Speculation on the British based on shoulder patches

Battlefield Discussions Battlefield 1
#1

Hello chaps.

I just wanted to share some stuff I looked into over the last week. This has nothing to do with mechanics or weapons. It is simply some observations I made when looking into the ‘regiment’ of the British players in Battlefield 1.

Thanks to some high quality pictures, I finally managed to read the shoulder patches on the British soldiers, featuring in both the Singleplayer and the Multiplayer footage. It says ‘Railway Bn. 17’. This means the 17th Railway Battalion. When I googled this, it came up with the 17th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers.

During the First World War, there were a series of military groups known as ‘service’ battalions, most of which were formed by independent British corporations. These were designed to recruit people from specific skill sets in civilian life in order to assist with logistic duties essential to a newly industrialised army. The 17th Battalion, Northumberland Fusiliers was one of these such ‘service’ battalions, formed by the North Eastern Railway Company, and officially known as the ‘North Eastern Railway Pioneers’. Their job was to assist in establishing a military infrastructure for the British Expeditionary Force, specifically railways, so that the ever-changing front would always have a fast supply line. Eventually, the N.E.R. Pioneers were reassigned to frontline combat roles and fought in various battles as infantry, including the First and Second Battles of the Somme.

My theory is that the BF1 ‘17th Railway Battalion’ is a fictional Service Battalion that, by 1918, was integrated with various commonwealth units (such as the Indian, South African and West Indian Regiments), and placed entirely into a combat role, hence their appearance in multiplayer.

What do you chaps think? Am I overthinking it, or do you think there’s merit behind this in speculating Battlefield 1’s storyline?

#2

it’s a game

#3

What’s your point? I realise you’re used to more modern settings like BF3 and BF4 but this is a game based on historical events with a full chapter-based single player storyline.

Unlike some people, I enjoy reading into the ‘historical’ side of things and analysing the game based on this history. DICE is clearly interested in exploring history in their new game as evident with their Lawrence of Arabia and Harlem Hellfighter’s insignias.

If you’re only looking for gameplay threads, there’s already plenty of those. Incidentally, I made one today (again, based on history); https://battlefieldforum.net/index.php?threads/new-vehicles-in-the-latest-trailer.547/

#4

Can you share those high quality pictures?

#5

Here you are. All credit goes to Berdu, the chap who made the Green Fields of France video: [MEDIA=imgur]id=a%2FQsMFc;type=album[/MEDIA].

The picture I caught the shoulder patch on was the one with two Britons in front of the tank.

#6

South Africa was helping out the British during world war 1 but this caused the start of a rebellion among South Africans, the movement was known as the Maritz rebellion, reason for this is because some South Africans still had a hatred for the British because of the second boer war, it ended on 31 May 1902, most South African woman and children were put in concentration camps by the British, so you can understand why some South Africans was rebelling, thought I mention it

There will be a train on the map and (hopefully) horses, it’s awesome that DICE goes into so much detail, I think a lot of people is learning about world war 1 history and some probably also realize now that it was not only trench warfare, did some reading myself

#7

I think your understanding of that conflict is a little too oversimplified. South Africa in 1914 had too many different cultural communities (British, Boer, Xhosa, Zulu, etc) to generalise a ‘Boer’ revolt as a South African revolt. Further, 10% of the white Boer population interned in the Transvaal region is not ‘most South African women and children’.

But anyway… I am indeed looking forward to seeing the trains and horses coming up in the map reveal for Gamescom!

#8

Maritz Rebellion was the boer, or also known as the Afrikaners, a Zulu was a Zulu, British was the Brit? So yes, there was the boere (Afrikaners), you can’t say a Zulu or a Brit was a boer? You can’t say the Zulu’s was Afrikaners, they were Zulu’s and they spoke Zulu, even the Zulu’s were attacking the Afrikaners (voortrekkers)

So 4 177 women, 22 074 children under sixteen and 1 676 men died in those concentration camps, this was not most South African woman and children? Was that only 10% for you? Let me put it this way, if it was not for those camps, we white South Africans would probably not be in the minority

#9

I didn’t say Zulus and British were ‘boers’. I said that the ‘Boers’ don’t represent the whole of South Africa. It sounds to me that you don’t consider a South African to be South African unless they are a white Afrikaner.

Also you genuinely think there were less than 52,000 boer women and children in existence in 1900? You realise that ‘most’ means ‘more than half’ right? My figure of 10% comes from the South African historian Professor Albert Grundlingh, not from figures conjured out of thin air.

Now stop trying to derail the thread and distracting it with your distorted supremacist nationalism. The topic of this thread is the story of Battlefield 1, a video game set during the First World War.

#10

Where do you think I got the figures from? Sucking out of my thumb? I said the Afrikaners were the boer, those figures are Afrikaners who died in the concentration camps

Distorted supremacist nationalism? lol… that is a pretty harsh assumption to make… I was saying that the Afrikaners decided to help the British during world war 1, the Zulu’s or Xhosa’s sure did not make that decision, I also said that the Maritz Rebellion is Afrikaners, not a rainbow nation, Afrikaners, here is a photo of the Maritz Rebellion

800×400 69.1 KB

But don’t worry won’t be replying to this thread, have fun doing research on history, like Brainless said, it’s a game and I should of never replied to this topic…

#11

You said ‘South Africans’ when quoting your initial figures, not Boer or Afrikaner, which I found misleading.

But you’re right. It’s a game. Though I was confused by your comments, I apologise for the ‘supremacist’ comment. Perhaps I misunderstood.

I’ll happily put this behind us if you will. The reason I even mentioned South Africans (and West Indians) is because that’s who I thought the British scout could be.

#12

Sorry mate, owe you an apology, mistakes were made on my side

#13

And mine too. I’m sorry.

Truce? I’m curious if you agree if the scout is South African. I don’t know enough about SA WW1 uniforms but I know that the fold on the slouch hat is on the wrong side for him to be ANZAC (unless it’s just an error).

#14

Yes, truce, I might be wrong here, but I believe that the South Africans world war 1 uniforms looks very similar to the British uniforms, in the photo is King George V inspecting members of the South African native labor corpse in world war 1

http://www.saiia.org.za/media/k2/items/cache/da2cd1ae610e6e4c1d898a7552b7bbf8_XL.jpg

There is the also the fold on the slouch hat which you mentioned