Sgt. Saunders from COMBAT!

Both are pretty nice... A few flaws, but not too bad..

I loved watching Combat! back in the day...  I taped a few episodes when it was on regularly on the Movieplex channel...

 

Yeah, "Combat!" and the never empty Tommy gun. Despite that, I too, enjoyed it, along with "Rat Patrol" wherein 4 guys in two jeeps defeated Rommel and the Afrika Korps! (It did engender in me a life long love of the bush jacket, though.)

Oh yeah! Combat! rocks! Then there was always the cowardly flake for the guest star... They look good, but as the guy said, the grip on the BAR is HUGE and Saunders usually carried his Tompson but the maing grip itself, not the stock. The face though is very well done.

 That does look like Vic Morrow. If I thought I could do it justice, I'd love to get one of those.

 I love Combat. I watched the whole series on DVD last year (Netflix). It really had some good stories in there. Not all of them, but some were real gold. A lot of big name guest stars too, although they may not have been at the time.

 On one of the DVD commentaries they mentioned how Rick Jason was supposed to get a Thompson too. He lifted it up and said, I'm not carrying that &%$@ thing around (they are pretty heavy), so that have him the little 5lb carbine. Probably more realistic that way anyway.

 

 

 

As a kid, I would not miss a single episode of Combat when it came on the evenings. I remember one particular episode where Little John takes one shot at a large tree and 3 or 4 Germans fell down dead! I could swear that Saunders did not carry a Tommy in the first episodes, but then its been 40+ years. As I recall, Chip carried the Thompson by the pistol grip, kind of sideways and pointing down.

ajlafleche wrote:

Yeah, "Combat!" and the never empty Tommy gun. Despite that, I too, enjoyed it, along with "Rat Patrol" wherein 4 guys in two jeeps defeated Rommel and the Afrika Korps! (It did engender in me a life long love of the bush jacket, though.)

Loved Rat Patrol and Combat when I was a kid.  Still got one of the books from 1972.

Shame about Vic Morrow.  Died before his time.  Same as Bob Crane from Hogans Heroes.

 

"Rat Patrol" wherein 4 guys in two jeeps defeated Rommel and the Afrika Korps! " border="0" width="15" height="15" /> (It did engender in me a life long love of the bush jacket, though.)

I was the same way with Chris George's Aussie hat...

Army had the net or no cover at all. Marines had the greenside/brown side cover. Am I right?

Partly... You're correct about helmet nets and and Marine "Beach" Camo, but Saunders' helmet is actually a piece of camoflage-patterned cargo 'chute.  After D-day, a lot of GIs cut pieces of that material for covers if they ran across the Airborne's drop zones...

It's easy to tell the difference.. The covers had a seam going over the top of the helmet and the parachute pieces were just squares that were tucked in under the steel.

agentg wrote:

Can't recall but I believe Sgt Saunders did not have a helmet cover like that. Army had the net or no cover at all. Marines had the greenside/brown side cover. Am I right?

I thought that too, but here's evidence the sculptor/painter did their homework:

agentg wrote:

Can't recall but I believe Sgt Saunders did not have a helmet cover like that. Army had the net or no cover at all. Marines had the greenside/brown side cover. Am I right?

That camo helmet was sort of a Sgt Saunders trademark. There was only one early episode where he had a plain helmet.

Hans von Hammer wrote:

... Saunders' helmet is actually a piece of camoflage-patterned cargo 'chute.  After D-day, a lot of GIs cut pieces of that material for covers if they ran across the Airborne's drop zones...

that's interesting trivia. I never knew that. I just assumed the camo helmet was artist liberty by the writers and prop men.

plastickjunkie wrote:

I could swear that Saunders did not carry a Tommy in the first episodes, but then its been 40+ years.

Maybe you're thinking of Kirby (Jack Hogan). He carried an M1 garand in the first episodes (maybe the whole 1st season), but then later carried the BAR.

 I can't remember Saunders carrying anything but a Thompson and a .45 sidearm.

dmk

You are right,  Kirby was not the BAR man in the first episodes, thats how I got them confused.

In the very first episode, Saunders carries an M1. I just saw it with my dad the other day as he has the whole series. (Be jealous! ) We've been skipping around recently with episodes, but now we have been going in order. If i'm correct, I believe Sgt.s and above carried Tompsons. But leiutenants (forgive zee spelling) carried rifles and carbines because german snipers usually went for the guy with the tompson. Not sure if that is true or not. I think Saunders gets his Tompson in the next 2 episodes.

Boba Fett wrote:

If i'm correct, I believe Sgt.s and above carried Tompsons. But leiutenants (forgive zee spelling) carried rifles and carbines because german snipers usually went for the guy with the tompson. Not sure if that is true or not. I think Saunders gets his Tompson in the next 2 episodes.

I don't know if there is any truth to that. A carbine could ID you as an NCO or officer too, as would a pistol holster hanging on your hip.  Basically, the carbine was supposed to be issued to anyone who's primary job was not to attack the enemy personally (which would include officers and NCOs, but also truck drivers and cooks). It was intended to be a self defense weapon. Not sure who was supposed to get Thompsons and Grease Guns(M3), but I'm sure it was also related to their primary job, not rank. However, in reality some guys preferred the Carbine because it was light, and some preferred the subguns because of their close range firepower. Rank and seniority probably did play a role as to who got the guns that became available in the field. I've heard anecdotes about Thompsons and any handguns available getting passed down through many men as the guys who carried them got killed or wounded and shipped out.

 As far as snipers picking their targets, I've heard a lot of vets talk about that. Officers and NCOs often removed their rank for this reason. They also tried not to be the guy standing next to the radioman whenever it wasn't necessary.  I've heard more than one BAR gunner say that when they opened up, the enemy tried to shift as much fire to them as possible. I'm sure snipers considered them a prime target as well.

 

 

With Saunder's helmet, didn't the 2nd Infantry Division experiment with that type of camo pattern? I did see a comment somewhere that their unit was supposed to be part of the 2nd ID. There was also mentioned that Saunder's brother was a Marine fighting in the Pacific.

Kirby had to earn the BAR. There is a ongoing sub story in the first season where Saunder's doesn't like Kirby's cockiness, and punishes him by denying him the BAR. Usually Saunders gave it to the new men (guest stars). It takes most of the season before he finally gets it. I think as well the whole squad make up was in flux in the first season. Few of the original squad in the first episodes became permanent members, Cage was one that I could think of. Doc was intermittant, first belonging to either battalion or company HQ and not as a medic.

NCO's (squad/platoon leaders) usually held the smg, while the BAR was considered the platoon's light machine gun.

Mike T.

You talkin' aout the camouflage "Zoot Suits"? They were taken out of the system almost immediately after D-Day because GIs wearing them were getting mistaken for Waffen-SS and shot by other GIs...

As for specific units, like I said, the parasilk covers were used by individual Soldiers from about every unit that came through Normandy, and even some in Italy...

As you can see, the parasilk is much "greener" than the USMC's "Beach" pattern camo-covers. 

1st ID:

2nd Rangers:

82 ABN:

90th ID (There several Soldiers wearing the parasilk under the netting):

And the 9th ID:

Back in '96 or so, I was helping a rigger friend clearing out some old training 'chutes from his cache of junk, and he gave me a 40' cargo chute in that camo pattern (got a full MC-1 rig as well, packed and inspected, complete with jump log, too)... Later on that year, I was at a WW2 Event (as a German) and made a killing offa the GIs, selling them a 3 x3 ft square for 15.00 a pop... 

 

 

 

 

A few regular Army units were issued the M1943 camouflage uniform for D-Day, but they were quickly withdrawn owing to their resemblance to the Waffen SS camouflage in Normandy. The standard issue M1943 camouflage uniform included a blouse as well as pants, and the rejected ones were most probably sent to the Pacific and handed down to the Marines. There are three colors in the uniform including one brownish-tan tone and two shades of green, so Saunder's is unlikely to have been cut apart camouflage silk from a parachute, which had only green tones. You can watch Braddock (Shecky Greene) wearing the pants from this uniform in some of the earlier COMBAT episodes (though not in the D-Day episode). However Braddock got hold of his uniform is presumably the same way Sgt. Saunders obtained the camouflage cover for his helmet. Vic Morrow I'm sure got his cover ( no doubt in order to stand out from the rest of the cast) either from the property master (most likely) or the costume department at MGM.

I had that model too!

I bought it just as I was beginning to notice a different, softer version of "model"!

I got one Jeep assembled and totally lost interest. It was trashed when my parents moved when I was away at college.

 

Hans von Hammer is right.  The camouflage cover actor Vic Morrow wore on his helmet as Sgt. Saunders on the "Combat!" TV show was a piece of a U.S. paratrooper's nylon T-5 main parachute canopy (not a "cargo" chute), several thousand of which were lying around Normandy in the weeks after the D-day invasion.  The camouflaged T-5 main canopies were three shades of green -- a light green background covered with irregular medium and dark green blotches.

Sgt. Saunders cover was most definitely not a Marine Corps cloth cover.  Find a color photo of a WWII camouflaged parachute canopy and compare it to a color photo of Vic Morrow's "Combat!" helmet cover -- they're the same.