Dadao Chinese Era Military Troops
To understand the Chinese Military Saber as we approach it at the TIGER SWORD SCHOOL we must understand the history and culture surrounding it.
The time period of our study of the Dadao takes place from approximately 1911-49. Many of the Chinese troops of that era were troops of the various warlord factions. A variety of bolt-action rifles either imported or locally made were copies of the KAR 98 Mauser rifle which was the most common weapon of the time. Alongside their elite forces known as Big-Kife, Sword, or Dare to Die units, was the Chinese Military Saber or Dadao. These troops were also armed with the Broomhandle Mauser pistol, and potato masher grenades (the most common grenade type of their military). Submachine guns were also popular for troops of the region and time, including the MP18/20, and the Madsen light machine gun. The Madsen light machine gun was so popular it was bootlegged as the "Rex" by local armorers.
The uniform worn at the time was essentially the same uniform worn by all the Chinese militants; the peaked cap was most common. A distinguishing feature of one set of warlord army troops to another was usually an armband of a different color with the warlord's name on it that separated them; it is told that you could always tell which side lost a battle after the battle by all of the discarded armbands lying around on the battlefield!
Once the Nationalist Kuomintang government of Chiang Kai-shek had successfully eliminated or conquered the various warlords after a successful "bandit suppression campaign," after this unification the Japanese launched their invasion of China in 1931, and accelerated and expanded the war in 1937. The assorted troops of former warlord armies now were nominally under the banner of the KMT, and fought against the Japanese invaders until 1945. While many of the arms and uniform equipment would change thanks to aid from the United States and Soviet Union, the soldiers of the 1920s looked more or less identical to the soldiers that fought the Japanese at the Marco Polo Bridge in 1931, or in the streets of Shanghai in 1937.
A set sub-categories to cover this period of Chinese infantryman could be broken down as follows: 1.) Warlord soldier body.
2.) Warlord soldier arms.
3) Warlord soldier heads. Various facial expressions, mainly peaked caps, but with a "tin hat brigade" head with a helmet styled after the French M1915 Adrian helmet.
4.) Rifles. Mainly Mauser KAR 98 but a Russian Moison-Nagant and French Berthier or Lebel for some variety.
5.) SMG with ammo pouches. MP18/20 would be ideal.
6.) Madsen light machine gun with spare magazine bag. This was a very popular weapon with the Warlord armies.
7.) Potato masher grenades and Broomhandle Mauser pistol.
8.) Chinese swords and scabbards. Dadao and dao.
9.) KMT elite heads wearing the M1935 Stahlhelm. These were the best of the KMT army, trained by German advisers and armed with German weapons and even Panzer Is, Sdkfz 221 and 222 armoured cars. They fought bravely and well against the Japanese at Shanghai, but were ultimately overwhelmed and destroyed by the more experienced and more heavily-armed Japanese Army.
Warlord armies could be quite large during this period, and the figures would do double-duty for KMT troops to take on the Imperial Japanese Army and for Shanghai street fights the Imperial Japanese Special Naval Landing Forces. http://dovertaichinh.jimdo.com/big-knife/
