Pat McGrath shares with us his build review of one of JEKREI minitures new british figures.

thanks Pat




British Desert Tanker

If you have comments or questions please post them here.

Thanks!

Hi Pat,

Thanks for the informative and interesting review.

Just one comment though. You refer to the shorts as Bombay Bloomers. From what I can see the figure wears KD Shorts and not Bombay Bloomers, which are something different. The 'bloomers' were a pattern with legs which turnd and buttoned up at the bottom, to form rather voluminous shorts, but could be turned down over the lower leg and confined when required. Fair enough he may have cut them shorter as was the practice, but then he probably would have needed a second belt to support them...

Once again, nice review. Thanks.

Rudi

Thanks Rudi,
my reference British Eighth Army North Africa 1940-43 by Brian Adair in the old Key Uniform Guide series edited by Brian L Davis for Arms and Armour Press ,which makes no distinction between KD shorts and Bombay Bloomers.

Hi Pat,

My reference was Osprey's "The British Army 1939-45(2) ME & Med", where the distinction is made between KD Shorts and 'bloomers'.




I'm sure I've also read that they were originally manufactured in India, so I would imagine they would have predominantly have been issued to infantry that were stationed there prior to the outbreak.

But the KD shorts themselves also had a fairly full cut, so could also have looked baggy at times. "WWII Infantry in Colour Photographs" by Laurent Mirouze has a very nice picture of an NCO of the 50th Division on page 18/19 in NA in the spring of '42 which shows this well.

HTH

Rudi

I did wonder about it as from photos there look to be shorts of various styles and cuts but I just put it down to different manufacturers.

Hi Pat,

Thanks for the review. Another very useful figure form Jakeri and well pointed out about his versitility.

I think Rudi has it right on the shorts. To the best of my knowledge there were several styles and the 'Bombay Bloomers' would have been more common in infantry line regiments whereas KD shorts would have been worn by the tankers.

As Rudi says the Osprey book gives some good reference pics on the order of dress for the Middle East and Mediterranean theatre of ops.

Al