dien Bien Phu 1954

    12.Regimento di Cavalleria "Alessandria", 1. Divisione "Eugenio di Savoia", Ukraine 1942

    4 Infanterie Regimentul, 6th Division, Romanian 4th Army, Stalingrad 1942 Winter

    Those are the ones on my mind at the moment. There will doubtless be many many more in the future!

  • That really looks like something cool, you guys do like whole battles?
    I've always wanted to do something like this, just don't have the funds or time really.

  • @PFC Stear said:
    That really looks like something cool, you guys do like whole battles?
    I've always wanted to do something like this, just don't have the funds or time really.

    The fun part is we help you with you uniform and gear until you buy it all. You don't buy it all at once, you purchase a bit here and a bit there. Normally it takes around one year to finish an impression. You can get away with like $75 or $100 per month to finish in a year with a good impression.

  • Yeah all groups generally have plenty of spare gear, and they help you out until you can finish it. God knows, I've been doing it 8 years, and I still loan stuff from people in my group! None of us really have the money for it, but we get there eventually :) It's taken me about 3 years to get my Foreign Legion gear together! :O

  • @2Lt. Boughen said:
    Yeah all groups generally have plenty of spare gear, and they help you out until you can finish it. God knows, I've been doing it 8 years, and I still loan stuff from people in my group! None of us really have the money for it, but we get there eventually :) It's taken me about 3 years to get my Foreign Legion gear together! :O

    I'm still borrowing SS camo.....The good thing about getting a countries impression together is that you can use the gear for other impressions depending on what you buy. Like to switch my field gear from Heer to SS, I just switch the belt buckle.

  • @Sgt. Pinckney said:
    I'm still borrowing SS camo.....The good thing about getting a countries impression
    together is that you can use the gear for other impressions depending on what you buy. Like to switch my field gear from Heer to SS, I just switch the belt buckle.

    Yeah. In an ideal world I'd love to have seperate tunics for all the different badges, but ultimately I have to do a bit of sewing before every show :P Itai equipment doesn't change no matter the theatre, so its great!

  • I can sew but I suck at it, so I just have three tunics with the different insignia set up and ready to go. Don't think I'm gonna get around to that tress though.

  • Now have a facebook group for my new French Foreign Legion re-enacting unit. Join for updates on my progress :)

    Par-Sang-Versé

  • So it still isn't quite complete, but here is the first picture of my Legionnaire impression, Bir Hakeim (1942), 13e DBLE, 1ere Brigade de France Libre.

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  • Good job everybody!

    P.S. Naturally, I have a soft spot for 2Lt. Boughen's WW2 reenactment of the Italian armed forces :)

  • Haha thank you Peroni! It is a pleasure to reenact!

    Here's another picture of my FFL kit.

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  • It's looking so good 2Lt.!

  • @2Lt. Boughen said:
    Haha thank you Peroni! It is a pleasure to reenact!

    Here's another picture of my FFL kit.

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    2Lt Claude Rains?

  • Major Strasser has been shot... round up the usual suspects!

  • Trying to re-create a really famous photo.

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    **And just so you know, there was genuinely water in the canteen. **

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  • The second take went better. Stay thirsty!

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  • Looking really nostalgic 2Lt.

  • Starting to get another impression done too! Legionnaire of the 13th DBLE returns from a patrol, Southern Annam, 1950.

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  • Can I ask, what do you do at events? Do you actually reenact combat, or do you just hang out, talk to everyone?

  • edited June 2015

    Both. Depends on the event. Sgt. Pinckney's unit does a lot of tactical events, whereas I tend to do far more public events. But we've both done both.

  • My group does around 75% private "tactical" events with the remaining being living history or public battles. At tactical battles we normally spend the morning attacking enemy positions, we have lunch then we defend the same positions. However I prefer the events where there are no set breaks and it's a more realistic event. These traditionally include things such as the following: Combat patrols, supply line patrols, bring forward supplies, improving your positions, recon patrols as well as having rear line positions for breaks and food.

  • edited June 2015

    My group does about 90% public events. Public events tend to be based around static displays of camp or trench life. Their essential goal is to let the public get up close to the history, ask questions, and see the history for themselves, as well as including some (usually quite tame) battles in front of the public. For the reenactors themselves, it is more of a glorified camping trip, and usually involves a boisterous night life. Unfortunately, tactical events tend to be the reserve of larger groups that can put out the numbers necessary to make them work, and (in the UK at least) have to have an onsite armourer to provide live weapons. But I've taken part in a few private battles in my time.

    Here's a shot from a private battle I attended as an Italian Alpini last winter. And some shooting too!

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    Whereas here's a shot from a public event in Norfolk, five years ago.

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  • The one thing I don't like about public events is the sense that no one there are truly representing combat troops. You end up with a platoon all of which have their own tent, completely clean and everyone happy. It's rare to see units doing things like digging foxholes or training. I enjoy teaching people about the history, but only in the right manner. It doesn't make sense to me for people to representing a combat unit that have pressed and clean uniforms. I still enjoy public events, but they require some things for me to go to. Like a USO dance will get me to go, public not being charged will get me to go and things like multiple battles will get me to go.

  • It very much depends on the group and the event whether a public show is good or not. Battles I've never been very bothered about, mostly because most reenactors are too old or too overweight to make it seem in any way legitimate. And since people apparently don't want to see anything that isn't connected to BoB or SPR (i.e. NW Europe 1944-45), demand for battles from the independent groups that do other eras (and often attract the more dedicated, younger, reenactors) tends to be low. I'm sort of used to shows charging here, but I most certainly prefer it when those charges are as low as they can be. As for the "battle-look" of groups at public events, that is simply down to the groups themselves to ensure. Personally, my kit barely ever gets washed, and we sleep under original canvas, eat original-style rations, and engage in general military routine. I think that is not an indictment of public shows, but of certain "F-word" reenactors themselves.

  • Heer(get it?) it seems to be kind of different. All of the elite units(with exception of my unit) consists of old fat guys. While the normal army or normal infantry units consist of young guys. I like it when an event has a particular battle and all impressions must fit that battle. Out of those, none have ever been things that involve US Airborne or SS troops. That seems to keep the attendance down while keeping the quality of reenactors higher than other events. I like events that are different time periods or fronts, like my last event was an eastern front event for 1942. Loved it.

  • Oh the "larger" units (and they tend to be larger in oh so many ways) are mostly groups that portray SS, 101st Airborne, British 1st Paras and the like. There is now a younger generation coming through that are keen to do things less done: Italian, Japanese, French, Russians, but especially British Infantry and German Heer. Most of these groups are still getting their feet, but I reckon eventually they'll become the norm. Their quality tends to be much higher, their attention to detail, and their relative youth.

  • @2Lt. Boughen said:
    Oh the "larger" units (and they tend to be larger in oh so many ways) are mostly groups that portray SS, 101st Airborne, British 1st Paras and the like. There is now a younger generation coming through that are keen to do things less done: Italian, Japanese, French, Russians, but especially British Infantry and German Heer. Most of these groups are still getting their feet, but I reckon eventually they'll become the norm. Their quality tends to be much higher, their attention to detail, and their relative youth.

    Hipster re-enactors?! I could get into this..

  • Hahaha xD Brilliant! I mean ultimately, this is a hobby, and people are fully entitled to reenact whatever interests them the most. Also, admitedly, until recent, more obscure nation's uniforms and equipment were difficult and often expensive to source. Over the past eight or so years I've been reenacting, I've seen it become a much more available, much less expensive thing to do. But, and I'm sure it Sgt. Pinckney would agree, it is sometimes upsetting that people who purportedly have such a keen interest in history have such a closed mind when it comes to the larger scale of the war.

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