Eagle Miniatures Austrian 28mm Artillery

 Hello there! One of the units I have completed recently are these two 12lbr gun batteries. They are a pack of two guns and nine crew, which includes one officer.

The rammers had to be replaced with  brass wire and the ends drilled out and glued back on.

The positioning of the crew is based on the normal drill positions but one figure appear to be leaning on the wheel and aiming the cannon by looking along the barrel. However putting this figure in its place then leaves the figure  holding the portfire looking as if he is trying to set fire to the aiming figure! I placed this figure to one side instead.

The uniform colour took a few goes to get a satisfactory shade. As usual there are many illustrated shades in a myriad of publications. Some are more accurate than others! The Rawkins publication on the Austro Hungarian Army has mentioned that there were many different shades of cloth used. 'Red brown' and 'deer brown' is but too but neither of these shades are anywhere near that as illustrated in the Osprey book on the same subject. On saying that they do also illustrate Austrian Army uniforms as being brilliant white!

I used 940 saddle brown, 341 flesh base and 876 brown sand. all from the Vallejo range.

The cannons woodwork is shown as a bright ochre or a brilliant yellow. I wanted to get away from this bright shade and allow me to show some sort of wood grain effect as well. I used 913 yellow ochre, wash with a  Army Painter dark shade, 917 beige lines and 837 pale sand.

The officer was painted in the same colours as the men but the sash, which was a mark of being an officer, was painted in 856 ochre brown, washed in a strong tone then 953 flat yellow. The black weave in the sash is added using a very fine brush and making narrow intermittent stripes on the raised portion of the sash. 

28mm French Napoleonic Artillery

 Hello There! With more time spent at work recently I have been unable to finish much from the painting table. Here is one item that has been completed.

This battery is intended for part of the Maida project, hence the small Wargames Foundry 4lb gun. The figures are also Foundry. Because this will be used in wargaming I have replaced the white metal rammer with a brass wire and the trail spike was added to an open handed figure. It was made from a thicker piece of brass wire hammered flatter at one end.

The long yellow grass is made by rolling 6mm long static grass between my fingers and after levelling one end planting it in a dab of PVA. The long green grass is coconut hair broom bristles cut to length and planted into the wet water resistant tile adhesive before covering in stones, grit and gravel.

Battle of Maida

Hello There! I have been painting units to refight the Battle of Maida so have decided to write the British and French orders of battle to show progess on the project.

Here is the French now. After referring to a number of written and internet sources I have found many discrepanicies concerning the number of battalions that some regiments had at the battle. For example the 1st Legere is reported to have had either two or three battalions present while the Swiss had either one or two battalions.

Also the number of men in each unit has not been forth coming as there appears to be many vague total quoted for the whole French force but little on individual units. I have listed the hypothetical figures from a copy of 'First Empire' that I have found on the internet.

French Order of Battle

Commander: General Jean-Louis-Ebenezer Regnier, (Reynier)

1st Brigade: General de Brigade Louis Fursy Henri Compere

1st Battalion, 1st Legere                                                                                            600 men

2nd Battalion 1st Legere                                                                                            600 men

1st Battalion, 42nd Line                                                                                              600 men

2nd Battalion 42nd Line                                                                                              600 men

2nd Brigade: General de Brigade Antoine Digonet

1st Battalion 23rd Legere                                                                                            600 men

2nd Battalion 23rd Leger                                                                                             575 men

3rd Brigade: General de Brigade Louis Peyri

1st Battalion 1st Polish Legion, (1st Polish Line Infantry Battalion)                            400 men

2nd Battalion 1st Polish Legion, (1st Polish Line Infantry Battalion)                           400 men

4th Battalion 1st Swiss Line Regiment                                                                        600 men

Artillery: Commander, 'Griois'

1 Company Horse Artillery 2 guns                                                                                20 men

3 Batteries Foot Artillery 18 Guns                                                                                45 men,

                                                                                                                    (I don't think so!)

Cavalry:

 9th Chasseurs a Cheval                                                                                            300 men

Compere's Brigade

Conflicting sources state this brigade consisted of three battalions of the 1st Legere only while the greater majority of sources state there were two battalions of 1st Legere and two battalions of 42nd Line.

I have chosen to place two battalions of each regiment in this brigade.

The 1st Legere had an extensive experience of campaigning in Italy, during the revolutionary Wars and were present at the Battle of Marengo.

The 42nd Regiment also fought in the Revolutionary Wars in Flanders

Digonet's Brigade

The 23rd Legere were formed in 1792 and had fought in Northern Italy in 1805 and been present at the battle of Caldiero.

Peyri's Brigade

Some sources has placed the 42nd regiments battalions in this brigade. I believe that this  brigade only consisted of the foreign troops in French service.

Again the Swiss troops here are described as either one or two battalions 

The Polish troops are repeatedly described as 'poor and unreliable' in Hopton's book and this was put down to the fact they had been recruited from Austrian prisoners of war.

On their initial contact with the British, while they were landing on the peninsular, 400 of these Polish troops drove back the Corsican Rangers but were in turn pushed back by British infantry.

9th Chasseur a Cheval

The 9th Chasseurs were the only cavalry to take part in the battle. They arrived with further Polish troops and General Digonet on the 1st July. 

Artillery

These are described a 'mountain guns' in Hopton but the calibre is not described. Mountain guns are more easy to transport across the mountainous tertain of the area but lacked the punch of larger calibre guns on the battlefield.

Regnier's force was described as deficient in artillery so I am unsure of the eighteen foot artillery guns present in some orders of battle. However the speed of the advance of the French and the mountainous character of the region may explain why they are not present but the mountain guns are.

Initially Regnier is supplied with two companies of horse artillery and two companies of foot artillery and present at the battle itself were 'four light field pieces' I would say these were four pounders.

The calibre of the guns are described as not larger than the four pounders used by the British.

The total 

5100 infantry

300 cavalry

Sources

The Battle of Maida 1806, Fifteen Minutes of Glory by Richard Hopton

Wellington's Switzers by Alistair Nichols

Scenario: Maida 1806 - Honour Scenarios Wiki (google.com)

Murawski Polish Foot Artillery 28mm

Hello there! The latest item I have finished is this Polish artillery battery. There was a delay finishing this when there was a small mix up in my order with some 'firing' figures having made their way into my 'loading' figures. It was soon sorted out and the results are here.

 

The cannon is also from Murawski and was easily put together. The figures were clean casting with very minimal flash.

I have started to glue the cannon to the bases now. Initially I had the option of changing the cannon for different sizes. While this is probably more relevant in the American Civil War period here it is less so.

At different time the Polish troops had Prussian, Austrian  and French guns. Here I have used a French supply.

I have many figures from Murawski, to paint, and if these and the infantry on the previous post are anything to go by they will be a pleasure to paint.

Front Rank 28mm British Napoleonic Royal Foot Artillery

Hello There! Another addition to my Maida project is a battery of artillery for the British. It does not appear to be clear what calibre the guns present this a 9lbr gun model.

I replaced the sponge/rammer with a piece of wire as I find the white metal fitting usually snaps far too easily when in use. I drilled the remaining ends out with a pin vice and glued back together with superglue.

The rocks are Cotwold Buff stone chipping painted then dry brushed. The vegitation infront of the cannon is an experiment that I decided to try out. I noticed that not all plants grow out at an angle like the commercially available tufts. I took rolled some 6mm long static grass between my fingers and plucked any ends that stuck out either side and put these piecs bac in the centre of the grass. This levelled the static grass so that both ends were relatively flat. I placed a layer of neat PVA on the base and stuck the end of the staic grass into the PVA and left it to dry.

Unlike tufts the grass stays upright and you can cover any area that you like. After a day of drying get a large paintbrush with soft bristles and gently brush from the bottom to the top over a sheet of paper to reclaim any excess. This has made a convincing out crop of plants.

 

Getting the barrel and brass finish is always a problem. It either ends up looking too shiney or has a flat finish. Here I put a layer of brass metallic paint then after that had dries I added a wash of army painter strong tone around the raised parts of the barrel. This did not work too well at first as the wash gathered into globules or just migrated to the lower surface of the barrel. I added a small brushfull of washing up liquid and used the strong tone wash neat and did the upper surface first and allowed it to dry, laying level, and the turned it through 90degrees and wash again. I wanted some more detail to stand out so I rubbed the raised detail with a soft duster and this removed any wash to make the detail stand out a bit more.

I have further artillery to complete and these will be in future posts.

Perrys Union American Civil War 28mm Supply Wagon

Hello There! After a Hiatus, as I have been ill recently and had an operation, I have a few projects that have either been completed and awaiting photographing or been near completion and just needed a small amount of time to complete them.

This item has taken the longest due to its small intricacies. I have never liked guns or wagons with horses or mules standing infront of their charge and with nothing to connect the two.

Most gamers are put off by the amount of work and how fiddly it can be to portray the reins, chains and bridelry that is required. The wagon shaft, single tree and double trees and connections also had to be made to fit the model. I was lucky to have a selection of chains and threads from another planned project, (to add metal masts and rigging to some 28mm resin ship hulls), so could easily include these.

Even to find out what all the connecting items were took a while and also needed an appeal on facebook. Thankfully people were very helpful and I was able to complete this. model.

If you look closely you will see some plasticard additions of a break lever, break blocks and the rope to the driver. One problem I had was that this style of wagon could also be easily confused with the so call 'chuck' wagon seen in Western films as they had the driver on the front board of the wagon whereas here he is on the rear left horse.

Here is a better view of the front four of the mule team with the single and double trees with the connecting chains and reins.

Here is the wagon. I added the brake lever and the break block made from plasticard. The Canvas hoops are from the Perrys model and the canvas was made from tissues soaked in PVA thinned with water.

After making this model I am left wondering how the driver controlled all these mules at the same time and held the brake rope as well! There mush have been a way of doing it though. My limit of sitting on a 'horse' is limited to riding on a pony along Great Yarmouth sea front when I was 8 years old so I know next to nothing of controlling such animals. I have always felt with horses that one end bites and the other end kicks which is why people sit in the middle!

Here is the rear two pairs of mules including the rider.This clearer view of the single and double trees are better illustrated here. These were again made of plasticard. The holes were drilled using a pinvice and the end links in the chain could be parted and squeezed back together using fine nosed pliers, (and a little bit of swearing).

I have plans to do a Napoleonic Brish RHA limber and an Spanish Ox drawn limber as well. 

British Napoleonic Field Artillery Book

 Hello There! I am continuing with the Maida project which has brought me to painting some 28mm Front Rank British Foot Artillery. After looking at the uniform research sources I had I found myself with a number of unanswered questions about their uniform so after a quick search found the companion volume to this here. 

I found it to be the 'one stop shop' for British Foot artillery, Royal Horse artillery and drivers with many useful illustrations of uniforms, artillery pieces and equipment.

It includes adequate information so I can also build a Royal Horse Artillery limber team complete with the traces and reins rather than just have the models of the horses just standing infront of the limber with no visible means of attachment.

This edition is a soft back and is £10 off the cover price. This is common deal with Paul and he stocks both new and second hand books in his collection which constantly changes. It is definitely worth visiting his website regularly.

This book was promptly sent to me from here.  Paul Meekins books have been a very helpful and a well priced resource for military books. I have used his services for over 16 years now. With the lack of wargaming shows I have not made purchases in person but he did regularly attend 'Salute' and the 'War & Peace' show at Beltring in Kent.

I would recommend both this book and Paul Meekins Books to you.

Steve Barber Models 28mm Napoleonic British Royal Horse Artillery Mounted Officer and Bugler

 Hello There. I have just retrieved some more figures from the 'Lead Mountain of Unending Shame' with the idea to prepare some more figures for painting. I like to deflash, degrease, prime and mount items so that they are ready to go.

I wanted to do some artillery for the French and British as I have started some cavalry and done a few infantry battalions by now as well. I found some Polish artillery from Murawski Miniatiures, (more about them later), and some Royal horse Artillery from Front Rank. To complement these I remembered these from Steve Barber Models.

This company provides a varied and eclectic range of single figures across a wide range of  periods. This is a result of the company providing a service to provide figures for the wargamer under a commission a figure sysytem. The result is then provided on their website.

I have purchased these figures and a number of British and French Napoleonic sailors and marines. I also have some American Civil War items as well.

I am wary of describing how much flash a figure has as each individual gamer has their own opinion as to what 'minimal' or 'bad' is or even 'acceptable' This can easily give an incorrect image to future customers. I also feel that people may expect far too much from figure manufactures sometimes too.

Here the flash consists of a line along the back of each horse which is easily removed with a sharp scalpel scraped along it. The officers horse has some 'proper' flash which is about 10mm long and  2mm deep. The mould marks are easily removed with a sharp blade or a 'rats tail file' The horse cloth has a moulded line to help paint the edging along the horse cloth.

The figures are very clean of mould marks for the standards of the day. The trumpeter has a little under the arm holding the bugle but that is not a problem at all. The braid is very clear and so detailed it is enough to make any figure painter cry realising that he has to paint each line individually.

As you can see from the rear view here the lace work on the jacket of the figure. It is very clear and easy to paint with no flash line involvement.

From the front the officer has TEETH moulded in his open mouth and all cords are just as clear as the bugler.

Overall these figures area very worthy purchase and a very good addition to the RHA figures I am about to start.

I do not have any connections to Steve Barber Models, apart from the fact I purchsed some of their figures.