King George's Other Army

The first half of my first Phase-Two infantry battalion is ready for inspection. It is the Field Battalion Bremen, one of the regiments of King George III's Hanoverian Army.

Strengthened with a sprinkling of British troops and German freikorps units in British pay, this new army sprang into existence in 1813 following the collapse of French power in Northern Germany. After campaigning in Germany in 1813 and 1814, the Hanoverians would eventually march to the Low Countries and were still garrisoned there when the Napoleonic Wars broke out afresh in early 1815.

In its early days the Bremen and Verden Battalion, as it was originally called, was dressed as light troops in stovepipe shakos and Rifle green. By the time of Waterloo, however, it had been re-organised and equipped as a redcoat battalion. Opinions differ about the other details - some sources suggest they were also issued with new Belgic shakos, for example, and had blue rather than the black facings I've given them here. However, most agree they retained their distinctive dark blue trousers and black leather equipment. Whatever the details, they're certain to brighten up my Prussians a bit, and provide a brilliant excuse for adding all sorts of other weird and wonderful units.

The figures I've painted so far for this battalion are taken from the Der Kriegspielers sets:

# 153: British Light Infantry Battalion 1815, Firing x 11; and
# 154: British Light Infantry Battalion Command Group, Drummer, x 1.

The next post will feature the rest of the command group and an ever-so-slightly speculative flag!

Have a great weekend,

WM

Onwards and Upwards

Now that Phase One is complete I thought I'd set everything out again and have a think about where the Hinton Spieler ought to go from here.

The task in Phase One was to produce two starter armies of five infantry battalions, two cavalry regiments and two batteries each. I also wanted to get in a good mix of different types, including guard, line and militia units, exotic foreign regiments, skirmish battalions and a balance of heavy cavalry and lights. The result, I hoped, would be armies that were not only fun to paint and play with but which would serve as a call to action. What I actually achieved, however, was slightly more than this due to the unscheduled appearance of the Bavarians.

The Prussian Army

The Prussian Army Order of Battle:

2nd Neumark Landwehr Infantry Regiment
2nd/21st Infantry Regiment
10th (1st Silesian) Infantry Regiment
1st Foot Guards
2nd Silesian Schutzen Battalion

2nd Leib Hussars
Garde du Corps Cuirassiers

1 Line Foot Artillery Battery
1 Guard Foot Artillery Battery
1 Line Artillery Limber

The Franco-Bavarian Army

The French Army Order of Battle:

3rd Swiss Infantry Regiment
13th Light Infantry Regiment
Combined Voltigeurs
45th Line Infantry Regiment
1st Chasseurs a Pied

7th (1st Vistula) Line Lancers
Dragoons of the Imperial Guard

1 Line Foot Artillery Battery
1 Guard Foot Artillery Battery
1 Guard Artillery Limber

The Bavarian Army Order of Battle:

4th Bavarian Line Infantry.

The obvious thing to do in both cases (Plan A) is to simply double the Prussians and the French. This would create two-battalion guard, line, light, reserve, landwehr and foreign infantry brigades and also light and heavy cavalry brigades. However, there is the small matter of that extra Bavarian battalion which would start to look increasingly anomalous.

An alternative plan (Plan B) is to regard the Bavarians as the beginning of phase two and to embark on two allied forces. The result would be very colourful, but wouldn't get me very far towards a coherent order of battle.

Plan C is to do a bit of both!

No prizes for guessing which one I've decided to go for. The first battalion is now half finished and will be the subject of the next post.

Till then,

WM

Onwards!

Limber Labour of Love

The first of Rob's magnificent Guard Artillery gun teams is ready at last. It all took a bit longer than I expected, but they were very complex to paint and assemble and it took me a while to figure it all out.

The figures are:

Hinton Hunt:

FN 188 French Horse Artillery Of the Guard Artillery Drivers Corps driver x2

H 3: French (nearside) Gun Horse x 2

H4: French (offside) Gun Horse x 2

Der Kriegspielers Napoleoniques:

French Limber from the # 32: French 6" Howitzer, limber and four-horse team set.

Warrior:

FA1: French 8lb Field Gun

Getting everything to fit together  required quite a bit of planning. The DK limber came complete with swingletrees, but to attach these to the horses I first had to cut them off the limber and then wrap lengths of fuse wire around them. The fuse wires were then soldered to the horses to create the traces. The trick here was then to attach a short nib of solder on the rear of each swingletree, and then paint each horse assembly while leaving these nibs unpainted.

The limber also needed a bit of cutting back and rearranging so that everything would fit back together again neatly. Again, I attached small nibs of solder on to the points on the limber where the swingletrees would reattach. These nibs were also left unpainted.

The final stage was then to glue everything in place on the base with the nibs on the swingletrees and limber just touching. My hope was it would take just a quick application of heat with the soldering iron for them to melt together and form a single string, and much to my relief this is exactly what happened. It was then just a quick dab of black paint and varnish and the job was done.

The Warrior guns have also been given a repaint, although its hard to tell the difference. The only real change here was to add some bent steel pins to create the tool brackets on either side of the trails.

And that, I'm very pleased to say, is the end of Phase One.

WM