Sunday, 30 March 2008

15th International Brigade Photos Online

If you are a SCW buff like me, you are probably equally tired of seeing the same hackneyed photos of International Brigaders appear again and again in SCW books.

Well all of that changes as of today. The 15th International Brigade Photographic Unit Photograph Collection spans the period from August 1937 to September 1938 and contains 1,832 black and white images taken by members of the Photographic Unit of the 15th International Brigade. It's a treasure trove of largely untapped high quality photographs, hundreds of which can be found online here:


15th International Brigade Photographic Unit Photograph Collection

Some assumptions that have been held as truths for decades are going to have to be re-written. For instance, throughout the pics we see not the hackneyed Degtyarev DP1928 LMG, beloved of every range of SCW figures in production, but instead the Maksim-Tokarev MT1926. Note on picture 11_0735s how the round pannier is not mounted below the weapon and this may well be how they used it in combat to prevent jamming. The same photo also illustrates the very diverse nature of the International Brigades' uniforms and personal equipment within the same squad, as described so vividly in Alvah Bessie's 'Men in Battle'.

The Maksim-Tokarev MT1926 appear again in numbers in photo 11_0990, which is captioned as the Brigade Machine-gun Company. Possibly the Abraham-Lincolns MG Company? Note there are only 3 Maxim M1910 MMG's and the other 7 weapons are all Maksim-Tokarev MT1926s.

Other photos show battlefields, camp scenes, entrenchements and defences. It is a fascinating and in places very intimate study of the XVth International Brigade at war.

This is superb source material for every SCW gamer!

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