The task of finding information on the current French army was (and is) an incredible pain in the ass. Starting off, most of the online information doesn't come from the most reliable sources... assuming it's sourced at all. Large amounts of the information online is now also largely out of date. Which, I can understand as there probably isn't a massive demand for the information. At least not in English. I managed to find a decent amount of books and historical "specials" that feature the various French military forces. Again, most of this information is from before the 90's. I went as far as purchasing books in French (thank God for Google translate) to aid my cause. One book in particular, VEHICULES DE COMBAT FRANCAIS D'AUJOURD'HUI by Yves Debay would be one of the best purchases. Published in 1998, it's now over two decades old, but has a lot of detailed information that I was unable to locate anywhere else.
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| Some of the better books I found. |
The primary goal of building my modern French force was to wargame the various interventions that France has engaged in. While there are many books on these engagements, few are written with the wargamer in mind. SO, I have tried to do the best with what I could find. If anything is incorrect, feel free to tell me. It might be too late to do anything about it at this point (I've already built and painted the army), but I do appreciate any help.
Eventually it dawned on me to use social media options to find some sources. I began following many Instagram accounts dedicated to or actually the official accounts of the French armed forces. Many of these accounts don't provide a lot of insight beyond the pictures themselves. But I used these pictures to really look at the load-outs and gear infantry carry. Pictures of uniforms and camouflage patterns on vehicles. If you're looking for military pictures without a million watermarks all over them, there are a lot of top-notch Instagram accounts worth looking into.
My army fits into the 1985-2015 area on the table mostly because that's what models are available. I'm also aided in that I designed this as a overseas quick reaction force, where things like tanks and the AMX 10P were/are not used. This is where those IG accounts really came in handy. Being able to see recent (which at times can be minutes old) pictures from these theaters, there is a lot of older equipment still in use. I can, without stretching too far, place my army into any year dating all the way up to right this second.
Some of the constants throughout this force are that the models all come from QRF Miniatures, Irishserb's Miniatures, Peter Pig, Battlefront Miniatures and Italeri. I'll be sure to point out which are from where when I spotlight the army.
With the exception of the general craft store acrylic paints, the majority of the force is painted with the Mig Jimenez Modern French Armed Forces Colors paint set. Not having to fret over finding a "close enough" color from the local craft store was a major relief. Plus, the French green in the camo is very distinct. It's markedly brighter than what you see from the standard NATO green and still maintains it's "pop" even after deployment.
Parade fresh
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| Still poppin' |
The rules I use have changed since the inception of my army. (a modified version of TW&T by Too Fat Lardies to the new Spectre Operations) The emphasis has shifted downward from a fire-team based game to an individual skirmish game. The individual load-out of the troops and vehicles matter much more than it did at first, but I'm still limited by what is available on the market.
So far we have played one game with under the new rules, which can be found here: French Intervention in Central Africa
Next we'll breakdown the different components and some details of the force.
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