Union of South Africa

**Sogdog** · April 23, 2012, 05:24 AM

This is looking like a great mod! A good reason to start playing ETW again. The models are brilliant, they do a lot to capture the uniforms of the day! I also noticed that Great Britain has a few colonial troops (Oz, Nigeria and India for example) you forgot to add the South African troops. At the time SA was part of the Empire, as the Union of South Africa. The Boers had just been defeated and the Boer Republics incorporated into the Union of SA. The Brits learned some hard lessons fighting a very determined and unconventional enemy. In fact, if Britian didn't have its colonies to call on they most probably would have lost the 2nd Anglo-Boer War. The South African troops also proved their worth in the battle of Deville Woods. We lost an entire battalion there but they won that battle.

So I think it would be a good idea to include South African troops in the Great Britain roster.
Sorry for asking so late in the day.

**PunitorMaximus** · April 23, 2012, 10:23 AM

of course! did they wear special uniforms?
i think that the british empire would have completely failed in ww1 if they didnt fight against the boers!
they learned nearly everything concerning camouflage, tactics(hiding, covering...) and so on in the boer wars.
it was a shock for the rank-firing and red-white-blue clothed brits to get killed by an invisible enemy. they had to completely rework their fighing tactics.
the khaki used in ww1 was very similar to the boers peasant clothes colour....

if the SA had a special uniform, would you please post all SA unit types plus colour pics (or colour examples, e.g. "similar to the canadian brown") and a short discription of the unit (function, mounted?, weapons, regiment numbers, etc).
naturally only if you want to

thx in advance!

**Sogdog** · April 23, 2012, 02:00 PM

Sure. I am a South African, so I am stoked you are going to include them. I am away on business from tomorrow until 6th May. When I get back I will look into it!

**Sogdog** · April 23, 2012, 02:19 PM

http://www.landships.freeservers.com...w1uniforms.htm

Here is something I dug up. Unfortunately their uniforms were the same as the British ones. It only chnaged in WW2.

**PunitorMaximus** · April 23, 2012, 02:24 PM

any differences?
boer units?
we already got some zulu units. juss african guys with SA peasant clothes (hats, jackets, throuseres)

**Sogdog** · April 23, 2012, 03:10 PM

No difference in the Boer vs English units. Any Boer that did fight was dressed the same as the British. By this time the Boers hated the Brits and were not prepared to fight their wars. It got so bad that by the time WW2 started many boers went to German South West Africa to join the Germans against the Brits!

**PunitorMaximus** · April 23, 2012, 03:28 PM

oh, so no special SA units, except the zulu native mercenairies...

**Sogdog** · April 24, 2012, 03:53 AM

There were also some Rhodesian units. Not too sure if they had any different kits either.

Some more info on the different SA brigades
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Inf..._(South_Africa)