Many thanks there Ian, the health ups and downs have been slowing me up lately but finally, here's the next part!
I’ve made countless model soldiers throughout the years from 1/72 scale through 1/35 to 1/24 scale. I’ve glued them together and painted them up but until now I’ve never really understood how the belts and straps moulded on them were actually fitted together. Now that I’m creating a scratch built figure in 1/6th scale I’m going to have to find out what all those bits and pieces actually do in order to re-create them in miniature.
Photo 1 shows the excellent reference book I found on the web to help build my 1/6th scale webbing. This is
British Web Equipment of the two World Wars by
Martin J Brayley (like it says on the cover!

) I say excellent because if you want really detailed photos of every piece of British Military Web Equipment with details and descriptions, this is the one to get. Unfortunately, as with many great reference books on military things, when it comes to trying to make miniature representations there’s one thing missing – the actual ruddy dimensions of the stuff! So, over the last few months, piece by piece, I’ve been acquiring the real thing off ebay. All this stuff used to be as common as muck in all the old army surplus stores and could be picked up really cheaply. Not any more though, the Second World War is now a ‘Collector’s Era’ and the price has gone through the roof! Look long enough though and you can still pick up some good bargains at a reasonable price. So far I’ve got hold of a pair of braces, the main supporting belt, a great condition water bottle and straps, a bayonet frog and three basic ammo pouches (these were all RAF blue ones as they’re much cheaper!) All of these items can now be used to obtain the full measurements required to create the 1/6th versions required for the figure. Essentially, the webbing set is a harness, consisting of a waist belt to which are attached a pair of braces. Unlike normal braces however, they are only attached to the rear of the belt, they are not attached to the front, instead being attached to the rear of either small cartridge carriers (similar to the 1908 Pattern carriers used in the Great War) or either to the larger ‘
Basic Ammunition Pouch’ so iconic of the WW2 Tommy, more on them later. It is the cartridge carriers or the basic pouch, which are actually attached to the belt at the front.
To begin the set I’ll be starting off with the pair of braces which carry the weight of the full set of equipment on poor Tommy’s shoulders.
Photo 2 illustrates one of those braces, I’ve had to photograph it ‘folded up’ unfortunately as it’s just too darned long to get it out straight and still be close enough to see the details! For those interested in the dimensions, they are as follows: the lengths in brackets are the 1/6th scale measurements:
Length of wide shoulder pad: 12” / 305mm (48.8mm)
Width of shoulder pad: 2 and 1/10” / 54mm (8.6mm)
Length of straps: 20” / 508mm (81.2mm)
Width of straps: 1” / 26mm (4.1mm)
Photo 3 shows the stitched on strap attached to both ends of the shoulder pad, in this example the ends of the pad are folded in and stitched down to produce the triangular end shape, other manufacturers used slightly different methods during the war. If you look again at
Photo 2 you can see a ‘loop’ stitched onto the top strap, this is shown in close up in
Photo 4. This is where the two braces cross over the back and, should only be found on
one of the two braces. In actual fact my set has both braces with a loop so I’ve actually got two of the same side – still, it’s far better having two with loops than two without!
Photo 5 is a close up of the two ends of the straps illustrating the brass strap ends. These are of high quality brass secured by rivets as shown here. The idea was that the brass should be allowed to tarnish, the verdigris oxidation layer turning it a camouflaged green. However, right up to the declaration of war, the Sgt. Majors insisted on having many hours spent polishing up the brass until it was gleaming (and a dead give-a-way under fire!)
Photo 6 is a close up of the under side of the shoulder pad – strap joint. In all these photos, the one thing that stands out is the heavy weave appearance of the webbing. In order to reproduce this in 1/6th scale, how to get that effect in miniature would be the first thing to sort out.
After trying out various means of obtaining that woven effect I finally had a brainwave. Measuring the full sized weave I found that there were eleven stitches to the inch. Reducing this to 1/6th would give me sixty six stitches to the inch. As I was ordering a sheet of stainless steel mesh to repair our broken veg steamer I realised that the same small sheet of mesh was available in sixty mesh size (60 grids to the inch). That was close enough, in full size that was only one stitch short,
Photo 7 shows that small sheet with the thin strip I subsequently cut off it to make it easier to handle.
Photo 8 is a close up showing the individual strips in the mesh and
Photo 9 is the first trial run to create the scaled down webbing. The webbing is made from 9mm wide
DecraLed lead strip, folded to double thickness. The steel mesh strip was placed over the top of the lead and rolled down using an aluminium knife handle to imprint the mesh into the soft metal. This trial piece also has stitches down the sides using a pounce wheel. The shoulder pads are shown under way in
Photo 10, the pads are 48mm in length and 8.6mm in width. The lower example has had it’s corners folded in as per the original and the centre of the folds are covered up by the addition of the straps, the first one having been super glued in place in
Photo 11 (with sewing needle ‘stitches’ added afterwards). The knife handle ‘rolling pin’ worked ok, but I thought there must be a more efficient tool to do this with. I tried a plastic wallpaper edging roller but found the drum wasn’t hard enough to get a good impression with, but then, looking on ebay for rollers I found a solid aluminium alternative. This brilliant tool is shown in
Photo 12 but be aware – whilst this one can be found for about £8 or so, there is another which looks very similar for a couple of pound less but has a much thinner arm attaching the roller to the handle – fine for wallpaper but I think a little too thin for the pressures needed here. Finally in
Photo 13 we have the finished braces. One of the straps has stitching on the end but ignore that, the ends will be cut off when the braces are fitted to the figure and new ends will be made with the brass tips, which will be attached to the water bottle.
In the next instalment, working out the waist belt (which is a lot bigger and far more complicated!)
Until then, Happy Modelling to you All!
Robin.
Plymouth57 attached the following image(s):
First wooden ship:
The Grimsby 12 Gun 'Frigate' by Constructo Second:
Bounty DelPrado Part Works Third:
HMS Victory DelPrado Part Works 1/100 scale
Diorama of the Battle of the Brandywine from the American Revolutionary War Diorama of the Battle of New Falkland (unfinished sci-fi), Great War Centenary Diorama of the Messines Ridge Assault
Index for the Victory diary is on page 1