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Description
I did promise you a comic page, and here it is!

EDIT, 03.03.16 - added some information ont he page.

Previous page here: Pg 4

Next page here: patience, I haven't drawn it yet!

In case you are wondering, the unit they belong to is the 5th Company of 2nd Battalion, 13th Line Infantry Regiment.
The company has one Command Section, four Riflemen Sections and one Machine-gun Section, which is equipped with two machine guns. Jeanne is the leader of the 3rd RifleSection (in typical French army organizational model, the "Section" is roughly equivalent to a platoon)

There were two other lieutenants in the company as well as the lieutenant commanding the 37mm infantry gun section (one infantry gun and one mortar detachments in each battalion, in this case attached to 5th Co.), but they were wounded and evacuated to the back, which is why Jeanne, as a mere "adjudant" , ended up in charge.

When it comes to locations, as I said, the village really exists and I made it look as close as I could to what it would have looked like in 1904. That being said, the cemetery in the first panel was added in the early 50s, but it provided a nice obstacle to hide behind so I left it in.

Another thing - the names of the shops in the second panel are "Epicerie Antoigné" and "Mercerie Chappée" - this is a reference to the real life "Fonderie D'Antoigné", a foundry first established in 1618 and situated just a couple of hndred meters up the road from the cemetery in the first panel.

Initially I wanted to place the first panel amid the industrial buildings there, but then I realised it would have been a pretty bad defensive position, so I changed the first panel to show an organized retreat along the road to the edge of the village. In case you're wondering, this is exactly how you could disengage your unit from the enemy using WW1 tactics, since the "center peel" we use today hadn't been invented yet.

In 1859, this foundry was taken over by a chap by the name of Armand Chappée which greatly expanded the foundry into a full size metallurgical factory. By the turn of the century, not only the village of St. Jamme sur Sarthe, but all the neighbouring villages were providing the workforce for the factory, and, in turn, the Chappée family provided the workers with housing, shops, hospitals and even transportation to and from the plant in the form of a steam "tramway" built in 1880-1882 running on meter-gauge rails from the forge and as far away as the village of Ballon, 7km away. In 1886 the line was extended 4km the other way, to the village of Saint-Jean-d'Assé. You can actually see the rails for the Tramway in the top three panels, as well as on previous pages.

Unfortunately, even though the factory prospered and produced ammunition during WW1, by 1922 bitter rivalries between various heirs of the Chappée fortune led to the factory's acquisition by the Société Générale du Fonderie, which converted it to make oil fired heaters. It then ran successfully until the oil crisis of 1974, which saw a lot of people shift to electric heating, forcing the company into eventual bankruptcy and the factory's closure in 1984.

Also, a quick note on the weapons - most soldiers use late-model Berthier rifles, with the 5-round magazine. Jeanne uses the same, but with a scope mounted. These rifles were usually handed out to the best shots in the company, regardless of their role.

The machine guns are one St. Étienne Mle 1901 (Our world 1907) and a Hotchkiss Mle 1903 (our world 1909), the light machinegun version of the Hotchkiss Mle 1900. In our world it was also adopted by the United Kingdom and the USA as the "M1909 Benét–Mercié" in the .303 calibre.

The infantry gun is a Canon d'Infanterie de 37 modèle 1902 TRP . In our world Model 1916. It could be used either on a tripod or with the wheels attached. It was designed for infantry close support and the destruction of machine gun nests, which is why it's taking the shot against the tank at point-blank range, in this case 60 meters (the perks of setting the action in a place which actually exists is the fact you can always measure distances using Google Earth XD)

They're using the Obus de Rupture M1902 (our world 1916) a filled AP shell which contained 15g of high explosive (as opposed to the HE round, the Obus explosif M1902, which contained 30g) whose armour penetration is merely 27mm at less than 100m and the target is the Medium Mark A "Whippet", which has a frontal plate (both top and bottom) of 14mm angled at 45°, which gives it an effective thickness of 19.8mm. Luckily for the French gunners and unluckily for the British tank crew, located just behind that front plate is the fuel tank...

And a final note on tracer colours - most tracer of the era were white, but yellow and red also existed, and were used by the French and British respectively, so I made a stylistic choice of having the two sides fire different coloured tracers - the French yellow and the British red.

Description
I did promise you a comic page, and here it is!

EDIT, 03.03.16 - added some information ont he page.

Previous page here: Pg 4

Next page here: patience, I haven't drawn it yet!

In case you are wondering, the unit they belong to is the 5th Company of 2nd Battalion, 13th Line Infantry Regiment.
The company has one Command Section, four Riflemen Sections and one Machine-gun Section, which is equipped with two machine guns. Jeanne is the leader of the 3rd RifleSection (in typical French army organizational model, the "Section" is roughly equivalent to a platoon)

There were two other lieutenants in the company as well as the lieutenant commanding the 37mm infantry gun section (one infantry gun and one mortar detachments in each battalion, in this case attached to 5th Co.), but they were wounded and evacuated to the back, which is why Jeanne, as a mere "adjudant" , ended up in charge.

When it comes to locations, as I said, the village really exists and I made it look as close as I could to what it would have looked like in 1904. That being said, the cemetery in the first panel was added in the early 50s, but it provided a nice obstacle to hide behind so I left it in.

Another thing - the names of the shops in the second panel are "Epicerie Antoigné" and "Mercerie Chappée" - this is a reference to the real life "Fonderie D'Antoigné", a foundry first established in 1618 and situated just a couple of hndred meters up the road from the cemetery in the first panel.

Initially I wanted to place the first panel amid the industrial buildings there, but then I realised it would have been a pretty bad defensive position, so I changed the first panel to show an organized retreat along the road to the edge of the village. In case you're wondering, this is exactly how you could disengage your unit from the enemy using WW1 tactics, since the "center peel" we use today hadn't been invented yet.

In 1859, this foundry was taken over by a chap by the name of Armand Chappée which greatly expanded the foundry into a full size metallurgical factory. By the turn of the century, not only the village of St. Jamme sur Sarthe, but all the neighbouring villages were providing the workforce for the factory, and, in turn, the Chappée family provided the workers with housing, shops, hospitals and even transportation to and from the plant in the form of a steam "tramway" built in 1880-1882 running on meter-gauge rails from the forge and as far away as the village of Ballon, 7km away. In 1886 the line was extended 4km the other way, to the village of Saint-Jean-d'Assé. You can actually see the rails for the Tramway in the top three panels, as well as on previous pages.

Unfortunately, even though the factory prospered and produced ammunition during WW1, by 1922 bitter rivalries between various heirs of the Chappée fortune led to the factory's acquisition by the Société Générale du Fonderie, which converted it to make oil fired heaters. It then ran successfully until the oil crisis of 1974, which saw a lot of people shift to electric heating, forcing the company into eventual bankruptcy and the factory's closure in 1984.

Also, a quick note on the weapons - most soldiers use late-model Berthier rifles, with the 5-round magazine. Jeanne uses the same, but with a scope mounted. These rifles were usually handed out to the best shots in the company, regardless of their role.

The machine guns are one St. Étienne Mle 1901 (Our world 1907) and a Hotchkiss Mle 1903 (our world 1909), the light machinegun version of the Hotchkiss Mle 1900. In our world it was also adopted by the United Kingdom and the USA as the "M1909 Benét–Mercié" in the .303 calibre.

The infantry gun is a Canon d'Infanterie de 37 modèle 1902 TRP . In our world Model 1916. It could be used either on a tripod or with the wheels attached. It was designed for infantry close support and the destruction of machine gun nests, which is why it's taking the shot against the tank at point-blank range, in this case 60 meters (the perks of setting the action in a place which actually exists is the fact you can always measure distances using Google Earth XD)

They're using the Obus de Rupture M1902 (our world 1916) a filled AP shell which contained 15g of high explosive (as opposed to the HE round, the Obus explosif M1902, which contained 30g) whose armour penetration is merely 27mm at less than 100m and the target is the Medium Mark A "Whippet", which has a frontal plate (both top and bottom) of 14mm angled at 45°, which gives it an effective thickness of 19.8mm. Luckily for the French gunners and unluckily for the British tank crew, located just behind that front plate is the fuel tank...

And a final note on tracer colours - most tracer of the era were white, but yellow and red also existed, and were used by the French and British respectively, so I made a stylistic choice of having the two sides fire different coloured tracers - the French yellow and the British red.