My eventual plan (as soon as I get all the materials) is to have a group of various NCO's travel in one vehicle being stopped at an MP checkpoint. My Eduard set has five shoulder patches for the 2nd Infantry Division, but the diorama requires more figures. Can I realistically have soldiers of multiple divisions within a group of NCO's, or will I need to but a second Eduard set? Thanks.

Tom: it would have been uncommon for men of different divisons to be in one vehical, esp at the NCO level. That not say ic could not have happened. One answer is the closer a soldier works towards the front the less ID he would wear. ie.. division patch, rank ect.. I'm not an expert on these things just rembering getting chewed out fir not wearring my Lt bars during war games in the Army. good luck and there is no right or wrong to your question.

How about making the unbadged NCOs replacements who haven't had time to sew on their insignia - being 'initiated' by the old sweats?

David

Good idea.

Incidentally having read Bill Maudlin's book Up Front, I noticed that his drawings depicted soldiers with stripes but no divisional insignia (unless he deliberately decided not to put them in, for artistic or regulation reasons). In the text he complained how the Army forced NCO's to wear stripes and not conceal them, despite the fact that this would make the NCO's an easy target for enemy snipers who deliberately targeted officers.

Bill Mauldin wanted Willie and Joe, his primary characters, to be "every soldier." His cartoons were carried by Stars and Stripes, and were seen throughout the ETO and MTO. Specifying his soldiers to one division just wasn't in his plan. I think that you should just start looking at photos of NCOs from your division. Some were sticklers for wearing patches, especially if it was a 3rd Army outfit. Many troopers of the 101st AB were upset when they were told, as they went to Bastogne, to remove their screaming eagles. In fact, an idea comes to mind, one of the resin companies made a small vignette with an angry Patton storming off after chewing out some GIs, maybe he could be yelling at your NCOs for being "out of uniform."

John

I just noticed that you are making them for the 2nd Division (one of my Dad's old outfits (post war though). Archers makes a set for the 2nd Division.

John

OK, my plan, an idea I had for years but didn't know how to successfully implement before I discovered the Eduard US insignia set, was to illustrate a scene resulting from Operation Grief during the Battle of the Bulge.

This was an attempt led by Otto Skorzeny to infiltrate American lines and cause sabotage and spread confusion, and it did accomplish partial success when a German team in American uniforms were discovered and captured, and told of their plans. This spread a panic among the American forces, who feared anyone in an American uniform, even senior officers, might be disguised German infiltrators.

Thus the scene: a group of senior NCO's are in a BEEP, and a lower ranking MP harshly interrogates them to make sure they know things only an American would know, e. g. who was Dick Tracy's wife, etc. Because of the panic, nobody is truly sure who may or may not be a German infiltrator-it might even be the MP. (This was taken from the book about Otto Skorzeny Commando Extraordinary.) Senior NCO's have the advantage of being readily identifiable as authority figures with all their big stripes.

I'll probably go ahead and get the second Eduard set, to make things easier.

Tom -

You might consider insignia of a higher headquarters that the 2nd Div. was attached to. Corp or Army. It might be more logical for a jeep would contain NCO's from the 2nd carrying along a sergeant from Corp Hqtrs.

just a thought,
Steve