Prussian Special Reserve 3

The 21st march out...

The 2nd/21st are ready to take the field.

They took three weeks to complete from start to finish and so have taken my speed-painting record.

I think they have to be my favourite battalion to date, even if they do look a bit like Trumptonshire Fencibles!

...if a little  self-consciously!

Ready for all eventualities...

...with God for King and Country!

The Prussian Army is beginning to take shape!

 Happy Easter!

WM

Prussian Special Reserve 2

The 2nd/21st, trying not to look embarrassed!

The first two companies of the 21st Infantry Regiment/9th Reserve Infantry Regiment are finished.

I've painted them to represent the second battalion of the regiment, who were dressed in blue, British-made uniforms with white lace and red facings.

The new British uniforms issued to many of the reserve regiments attracted public ridicule and so there were efforts to "Prussianise" them by removing the lace. The 21st made themselves even more sombre-looking by blackening their belts. However, when I painted a test figure with white tunic lace and cross belts to see what this would look like, I thought the effect was so striking that I decided to paint all of them this way!

The rank and file figures are DK 243: Portuguese Line Infantry, charging. They were beautiful, crisp castings in mint condition and in their original packaging when I found them. I like their poses too, which are quite far down the "air guitar" end of the spectrum!

The officer is another of Don's Prussian command figures, Hinton Hunt PN 1: Prussian Line Infantry Officer, charging. I think he looks quite dashing with his red facings.

Last is the drummer, which is from the DK 154: British Light Infantry Command set. He's clearly a conversion from a Hinton Hunt BN 12: British Line Infantry Drummer.

With rain forecast over Easter, I'm hoping to get the other half of the battalion completed over the long weekend. I'll keep you posted!

WM

Prussian Special Reserve

Cokecan aluminium is surprisingly flexible!

I'm ashamed to admit that it's now over a year since Don sent me this and several other Prussian command figures as a gift. You can find my post about it here. I hope Don will forgive me for the inordinate length of time it's taken me to get round to him.

The figure, of course, is Hinton Hunt PN 5: Prussian Line Infantry (separate musket), one of three that Don very generously donated.

He's painted to represent the standard bearer of the 21st Infantry Regiment, formerly the 9th Reserve Infantry Regiment. When the Prussian reserve infantry regiments were raised in 1813, they were each provided with a small cadre of regular officers and NCOs to lead them. As a senior NCO, my standard bearer is thus correctly dressed in his regular line infantry uniform, which will not be the case for most of his comrades.

It also provides a beautifully smooth
painting surface

As no-one really knows what, if any, pattern of flag was carried by the reserve infantry battalions, I've given him what Nash considers to be one of the more common types of unofficial flag carried by at least some of the Prussian reserve and landwehr regiments. I've had another go at coke-can metal for this, with the edges blunted by a bit of filing and varnish.

Surprisingly, perhaps, this flag was much harder to do than the Garde du Corps guidon. It's very difficult to get anything like symmetrical cross when painting freehand. This particular example is my third attempt!

WM

EDIT: With special thanks to Steve C, who gave me the idea for coke-can flags in the first place and told me how to do them.

General Adjutation

As Ian S's Muskets & Marshals rules require a lot of commanders, I thought I'd better get cracking and complete the last of the Hinton Hunt Prussian General Staff range.

The figure, I'm very pleased to report, is a vintage  Hinton Hunt PN 65: Prussian ADC to General. His horse is a John Cunningham recast of a Hinton Hunt PNH 1: Prussian General Officer's horse, but is none the worse for that.

After reading the descriptions of Prussian staff officers in David Nash's book, The Prussian Army 1808-1815, it seemed to me that this figure would work very well as an adjutant from the cavalry branch. Cavalry adjutants were required to wear white cuirassier officer's uniforms, but with a cocked hat rather than a helmet.



My  man is painted as the most senior grade of cavalry adjutant, known as a Generaladjutant von der Kavallerie. Generaladjutants functioned as senior personal assistants to either the King as part of the Royal Household or to generals in the field, and wore a uniform derived from the Garde du Corps regiment. Marshal Vorwärts, as a cavalryman, has insisted on nothing less!

Forming up behind him is the last of my Phase-One Prussian infantry battalions. More will be revealed in the next post....

WM

Prussian Garde du Corps 2

The Prussian Garde du Corps are finally finished. They only took me four and a half months! However, as I also painted two other squadrons, two batteries and a battalion of Bavarians in that time I'm not downhearted.

The Garde du Corps in full cry!

If you click on the photos to embiggen you'll notice that there is quite a lot of variation between the two squadrons, which were bought from two completely different sources. The rear squadron (which I painted first) is quite a bit slimmer than the one on front.

One of the great things about them was that in each case I was unaware I had bought them until the box of figures actually arrived. They were part of job lots of DK figures where it was not entirely clear what was in all of the bags. This is a slightly nerve-wracking way to buy figures, but also quite fun!

As they might have appeared c. 1972

The push for Prussians will continue in the next post.

Have a great weekend

WM

Trumped Up Charges

Sound the Charge!

The Garde du Corps have their CO and trumpeter at last.

The trumpeter was supposed to be a quick and simple conversion using my new-found soldering skills. What actually happened was a near disaster and copious bleeding after I stabbed myself in the finger with a craft knife.

Sound the Recall!

My first mistake was to bend my wee man's right arm just that little bit too far as I was attaching his trumpet. The metal used in some DK figures has a rather crumbly consistency that really doesn't appreciate this sort of treatment. The inevitable result was a detached arm and a jagged stump. Fixing this required a major amount of additional soldering, filing and paring and it was while doing the latter, of course, that I managed to stab myself.

Converting is a risky business, so I had an inkling this sort of thing was likely to happen. I'm just thankful that I didn't end up with a total write off.

Cést la guerre, as they say. Sound the charge!

WM

By no means the last trump!