A question for YOU on WWII

[Philonivs Maximvs]

Finns rock

I haven't had the opportunity arise to think about doing regular SA (army), so I would sell my M36 uniform. Message me Daniels, and let me know what you need.

[Antonescu]

Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian - May not be "cool kid", but hopefully some of the reenactors out there with those ethnic ties might take it up, much like a majority of the Poles have done. It would be a start! Plus, Romanian you get to switch sides too...

There are some large Romanian communties now plus getting a list of institutions to contact the are Romanian-American centered. Contacted the Military Attache office already and they are behind it. WWII is becoming popular in their circles due to the history being covered up for over 50 years. Hit the ethnic communities and get them involved. They'r just as American as us!

[historymuseum2000]

I never was one of the cool guys in High School.

I have really been into this whole Romanian thing. The LwFD stuff is still very cool (and underdone) and I have no intention of giving it up. To me the Romanian thing is something completely new and different and half the fun is putting together the impression and leaning all the new stuff. To me that is a lot of the fun and enjoyment, learning new stuff.

Of course it will be cool to be able to shoot at Germans as well as Ivan!

Civilian is a neat idea too. After all WWII was not fought in a vacuum, everywhere the battles were fought and the armies moved there were civilians that were effected. I am now reading Beevor's book The Fall of Berlin 1945 and man talk about civilians being effected. Besides another benifet to doing civilian is you can switch from French, Belgian, German whatever, with very little effort. ( Ok the Eastern Civilians might take a little more effort, I don't think the typical Romanian farmer looked like a Belgian one!) but you get what I mean.

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I think it is the impressions such as these that bring out the guys really and truly into the HISTORY of the war and the people caught up in it. ( Civilian and military) Not just the shoot and scoot stuff, which is fun in its own right but this gives us the opportunity to get something more out of it. Of course being a hobby folks can do whatever they damn well please as long as they enjoy it, and have their own reasons for doing it. We all get out of this hobby what we are willing to put into it, I will leave that up to the individual

But I do hope that in the future more will be doing these things as the BoB stuff gets old and weeded out. Can you imagine a time when  we actually are needing Airborne or commando or WSS Para or Himmler's Chauffeur Death Stosstruppen or you name it. I really think that in the future more will be picking up alternative impressions, either leg infantry or common Landser or other nations.....Yeah I know it will never happen but I can dream can't I!? 


So as the Romanian Farmer would say "Pe cur?nd!"

Lee

[atlanticwallblanks]

Russian - Many still have the cold war in their minds and it even took me a while to don the uniform. Recent events from their idiot leader don't help.  We did Russian for a year. When the local Russian units treated us like crap I threw it in the trash as with the rest of the unit.  Bought a whole new set recently and trashed it again.  Rabid activism on the part of a small number of these reenactors turned me off to it for good.  I am not the only one to see this I am sure.

I'm sure of it too. People can just be wieners. BTW, next time you're gonna trash your kit, send it to ME. I'll give it a good home 

The first uniform set looked like a Modern Cuban military set.  Don;t know how they passed it off as Russian.  If I grew a beard i would have looked like a short Castro.

The second set was all original and less than $80.  I mentioned it to a guy at an event.  He followed me home 4 hours just to help me dig through the trash to pick it out! He earned it

As for the Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian impressions, they are not what the cool kids are doing so I don't ever see them taking off.  Don't get me wrong, I would like to see more of these units, but it isn't the "in" thing.

Who says the "cool kids" are cool?
[/quote]


Touche' 

Robb
The first uniform set looked like a Modern Cuban military set.  Don;t know how they passed it off as Russian.  If I grew a beard i would have looked like a short Castro.

The second set was all original and less than $80.  I mentioned it to a guy at an event.  He followed me home 4 hours just to help me dig through the trash to pick it out! He earned it

[Antonescu]

That's Marsh and them asking about the Russian stuff. My wife would kill me if I put on anything communist.

[atlanticwallblanks]

That's Marsh and them asking about the Russian stuff. My wife would kill me if I put on anything communist.

It did feel dirty 


Actually, when I came out of the room with the uniform on the first time I asked openly if I looked like an evil commie ready to destroy democracy.  My unit commanders 87 year old mother in law said "you look like a dumb arse and your luck I don't shoot you now myself".  Owned!

Robb

[Antonescu]

You better not go back there for sure or if my wife see's it will lose it like she did at Union Square when some NYU student had a pro-communist t-shirt on.

[prgeyer]

I know this is late, but it's relevant.  Schipper is now actually making the Romanian uniforms.  All you gotta do is send him the money, and you too can do an "alternate" impression. 

To tell the truth, "alternate" impressions are even more fun than so-called standard impressions.  Of course, for me, the fun is the hunt for the stuff.  Getting to wear it at an event is just icing on the cake.

So far, my "alternate" impressions are:
1939 German infantry (the stuff is relatively easy to find, if you know what to look for, and are willing to dig around.  it's also a lot more different from '44-45 stuff than most realize)
1939 Polish infantry (Schipper and Armia can kit you out with about 80% of what you need)
1940 British infantry (relatively easy and relatively inexpensive if you look around)
1942 Romanian infantry (just starting out)

I'd love to do 1940 Dutch.  I think that's a really cool impression, even though some events would last longer than the actual period of combat. 

The trick is, nobody will make/sell the stuff if nobody asks for it.  Major kudos to Rob Haught for propelling Romanian forward.  He wanted Romanian to happen, so he made Romanian happen.  I am trying to push 39/40 German specifically, and early-war impressions and events in general without much luck.  Fortunately for all of us concerned, Rob has a lot more energy than I do.

[Antonescu]

Peter,

Thanks but want to see other impressions represented. Tossing the idea of getting Bulgarian together since the only other person I know who does it is Rick Keister. Maybe try to get early war German gear for early SS impression though plus maybe even Hungarian.

[prgeyer]

Hungarian and Bulgarian are very cool impressions.  Believe me, if I had the cash, I'd try to do all of them.

SS-VT is also a fascinating, and largely undone, impression.  LB has the Bluse.  ATF has most of the insignia.  1944 occasionally has the caps.  You can get reconditioned transitional helmets from German Helmets Inc. and have it painted with the correct paint and decals from Grigsby (which would also be good for 39-40 Heer as well, depending on unit).  Most of the rest is just early/pre war Heer stuff.  I've been trying to talk some of my SS buddies into doing this impression.  While they're interested, they're reluctant until there's more early-war events.

Getting back to Romanian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, and early Italian, the nice thing is you can just attend regular eastern front events which seem to be getting more common.

[Antonescu]

Well, some of the gentlemen I know who do GI say no to Commie items and then there are those who do not get it (they say Nazi yes but Commie no! ).

For me I have SS mid/late war (wouldn't mind putting together the early war for 4th SS) and Romanian 42-45. Looking at adding Hungarian (should go over well in my wife's family  ) 44/45 and Bulgarian within the year since I am starting to find items for those impressions now.

It seems that those who do German as their primary impression are the ones' who also have the most secondary impressions. With the numbers that do GI it would be nice to see them break out and add an East Front impression as well.

Starting to see more and more East Front events though not viewable by the public and not as many as France 44/ Germany 45 events. Like I said, maybe talk to the western Allies to get them involved and to reach out to the ethnic communities. I just emailed three Romanian groups and getting ready to contact a fourth plus send a letter to the king informing them of what we do and that we would gladly like to see members of the community attend living history events and to even come out and reenact. Has anyone else contacted members/organizations of the ethnic groups they portray?

[Sturmkatze]

I'm all for just doing Ostfront and having all Germans just boycott/ignore Westfront stuff for awhile... let the Amis see how it is to play by themselves :-0 I feel for the Brits, but there don't seem that many of them anymore... Let's all support the Soviet reenactors and maybe eventually, well get some really good reenactors (and we know Eastern Front reenactors TAKE hits)...
~M.