Vorwarts - Prussian Parade

As mentioned earlier I thought it was about time to review my Napoleonic Prussian army. It totals of 1,165 figures and the infantry are dominantly Springwood hard plastics. Most of the army is over 30 years old, but odd units have been added over the years as new figures have been produced.

Originally I started out with a pair of typical 1813 infantry brigades each composed of a regiment each of Line, Reserve and Landwehr. to this was added a Guards regiment and a grenadier Battalion. subsequently various oddments have been added.

Above is a typical brigade, front row is three half battalions of deployed light troops, one for each regiment plus jaegers, these are soft plastic mostly HaT. Second row is a Line Regiment with two Musketeer Bns and a Fusilier Bn (all first edition Springwood), next the Reserve regiment with the same structure (second edition Springwood British LI figures). ; Finally 4 Bns of Landwehr (second edition Springwood)

Above, the second brigade with almost identical composition to the 1st brigade. The reserve regiment this time is made from 2nd edition Springwood Prussian Infantry figures.

The odds and sods brigade, the lights are Lutzows and Volunteer Jaeger. The next row is the Guard and Grenadiers. Behind is another line regiment plus an unattached Bn, Finally a couple of line Bns made up of mixed Revell/Springwood figures, an extra Springwood Landwehr Bn and a very old Airfix Landwehr Bn.

My Landwehr cavalry, the front four units are recently produced, the rear pair are Airfix Cuirassier conversions

From Left to right, 4 units of hussars, 2 of dragoons and 2 of cuirassiers (all Airfix conversions)

To the right of the cuirassiers are newer units - the majority of the artillery is all Hat figures (these replaced older Airfix conversions) the only old unit left is behind the cuirassiers. The limber teams more Airfix conversions. The units are a couple of units of dragoons (HaT) backed up by a mounted and foot unit from Lutzows Freikorps.

The next couple of pictures are for the Hinton Hunter

The commanders of my Prussian corps are none other than Blucher and Gniesenau (both Hinton Hunt figures) The other assorted dismounted commanders are by Strelets (a combined set with Russian commanders)

One of the brigade commanders is a well used Hinton Hunt Prussian general

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Overall Assessment

Certainly fit for another 30 years, the real gap is commanders, with the exception of the Hinton Hunts all of them need replace/upgraded. Looking across the scale of upgrading the basing is far too intimidating to consider at the moment. They are also due for an outing perhaps to try one of the new sets of napoleonic rules that are coming out

Last of the Prussians???

In theory these should be the last Napoleonic Prussians I need to paint(*). They certainly round off the the cavalry, which always understrength as no plastic manufacturer has ever produced Landwehr Cavalry. These are HaT Prussian Dragoons acquired recently as a trade on the Trading Department and painted up as Landwehr. One problem with using these is that it is not easy to add lances, the one I did add was to replace a broken sword.

The two units are the 1st Pommeranian (grey coats) and the 3rd Kurmark regiments based on my trusty Almark book on the Prussian Army by David Nash and backed up with information from the excellent Mont St Jean site.

* I think it's time for a Prussian parade to properly review the army, like I did with the French a while back, but on a forum that has since closed so I may repost it sometime.

Hussite Wagons

Here are the same wagons as used for the Poles, but in their original Hussite version. These are the original horse teams provided in the set.

the flags are from Alex's flags, then pick the Eastern/Northern European flags, then the Kingdom of Bohemia set. The ones I used were specifically signalling flags for use on the wagons, which are either red/white or green/black on opposite sides, not something I have come across before, so something to investigate when time allows.

Polish Tabor

At long last the wagons are finished,the reason for the delays were partly due to shorting out the basing for WRG 6th and then finding that I couldn't find any similar horses to the originals as I needed four horse teams rather than two horse teams. After much searching I found some old Imex ACW limber teams that were good enough. The barding on the horses is a matchstick and Slaters' planking concoction.

I also had a debate on whether to paint symbols/logos on the wagon hoarding, I decided to add a slot for flags instead so I could change them to go with ownership. I put the hoarding on the left for two and on the right for the other two, this is so I can cover the two flanks of the army.

D Day game next year

The player positions have been announced for next years big game and it's D=day and I'll be playing a German defender on Sword beach. The good news from this is that I will have very little painting to do as preparation. However I think I will take the opportunity to rebase some of my Germans in my new style.

To get a feel of what is involved look in a copy of the Rapid Fire D-Day supplement. (link)

Northumberland travels (3)

Yes, I'm safely back and already started on my October painting.


(Historical) high points of the last few days were another walk to Dunstanburgh on a rather damp but atmospheric day, certainly assisted by dropping in on the Ship Inn in Lower Newton on the way there and back, out of the selection of own brewed beers the Ship Hop Ale was my favourite, another great recommendation by Harry Pearson.
The next day was even wetter, so it was off to Warkworth, the Percy's second residence after Alnwick, It's a lovely old town dominated by the castle, which never gets mentioned in Kingmaker, just very soggy on the day we were there.
Our final day was gloriously sunny, but with a strong wind so we revisited Bamburgh twice, once by bike and again up the beach on foot.

We had debated stopping in Durham on the return, but settled for a short stop at Barnard Castle, named after Bernard de Balliol, quite an impressive castle overlooking a crossing of the Tees. The bit that amazed me was that it fell to rebels because its water supply was cut off, given it had a well, I wonder how this happened.


Retrospective
A lot of history in a short time, it was a shame that a number of sites had closed at the end of September, but there was still plenty to see and do. In general the weather was kind, so a successful "staycation".

More pictures on flickr for those who might be interested
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39717756@N06/sets/72157622496042989/

Northumberland travels (2)

Now clearly in the ancient kingdom of Northumbria, not part of England until 1076. We cycled across to Lindisfarne on Sunday unfortunately with a tail wind, so it was heavy going on the return leg. While at Lindisfarne Priory It was interesting to learn that the remains of St Cuthbert were moved back to the island from Durham to avoid William the Conqueror's "harrying of the north".

Monday was a walking day along the coast from Alnmouth to Craster and back, so it involved another refreshment stop in the Jolly Fisherman, this time for crab soup and more black sheep. I should mention that the pub was recommended by Harry Pearson (Achtung Swinehund) in the Guardian a couple of weeks back (link) and I concur.

Today (Tuesday) was poor weather, so it was off to Berwick to do the town ramparts, unfortunately the barracks were only open until the end of September so I didn't get chance to visit the KOSB museum.

Then back south to Bamburgh castle, it's not EH, but was well worth a visit, it is a Victorian reconstruction, but still has the feel of the original and the Armstrong/Aviation museum is full of interesting items on engineering and local aviation history. My favourites were Lord Armstrong gun(s) and the items on German aircraft shot down. The state room also had some interesting arms and armour. Lord Armstrong seemed to be a typical Victorian engineer with lots of inventions to his name.