I have been working on my Middle East project, specifically the Arabs at the moment. With the limited number of figures available I will be using 19th century Mahdist/Ansar figures which has sparked an interest in the Wars in the Sudan and other British colonial affairs. The variety of units makes it a very colorful period and looks to be a lot of fun to paint and play but what it has done is dampened my enthusiasm for my Turks. The Turks generally come in two flavors, regulars or Arab. Both wore the same uniform with the Arabs donning a keffiyeh instead of the kabalak. They did have cavalry and even a Camel Corp but generally it was foot sloggers with some HMGs and Artillery. Nothing really fancy or flashy, not that you have to have that to have good troops but it sure does help motivation when painting. You can add some German support if gaming Palestine 1918 but no one makes any 15mm figures for them. I have looked at some Peter Pig EW British to modify. They really did not have any air support so that is out. There are pictures and documents that discuss Stoss troops but that again is Palestine and there uniform is the same just with a Turkish version of the German M1916 Stahlhelm. 
They fought on a number of fronts, so your opponents can be varied but Johnny Turk stays the same. I know I should just buck up and get at them since I only have one infantry platoon, one 10.5 How and some limbers and then they can hit the gaming table but it seems like taking medicine to do so. I have been reading "In the Clouds Above Baghdad" by M.C. Lt Col J. E. Tennant. It discusses the war in Mesopotamia with a focus on the air operations. It gives a variety of possible wargame scenarios but sadly nothing to increase the motivation. Hopefully when I finish some Arabs I will move to the Turks and finish them.
1 comment:
I respectfully beg to differ, sir. In Palestine and the Hejaz fronts the Turks had good air support in the form of very modern planes flown by (mostly) German pilots. In fact, as I understand it, until the Se-5s and the Bristol F2s showed up the Brits were outclassed (though definitely not out numbered)by their German opponents. I'll see if I can find any references on the web. Also if you need more "color" I suggest the following: Circassian Cavalry (just use Caucasian Cossacks, they looked exactly the same), Kurdish Cavalry (use Bashi Bazouks from the Sudan wars), and Somali volunteers (they were actually only found on the Aden/ Yemen front but it's no real stretch to move them to the Hejaz, use Fuzzys).
yours
Scott Pasha
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