Dearest Olafson,
The 21eme is not required to listen to keyboard warriors. We welcome constructive criticism with pleasure face to face. Over here we strive for steadily improving our drill and impressions over time. We don't appreciate fellows with too much time on their hands and without proper manners trying to force their opinions and criticism down our throats.
Do we have small inaccuracies here and there? Certainly. We work on them and always strive to improve our impressions. We will however always carry our eagle into battle if we have it available, it means far more to us than any other reenactment unit, at least in this United Kingdom.
You may continue to complain and criticise how we do things if you wish, but I'm afraid such grievances from you will fall on deaf ears as you've sadly given yourself a poor impression. Being our own regiment means we have the liberty to operate how we please as we strive to improve our already considerable authenticity. And, more importantly, we bear the fact in mind that none of us are real soldiers. You're not really soldiers. We are everyday people taking a weekend off to socialise with friends and bring education and enjoyment to the public along the way.
So if you'd like to come over here and demonstrate your superiority or discuss drill with us face to face we welcome you to do so. We wait with baited breath. Hope we don't end up waiting as long as people have waited for Battle Cry of Freedom.
Kindest Regards
Amen Mr T, I even came back to this sad echo chamber just to say that. Vive La 21eme! <3
So I noticed that I was blocked from the 21e Facebook page, which assured me that my assumption was correct. You do not want to change.
Below is a picture I made to show some of the stuff that is wrong. I only took pictures from the official Facebook pages.
I do not claim that everything on this is correct, I am sure I am wrong on some points (Especially regarding officers and formation drill (Still learning that)). Please correct me if I am.
Oh yeah, plenty of spelling mistakes. But you will understand what I mean anyway.
Warning, huge picture:
So before you claim that our stuff is wrong too and that we do not want to change, I took some pictures from our official Facebook page and did the same with them:
Additionally here is a list that I do know that is wrong with our impressions (OMG I ACTUALLY ADMIT THAT THERE IS STUFF WRONG??? WOAAAAH):
- Cotton shirts
- Short cotton gaiters
- Short black gaiters
- No brass underneath shako covers
- Using 1809 Habits when we do events before 1809...
- Wrong pompoms
- I THINK (But am not sure yet) that the lining on our habits is wrong.
Here is everything wrong with our depot gear:
- One of the canteens is a wicker canteen
- Short Cotton gaiters
- Some of the shoes are the wrong model
- Some of the backpacks are the wrong model
- Some of the gilet vests are without arms
- Some of the habit vestes do not have fusilier epaulettes (They have none at all)
- Some of the trousers are cotton
- Artillery style Bonnet de police
- Some of the bayonet scabbards are the wrong model
- Wrong pompoms
- No brass underneath shako covers
- One of the shako covers is the wrong model
Why is there so much wrong with the Depot stuff?
Quite simple, because I put everything in the depot that we once had and exchanged with more proper gear.
So the depot stuff is a mix of good and bad stuff. Over the years I will get more and more good stuff and exchange the bad stuff in the Depot gear too, but it obviously takes time.
I want to be there in 1.5 - 2 years.
What we are currently working on/getting:
Linen Shirts (Means we can exchange 2 of the cotton shirts in depot with linen ones too)
New backpacks
Long Grey Gaiters
Long Black Gaiters
New and more Canteens
New Marmite
New Pompoms for all Periods (i.e. 3 different models * 10 (Because I also want to exchange the depot pompoms at the same time) = 30 new pompoms)
What we want to do soon (Sometime next year):
Shoes
Greatcoats
Woolen breeches
Proper neckties
Some of the stuff that is not completely done yet:
Shako brass - We have some of it done, but it takes time and is expensive.
Here is some recent proof that we do want to change: