Another small stash of these WW1 early peaked cap grenade throwers that make such good snowballers.
These are metal recasts or home castings, without hollowcast vent holes that came from an online eBay seller downsizing his late father’s collection.
Previously I have bought soft lead recasts and repainted them as WW1 soldiers snowballing behind the lines.
I am looking forward to working on more of these rough vintage home cast figures of WW1 grenade throwers (copied from originals by John Hill / Johillco) to make another team khaki WW1 snowballers of them all.
I found some great silent film on the BFI from 1916 of British troops at home snowballing near their training camp in ‘London’.
Despite it being February 1916, the year of The Somme, it’s a joyous bit of film, staged high jinks fi4 the camera including pelting some well wrapped young ladies mixed up in the snowball fight.
https://manoftinblogtwo.wordpress.com/2025/01/12/london-under-snow-1916-snowball-fight-film-footage/
This gave me an idea for how to paint the khaki snowballers.
This leaves me some tatty blue coated versions (good enough to keep old paint scheme) that may become Germanic or Teutonic types, and enough new figures to paint in red-jackets.
This will give me three teams of khaki, blue and red.
More snowy sled and snowball action from British Pathe WW1
Further snow action Hampstead Heath British Pathe
BFI: “Lovely footage of soldiers in overcoats having fun in the snow. Several shots of them sliding down a small hill on sledges (sleds) in pairs and singly. Looks like good fun! There are also some women and children further down the slope throwing snowballs at each other and the men on the sledges.”
This British Pathe newsreel shows wounded soldiers in their ‘convalescent blue’ hospital uniforms in a snowball fight with their nurses, unknown location:
Obviously my WW1 soldier figures do not have greatcoats and I do not have nurses figures easily available in 54mm, especially in greatcoats.
I might have the odd spare figure to paint in ‘hospital blues’.
https://www.qaranc.co.uk/Army-Hospital-Blues-Uniform-WW1.php
Blog posted by Mark Man of TIN, 15 March 2026
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