I have purchased a set of CW Chasseurs d'Afrique to use in my early WW1 French army. But the conversion is still on my 'to do' list.

There is one other change to note. North African troops, including the Chasseurs d'Afrique, wore a red cummerbund (a broad piece of cloth around the waist.) On most of the Strelets figures the cummberbund is hidden by equipment, but it can be seen on some.

French recruited cavalry (hussars, dragoons and so on) did not wear the cummerbund. Strictly speaking you should remove the cummerbund from the figures, but painting over it will probably hide it well enough.

Thank you for the reply. You convinced me to buy the set for WW1. I'll probably start working on it in 2024

Dear Dauvit and Petrovici

I have done some as Crimean war figures with head swaps etc. I will send pics in to Strelets. The figures are a bit too heavily bearded for WWI.

My sources would indicate they wore riding boots rather than the waterproofed trousers (lower leg waterproofed) or they could be painted with the baggy trousers outside the boots.In certain settings they may be seen in the off-white baggy fatigue trousers. It seems most wore red breeches as these naturally tucked better into the riding boots. The hats had a light khaki cover or they could wear the chechia. A brigadier* (not to be confused with the English brigadier) in late 1914 has puttees, shoes, red breeches, hat with cover, basically the top half is similar to the CW figure.
source - Andre Jouineau, French Army 1914 and French Army 1918 (1915-18)
Dauvit is right the cummerbund is red.
Once you have mastered the conversion to a WWI Chasseur D'A a Chasseur a Cheval could be tried.

In these few months of 1914 the French had so many variations of uniform. An interesting period but difficult for those who want to be authentic.

David

* two small yellow stripes on both arms at the point of the cuff on this late 1914 version.

Dear D&P



David

David - thank you for the inspirational pictures

Dear Dauvit

Thanks

The message above in a different thread tells briefly how I converted the human figures.
The horses also have head swaps, harness and Green Stuff additions.
My intention was to come up with a group on picket duty or as vedettes.
I did not use a camera I used a flat bed scanner. The only problem with this is that you can only do side views and it has limited depth of field. The positive is it is very quick and the colour is very good.
It does show to those who have not bought this set that these Ch d'A have nice baggy pants and they could easily go in a North African setting.


David