Paint Table...er... Sunday

Apologies for not posting for a few weeks - I'd rather lost the painting mojo. In fact, I've clearly lost the blogging mojo too - as I started typing this post two or three weeks ago. And then when I got the urge the weather in the UK became rather hot and muggy making it very difficult to paint except first thing in the morning. I also like to have at least something completed when I post but I've been very butterfly like recently - with the result that I have lots of figures that are close to completion, but not quite there yet.

This has played hell with any hopes I had of getting caught up - this is the end of Week 30 so clearly I should have painted 300 figures. Instead, I've only completed 83.

Still, I've put in a few hours this week painting the Regimento de Linea Voluntarios de Sevilla - there were 535 men present at Ocana in November 1809. I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that I wanted to add a bit more colour (so far I've been painting white jackets with red facings) - so these chaps wore brown jackets with red facings. Naturally, when I decided to paint a couple of divisions of Spanish I picked two that lacked "foreign" troops - leaving me to paint white or blue or lots of brown...

This was the 5th battalion, so I suspect they were very roughly uniformed and equipped. Unfortunately, Mr Barton's troops are very well turned out - and I added to the problem by being of a mind to paint the Spanish Royal Guard (1st Battalion, 921 men on the day) - as I was going to paint a guard unit I picked out the smarter figures from AB - but then I got cold feet - the Histoire & Collections Ocana showed them in a new uniform with shako and lace front, while the Guerreros & Batallas Ocana showed them wearing the bicornes, with plain red facings. So I changed my mind and did the Voluntarios de Sevilla.

Actually it would have been nice if Mr B had turned out a pack of figures that have ragged trousers, no boots and plain jackets. Even his "militia" figures are extremely smart. Something like the above 28mm figures from the Perries would be ideal - this would allow you to produce raggedy arse militia with a leavening of figures from the regulars for the command and as a cadre within the unit. So I've been looking around for other figures to "slot in" to my Spanish units to "roughen" them up a bit and I've come up with a couple of options.

The first is from a recently returned maker that has been something of a holy grail for 15mm AWI gamer - Polly Oliver. These have come back into production after a long hiatus (evidently there was a divorce, the wife got the moulds and refused to sell them except for silly money for years) and went on sale in April 2014. The Polly Oliver infantry and artillery are excellent - the cavalry were a bit dodgy - lovely riders but really poorly sculpted horses - evidently the horses are being re-worked which would turn these into an excellent buy.

However, while these were cutting edge figures in the 80's when they first came out, they are products of their time - so expect them to be about the same size as Minifigs / BH and have well detailed but very thin muskets. They are thus a bit smaller than AB's Spanish but an excellent match for his BH sculpts. The next issue is that there are not many variants in a pack. I'm planning on using what used to be described as "Minutemen" and is now I think the AW-A15 Militia Marching pack. I bought a shoebox full of Polly Oliver  in dribs and drabs from eBay over the years with the intention of doing something AWI with them.

This pack contains troops in slouch hats marching determinedly forward (okay I admit they aren't a perfect match for Spanish Militia!) with their muskets over their right shoulders. Their jackets are very plain and I think these guys could be used quite happily in an ACW regiment too - the powder horn is a bit of anachronism but it is 15mm after all. They are sporting trousers, a knapsack and a powder horn - but no blanket roll or pack. I think they would paint up very quickly. The drummer boy has similar jacket (with turnbacks but plain front), bare feet and his drum slung over his shoulder. The officer would fit in very nicely as a company officer for a militia battalion lacking uniforms.

My second choice for variants comes from Xan Miniatures - tucked in amongst their French are a pack NF11 Fusilers Without Shako  (before anyone gets any ideas that my painting and photography skills have suddenly improved I nicked this photo from the Xan website - hopefully both Xan and yourselves will overlook the theft under the circumstances!). The chap in the centre is a flank company figure so not very suitable but the chaps on to his left and right are okay. Spanish infantry wore a forage cap very similar to the one the figure on the left has - although every picture I've seen has the "floppy bit" hanging down the figure's left rather than right (as here) but I'm not going to let that bother me. The forage cap was very common headgear amongst Spanish troops and slotted in amongst other figures from BH or AB should add a "rough and ready" look to a battalion. Of course the head wound is an overdone trope in model figure design so I'd only be inclined to use one of these per battalion.

The French flanker in bare head isn't too useful for Spaniards (he could represent a sergeant as they wore silver epaulettes) - but I have plenty of French units to paint as well. I'm not too sure if the packing is standardised but I've got three forage caps, three head wounds and two flank company bare headed in my pack of eight.

The final issue with AB's Spaniards is - no casualties. Considering Spain was a major power (well, certainly in numbers of troops fielded) and their regiments got shot to buggery on a regular basis this is a fairly gross omission on Mr Barton's part (I guess when he was sculpting these figures we still rather thought of the Peninsula War as France v the Anglo-Portuguese army with the Spanish as rather incompetent bit-part players on the margins). So I'm using some of the figures from the AB Jena Prussian pack - the key problem with them is the pom-poms on the bicorne - you either need to ignore them and press on, carve them away and go with a plain bicorne, or carve them away and add a plume from another figure or greenstuff.

Archie is unimpressed by all my hard work - he's just lying around in the heat, thinking what new mischief he can cause. This week it was "digging up" the carpet by the front door which caused me to rip a hole in the said carpet when I opened the door to get in. Replacing the carpet by the front door with coconut matting cost me £140.

Week 20 Progress - British Casualties

At the end of Week 17 I'd completed 78 figures, and so was 92 figures behind schedule. My plan for the following week was to plough on with some AB French Legere - I'd done the Carabiniers and was pleased with how they had worked out, and thought I'd press forward with the rest of the battalion. Unfortunately, I'd run out of GW white undercoat, and in my eagerness, used the Army Painter white undercoat.

Now, the last time I used this was also the first time I used it. That was awhile ago when I pretty much ruined the BM French and British Line Infantry I had bought - the AP undercoat dried with a thick and "dusty" consistency totally unsuitable for 18mm figures (or 28mm come to that). They went straight into the Dettol - actually I need to get them out - that was over a year ago! Anyway, so this time round I followed the instructions absolutely to the letter and the result was better but still not  the quality of finish I get from the GW undercoat. And so I'm blaming the AP undercoat for my general lack of enthusiasm for painting the rest of the AB Legere - there was a roughness to the AP undercoat that obscured the fine detail on the AB figures and made my cackhanded painting "style" more difficult to achieve.

Apologies for the long-winded excuse for not completing what I said I would.

Instead, I painted some AB British casualties. In this I was quite inspired by a very kind gift from Paul Alba (Napoleonics In Miniature) of a battalion of marching AB British infantry and some late British cavalry. Clearly the casualties are way off the plan to carry on with Laval's Division and the 3rd & 4th Spanish Divisions at Ocana. However, I have it in the back of my head to do a British battalion in the midst of a heavy firefight (something similar to this French battalion  I did a couple of years ago) - they won't really fit in with anything else I've got as I tend to do my figures in march attack poses. My catalogue PDF from AB doesn't show much pose variation in the suitable British packs (B08 & B09) so my thinking was to add some interest with these chaps.

So there are two "deaders" (one flank, and one centre company), a "shortly to be deader" (those gutshots were fatal back then), an officer being carried on a musket by two fellow soldiers (I have visions of "gallant officer refusing to leave the Colours" for this one), one chap who has just stopped a French musket ball and is slumping forward, and a rapscallion heading off "to collect water" - he's British, surely he isn't "windy"? I'll not comment on the significance of his brown trousers... So eight in all (I'm counting the officer on the musket as three figures). So this would be 20 - 25% of the battalion - I figure add in a couple of standard bearers and a drummer and the command stand would be pretty much there. So one bag of AB B09 Flank skirmishing, and a couple of bags of B08 Centre Loading & Firing would sort me out - any vacant slots left could be filled by company officers.

And the marching figure is the one that started this off. It's fairly subtle - he's supposed to represent a chap just being shot. Before you ask I've bought several sets of British casualties folded in with AB figures bought from eBay - I could probably paint a battalion of casualties. I figure he will work as "filler" for Paul's fine gift of a line infantry battalion on the march. You may well notice a difference in stle on these figures - they were undercoated in black when I got them and I decided to go with them as they were - I'm not really happy with them but they turned out better than expected.

And here are the Spanish Militia that were almost finished three weeks ago - still almost finished as the basing needs to be done. The flag is by Adolfo Ramos (you can see the accompanying colonel's flag in the picture below) - being Spanish he has a very good selection of flags for the Peninsula War (and plenty of other stuff too in different scales). This pair are actually "generic" line infantry flags - provincial militia flags had the distinctive coats of arms for their province in the corners (as did line infantry).

This is the first militia battalion painted some months ago. Both battalions are wearing the standard M1805 uniform - the army that marched to Ocana was very well equipped by Spanish standards (and when I was originally researching the confusing mess that was Spanish army officialdom from 1797 to 1809 this uniform was one of the few things I could be fairly sure was "right") so I feel justified in not making them too hodge podge looking.

Having painted two units in white I quite fancy doing something like the Spanish Royal Guard (921 men from the 1st battalion served with the 3rd Division) - they had a rather spiffy dark blue uniform with with bright red facings. However, the Histoire & Collections book on Ocana shows them in a new uniform issued in 1809 (dark blue uniform, white lace buttonhole trim and shako). This is quite dull compared to the previous uniform (the Guerreros & Batallas book has the older outfit) - but I could see how a guard regiment could get new gear first. I had a look at the AB PDF (this has pictures of all the figures in the range) and the AB Spanish in shako still have the same sort of jackets as the bicorne chaps - so don't really work. So this one needs more research - I've ordered the new book on the Spanish Army by Stephen Summerfield and Ged Cronin so hopefully that will shed some light on the matter. In the meantime, as an alternative to white I'm rather thinking red facings and brown jackets - this was the uniform of the Regiment da Linea Voluntarios de Sevilla (a Cuerpo de Nueva Creacion according to Guerreros y Batallas ie formed after May 1808), and also one of the uniforms commonly worn by the provincial militia - so a possibility these guys could do double duty in the future.    

And here is the painting table - as you can see very little change, although front and centre are five companies of the Hesse Darmstadt Erb Prinz awaiting their command figures to be dealt with.

So, final results for Week 20 - 88 figures painted, 112 figures behind schedule. I'm hoping a return to Spanish infantry will let me regain some ground.
 

Paint Table Saturday 3rd May 2014

Three weeks on from my last Paint Table Saturday entry and my target figure is 170 figures painted. You will recall that the last time I showed anything I mentioned that I'd lost count of how many figures I'd painted in 2014, and so I was starting from scratch. Since then, of course, we've had the Easter bank holiday so I should have been steaming ahead....well I've managed another 35 figures (so I'm now 92 figures behind schedule):

8 Spanish Militia

1 Spanish Malaga Line Regiment Officer

25 Hesse Darmstadt Erb Prinz Regiment

1 French Legere officer

So, seven of the eight Spanish Militia figures will complete my second (rather well dressed) provincial militia battalion. The eighth is a rather nice figure by Polly Oliver (from a bag of their American AWI Minutemen) - I have quite a lot of these figures assembled from purchases made from eBay over the years (2.1kg after my weigh in last week which is equivalent to about 650 figures), which have sat unloved in a drawer since I bought them. He'll get fed into a scruffier militia battalion once I get started on it.

The Hesse Darmstadt guys are done but not based up or "dipped" yet. You can see them sitting on the window sill in the photo above. If you have read the last few posts you'll know that I struggled to find appropriate figures for these chaps who performed so well in the Peninsula for the Emperor. Warmodelling (Fantassin) do a set of figures suitable for the Peninsula but I'm not struck on them - this left converting something else, waiting for a good manufacturer (AB, CGM, Xan or Khurusan) to bring something out, or going slightly off-piste.

Naturally, I went off piste. AB's 1806 Prussians work perfectly for Hesse-Darmstadt figures serving in North-West Europe in 1809 -  the problem is that the Erb Prinz Regiment changed uniforms on the way from Hesse to Spain. So, as I fancied painting some AB 1806 Prussians anyway, I decided to ignore the uniform change (okay - it's slightly imagi-nations, but if any button counters whinge, I'll pick up my toys and go home like the adult I am). This decision has led to some slightly mind bending questions of how I treat various aspects of their organistion etc - see More On The Erb Prinz here for this. They would have been mounted on their stands and be just about ready to be terrained except I decided rather at the last minute to add some NCOs and casualty figures (any figures left over as a result will be committed to the second battalion).

The Spanish Officer from the Regimento de linea de Malaga is (after slating them loudly and often) by Fantassin. He's actually a French Legere officer officer but close enough in 15mm to switch sides with a lick of paint. He's wearing the 1805 uniform of white coat, dark blue cuffs and lapels, and white collar piped dark blue. He was lying around on my table, looked easy to do, and would get my numbers up!

The Legere Carabiniers and Spanish Militia from previous weeks painting.

After being quite pleased with how the Legere Carabiniers turned out (although I'm now thinking the trim on their boots should be red as they are carabiniers) I started painting some Legere, so the officer was another easy figure to get some scores on the board.

Finally, these are my morning supervisors, Toby and Archie. Toby is an old boy, and these days he needs to go to the loo more often than he used to (I know how that feels - after the first pint or two I seem to spend half the evening in the loo), and he tends to wake up at 06.30 most mornings. My weekend therefore starts with a cold foot in the small of my back (my wife's way of saying "go and sort the dogs out") - she has unnaturally cold feet that, carefully placed, can get me out of bed in double-quick time.

Archie (the one on the right) in his normal supervisory role at my desk. I thought this came out rather well as a "selfie" - although clearly I need a shave. It's a poor show when you need to perform your ablutions before blogging!  

15mm AB / Blue Moon / Xan French Guns

The Query
So this post is (slightly) a warning to myself to do proper research before buying figures. Back in April when I began my (slow) Spanish project I started out by buying a Spanish Line Infantry brigade from Fighting 15's - this gave me four 32 figure battalions of Spanish Line Infantry fusiliers (the grenadiers are assumed to have been detached) but my Spanish infantry needed some artillery support. I went to the appropriate page for Spanish artillery and there were crew with a comment - "For suitable guns, we recommend French 6pdrs (AB-F42)". I had some AB guns so just bought some Spanish gun crews at Salute (a pre-order packed by Mr Marsh at the last minute!).

I think AB's Spanish gunners look fine - but they needed French Gribeauval 6lb guns to crew - Spanish artillery adopted the French Gribeauval system in 1783. AB make French artillery pieces (including a 6lb Gribeauval) but there seems to be a consensus that the "track" (the distance between the wheels) is too wide. I've got to say this is a view I have some sympathy with. So when I saw some nice Blue Moon British guns on JJ's blog I thought I'd investigate further.

I had some AB French guns already, and had bought the Xan Miniatures French Artillery piece from Empress Miniatures (along with crews - packed rather oddly in sixes; there are only four crew figures - you get a couple of random doubles as far as I can tell) at Salute. So, I dragged poor Giles ( Tarleton's Quarter ) over to the Old Glory stand to get a set of Blue Moon French 6lbers. Obviously, what I should have done, was do some research, and then bought some guns.

On the basis that figure manufacturers cannot agree on what "15mm" actually means when it comes to their figures, it isn't surprising that scale models of artillery pieces should vary too. The situation is complicated by the fact that the French made several changes to their guns during the Napoleonic period (starting out with the Gribeauval system, introducing the An XI system from 1803, and a bastardised version incorporating elements of both shortly thereafter - where the Gribeauval didn't soldier on unaltered).

French 6lb Gun History
The Gribeauval system of field artillery essentially specified that there should only be four calibres of tube employed: 6 inch howitzers, and 4lb, 8lb and 12lb field guns. Further, the components of each gun, carriage  and limber within it's calibre should be standardised - the first large scale instance of the use of replaceable parts. Other changes included assigning gun crew to a particular gun (previously gunners were part of a pool - so could be assigned to a six inch howitzer for one campaign and a 12lb field gun for the next) and battery.

The system was a big success and French artillery was equal to or superior to their rivals across Europe from 1780 onwards - but the system was subject to some criticism within the French army. It was said that the 4lb gun was too small for firing canister, and the 8lb gun was too heavy for mobile field artillery. In Italy, in 1800, Marmont utilised 6lb guns cast locally, and made changes to standardise fewer wheel sizes for the carriage and limbers. Upon his return, Marmont sent a report to Napoleon, who decided to appoint a commission to look at the subject.

In 1803 the Commission made a number of recommendations that were incorporated into a revised system (called the An XI, or "Year Eleven" system in English). Field artillery would have larger guns - the 6lb gun would replace the 4lb gun, and the short 12lb gun would replace the 8lb gun. Alterations were made to the gun carriage - the most visible of which was the removal of the travelling trunnion and the change of shape to the end of the trail (the "ski" kicks up more on the An XI).

There was fierce debate about the changes (not least because there were hundreds of 4lb and 8lb gun tubes cast, and literally millions of rounds of ammunition in storage). In practice, the 6lb cannon was liked but the carriage wasn't (it was alleged it had a tendency to break up on campaign).

As you can see from the above, very brief, version of events, the really anal wargamer can have a field day with French cannon (and you thought it was just shakos v bicornes and long tailed coats v Bardin jackets...).

So in summary, the anal wargamers guide to the French use of 6lb guns:

1789 - 1800: No 6lb guns in your Revolutionary War French Army (if you are intent on 6lb guns you will need to argue for the local use of captured artillery tubes).

1801 - 1803: Limited use of 6lb guns with Gribeauval or original foreign carriages.

1804 - 1808: 6lb guns with An XI carriages - according to the sources I've looked at Napoleon ordered construction of new An XI carriages suspended in 1805 after criticism of the new carriages. So there would also be 6lbers with older Gribeauval carriages serving alongside the new carriages.

1808/9 - 1810: 6lb guns with adapted Gribeauval carriages (1810 saw official re-adoption of the Gribeauval carriages).

So, this is one of those areas where the "official position" and the reality clearly differed.

The Models
Before we go any further the grid on the photographs is 5mm - also as I don't possess calipers I just used a ruler for the measurements and did them by eye.

Anthony Barton: AB-F42 - French 6lb Gun @£2.60*
This is a 6lb gun on a Gribeaval carriage. So some basic measurements - the outside diameter of the wheels should be 4 feet 6inches (146cm) and is 15mm in the model (so bang on 1/100), and the iron axletree should be 6 feet 5 inches (206cm). There is a 20mm "track"in the model (from one wheel to the other) so 6 feet 6 inches - now the question arises, did the measurement of the axle include the wheel and linchpins? I'd submit that it should - on this basis the model measures 27mm at it's widest point. The wheels have a slight indent (which is wholly accurate) but the hubs are much larger than in real life with the result that the wheels look (and are) too far apart. I'd surmise this is one of those moments where the anal wargamer has to decide whether he wants a playable piece or a wholly accurate model. The strapping on the cheeks of the carriage all looks in the right place - this is a very nice model, if one can get over the overwide look of the gun.

Blue Moon: 15 FE 02 - 6 Pound Gun @£2.00 (Six models for £12.00)
Looking at the carriage, it seems fairly clear that this is a 6lb gun mounted on a An XI carriage. Irritatingly, I can't find the detailed dimensions of the An XI carriage but it's size would appear to be closely related to the Gribeauval 4lb carriage. The diameter of the wheel on the Blue Moon 6lb gun is 16mm (5 feet 3 inches), the "track" is 20mm and the axle is 22mm wide including hubs (the indented spokes are more pronounced than on the AB gun so the effect of the wide hubs isn't so pronounced. So, the diameter of the wheels is possibly a tad big but on the width issue the Blue Moon carriage is much better. The carriage looks bang on in terms of shape and details - this is a nice model and is the equal to the Anthony Barton gun. Packaging six models together in one bag seems a bit odd though

Xan Miniatures NFA10 - Cannon 6 & 8lb @£3.00
Back to the Gribeauval pattern carriage - although this one has a wider trail than the AB or BM. 15mm wheels, 17mm track and 22mm wide including hubs. On this model the indent of the spokes is barely there, if at all. The hubs seem much smaller with the effect that, of the three guns, this looks most like it should from the front. In terms of the carriage itself the detailing is less exaggerated than on the BM model. I'd use this gun nevertheless, it looks "right" except for the width of the trail - if an opponent were rude enough to point this out I think I'd just suggest this was one of the multiplicity of captured guns in the French arsenal, and that Spain appeared to regularly draw the short straw in supply terms for the French army. If you look closely, you can see that the trail spikes are still mounted on the carriage. One comment I'd like to make - I bought this gun eight months ago and it has been sitting on my desk unassembled for most of that time - I'm embarrassed to say, I'm unsure whether this is the 6 or 8lb barrel!

*Unusually, the price of AB has been falling over the last year as the Sterling to Aussie dollar rate has moved in our favour - AB guns were £3.00 in January 2013 (I'm slightly disturbed by this as it means my leadpile has dropped in value over the last 12 months - although as I've been supplementing my stocks that should make up for it, I've been adopting the same attitude to my pension plan over the recession).

Spanish Use Of 6lbers
This exposition has clearly drifted away from what guns I should offer my Spanish crewmen to serve - logic would indicate that they should be serving a gun with the Gribeauval pattern carriage - I'm unaware of any evidence that they switched to the An XI carriage and there weren't many instances of the Spanish capturing French guns - generally it was the other way round! Furthermore, as I actually started to research this a bit (I bought a couple of very nice books on Napoleonic artillery while searching for information), I couldn't find any evidence the Spanish actually used 6lbers - at this point I felt confident enough to email Ian Marsh and ask what sources he'd used to back his suggestion, I also posted a query on TMP.

I got a very prompt response from both. Dr Steven Summerfield who said on TMP that the Spanish didn't use 6lb guns until 1811 - and Ian Marsh also quickly replied as follows - "The issue is largely that AB doesn't make 4pdrs, so to have a small looking gun you have to use the 6pdr. It's a long time since I made the suggestion on the site, and I suspect I assumed the Spanish, being somewhat prone to losing their materiel, would probably make good losses at some point with captured French guns after successful British actions and sieges.

However, your email has encouraged me to read around, and I will change the advice on the website.

As for limbers, you are currently stuck. Ideally you'd want oxen pulling a French limber, and that isn't a possibility." 

I'd asked what Ian what he suggested for Spanish limbers and caissons etc - logic would indicate French pattern equipment but the limber riders would be an issue. He responded as an afterthought that Eureka do oxen pulling carts, but that as he didn't have the moulds in the UK he couldn't offer the oxen separately.

This would rather disqualify the Blue Moon AnXI guns from service with my Spanish army - which is a shame as I actually liked the look of this model the most in just about every other respect. So, given the options, I could use AB guns and just have to try and overlook the overwide look of them - which will bug me, I know.

The question of guns therefore went into a hiatus for a few months - about a month ago I looked at the Blue Moon website and the French 4lb and 8lb guns both have Gribeauval carriages - I emailed BM and a very kind lady, Teresa, forwarded my question on to the designer (Gregory) who confirmed this was the case within a few hours of my asking the question (so top marks for customer service to BM). I therefore bought some 4,8 and 12lb French guns from Old Glory UK (if you have been counting, you will realise that this post has caused me to buy 25 guns of one sort or another!) which took about a week to arrive and very nice they are too.

Blue Moon 4lb, 8ib and 12ib Guns

Ok, so here we have the BM 4lber gun (BM reference 15-FE-01). These fellows appear in several GdB OOBs being served by French Horse Artillery crews, and also by the Spanish (so the guns that I originally thought would get least use when I ordered these a few days ago will probably be used the most, initially at least). I used an Osprey, Napoleon's Guns 1792-1815 (1) for the measurements quoted below.

The first thing I thought when I saw this model was "gosh that looks small" - and the first thing I measured were the wheels which are 11.5mm in diameter (so, at 1/100 that is equivalent to 1.15m or a shade over 3 feet 9 inches) - this is small as the Osprey quotes 1.35m (or 4 feet 2 inches). And in 15mm scale a couple of millimetres rather stands out. The carriage is 25mm long (and the Osprey gives a "cheek length" of 235.5cm) so not too far off the original. Now the common problem with gun models is that they look too wide, so how did the BM 4lb gun do? The Osprey quotes the iron axletree length as 197.4cm (or 6 feet, 5 inches give or take a fraction of an inch) - measuring from the inside of each wheel (so including the inner hub) gave me a figure of 1.5cm so way too narrow (remember those mm stand out at this scale) - the equivalent of 19 inches. If you measured to the outer hub (so at the gun's widest point) it would be pretty much bang on.

So, overall, this gun is out in a couple of respects - height of the wheels and possibly the width of the track and length of the carriage. But if you are looking to represent the smaller guns on the table this model works well overall - one of those instances where the look of the thing is better than the sum of the parts.

Next up, the BM 8lb gun (BM reference 15-FE-03). At first sight this gun and carriage is very similar to their 6lber. The most obvious difference is the "kick up" at the end of the trail of the 6lber is more pronounced (although not as pronounced in the book "Napoleonic Artillery" by Duncan, Duncan and Summerfield, page 71 - I'm surmising that the BM 6lb model is an M1808), and the Gribeauval 8lber carriage has two trunnion positions rather than the single position on the 6lb An XI carriage. The 8lber has the same size wheels as the 6lb carriage (so 16mm diameter, or 5 feet 3 inches), and the track is 18mm. The axle is 22mm wide including hubs. Frame length is 26mm.

Finally, the BM 12lb gun (BM reference 15-FE-04). My first thought after putting this thing together was that it is one big carriage (36mm long) dwarfing the other guns. Wheel height is again 16mm. Track is 20mm, and hub to hub width is again 22mm. My next thought was that the "kick up" at the end of the trail was quite pronounced making it look like an early An XI gun (the 12lb An XI retained the travelling trunnion so this isn't a point of difference like it is on the 6lber). Actually - re-reading my correspondence with the BM people, I didn't actually ask about the provenance of the 12lb gun so it may well be a An XI.

A few general comments about the BM guns: The castings were pretty clean - I didn't do any preparation to any of guns before assembling them for this review. One minor issue I noticed with all the BM barrels was that the mould looks to be poured via the righthand trunnion (as you sight down the barrel) and the casting is a little rough here which means that the barrel doesn't fit cleanly into the carriage "pulling" the barrel to the right as it sits on the carriage. But this is nothing that a few minutes with a file won't fix.

I'd also point out that all the guns came with ammunition boxes despite my neglecting to photograph them!

And here are a couple of pictures of the guns lined up together:

Ok, From left to right: Xan Miniatures, AB, BM 4lber, BM 6lber. 

From left to right: BM 6lber, 8lber and 12lber.

From left to right: BM 6lber, 8lber, 12lber and a BH 4lb (?) gun I had laying around.

From left to right: Xan Miniatures (and before anyone comments I haven't stuck the barrel on this one), AB, BM4lb gun, BM 6lb gun.

In conclusion, I'm sure I've made some errors in terminology and detail - if anyone wants to comment on my ignorance feel free and I'll make the appropriate edits! Anyway, I hope this is useful. 

Addendum

I was asked on TMP to add some more manufacturers guns - to be honest I'd thought about doing this but the above post was originally started about eight months ago and I'm now pretty fed up with it! Anyway, I've looked though the Bollinger LGA (that is La Grande Annee - not La Grande Armee) box where all the unpainted French lead is stored and I found some more guns.

Old Glory 

Now, I think these are OG (long time readers of this blog will be aware that several years ago - back when the US Post Service still let their citizens send goods by surface post - I bought a very big box of French, Austrians and Russians from a chap in California and these guns are from an unmarked bag from the box). Looking at the website of the current UK agents, TimeCast, just shows labels such as "Foot Artillery, Full Dress" with no mention of gun size or carriage type - so its difficult to review how close they are to the original. Both guns are cleanly cast with good levels of detail (I'm not really sure if that big barrel goes with the carriage to be honest - there were also some howitzer barrels in the bag too). So here are a couple of photos with some measurements.

Gun "A" - wheel diameter 11mm, track 16mm, hub to hub width 22mm, cheek length 25mm.

Gun "B" - wheel diameter 12.5mm, track 17mm, hub to hub width 23mm, cheek length 26mm 

Fantassin (Warmodelling)

After saying on TMP I didn't possess any Fantassin artillery I found a gun and crew. Again, I'm unaware of what calibre it is supposed to be (I bought a "division pack" from Dermot at CGM in Spain a few years ago after hearing good things about their figures from TMPers - and that was really poor advice...) as it is in an unmarked bag with some French foot artillery figures. I'll do a photo and give measurements - but frankly this was the worst casting of any of the guns with softness and flash in the area below the trail spikes on the left hand side of the carriage, more flash at the front of the carriage, and rough areas on the wheel rims (which also didn't fit neatly to the axles). The transom appeared to me to out of true giving the carriage a slightly twisted appearance. Finally all the other guns had an indent at the mouth of the barrel - not the Fantassin gun. Also the two wheels were of different thicknesses. All in all, it was a chunky mess! 

Wheel diameter 15mm, track 18mm, hub to hub width 23mm, cheek length 28mm.

And just to show how awful the Fantassin gun is here are two shots - the first from the rear showing (hopefully) how the transom is out of true. 

And secondly how the wheels vary in thickness.

Battle Honours

Now this is from a really old pack (back when they were Kitney & Company and included a cardboard stand along with the gun and figures) labelled ART5A - I looked back through my earliest Wargames Illustrated magazines and I think this a French 8lb gun. It is much smaller than the 6 or 8lb offerings from BM (or AB) but then so are the crewmen - this gun is much closer to the BM 4lber in terms of the carriage size. There is a clear mould line running horizontally down the middle of each cheek which is a bit obvious but apart from that is a very clean casting. I think it is one of the nicest guns of the lot - there is detail but it isn't exaggerated. I guess if you pair it with the appropriate figures it would look fine. 

Wheel diameter 13mm, track 17mm, hub to hub width 23mm, cheek length 24mm.

  

The above are from left to right: OG Gun "A", OG Gun "B" and the Fantassin Gun.

Left to right: Battle Honours, OG Gun "A" and BM 4lber.

Army Painter Undercoat & Some Spanish Militia

So, having resolved to empty my painting desk of half finished units (see my last post) I've made a start. This is likely to result in figures being finished in a somewhat random order - as I have a lot of random half-finished units where I ran out of steam / was enticed by some new figures before I could finish older ones.

Back in March 2011, I had the urge to splurge on eBay and was lucky enough to pick up a couple of bits and pieces including some 15mm AB French horse artillery crews. At about the same time, I came across the Army Painter dark blue undercoat. Essentially, the AP argument goes that one can paint one's army quicker by spraying your figures in the main uniform colour undercoat, blocking in the other colours and then dipping the figures. My eyes glazed over as I looked at the pile of French Legere in the big box and suddenly this seemed like a wonderful idea. So at Salute 2011, I bought a can.

On the basis that I wanted to test out the theory before plunging into battalions of Legere I thought I'd do a French Horse Artillery battery first. My first thought was that the AP Dark Blue went on a little heavily (my normal undercoat is the Evil Empire's Skull White spray (it's expensive but I've never had a problem with it). The picture below shows the figures right after they've been sprayed.

Now I'm slightly underwhelmed by their argument for reasons I'll go into  - first, because the spray seemed rather thick I was loathe to to work the can like I do with the GW sprays - this meant that there were a couple of areas that didn't get great coverage and I had to go in with a paint brush (and this was prior to the Army Painter people bringing out pots of paint so I had to touch up with some mid-blue from Miniature Paints - which seemed close enough in tone to work). My next issue is probably because I'm used to working from a white undercoat - I found it quite hard to get good coverage for things like flesh over the dark blue base. My other problem was that I'm used to painting things like jackets up to the edge of the colour, and leaving things like crossbelts white - I just come back at the end and touch up where i've slopped over. Obviously, with this method I had to reverse my normal practice and maintian a steady hand whilst painting the white belts. To be honest, I'm not sure if it actually saved that much time painting these figures - possibly I need to try a battalion of Legere after all to see if it is any easier when one does a lot of figures.

Below is a picture of the gun crew after they were given a coat of AP Dark Tone (I went a bit too heavy on at least one figure and the AP pooled on the brim of his shako). Apologies for the poor picture quality. And before anyone says anything, I know they are manning an unpainted gun - it was all there was to hand (cannon are going to be the subject of my next post) and I didn't want them to be standing around an empty space. The flash has made them look a bit paler than they are in real life - they're actually a quite dark blue.

And the final pictures are of the other unit finished this week (apart from basing, and the flag being added) - a battalion of Spanish Provincial Militia (32 figures) wearing the M1805 uniform. As with my previous Spanish these were sprayed white, colours blocked in and then Army Painter Dark Tone was brushed on - they still need the flat varnish to be added. Figures are again by AB.

15mm Old Glory SPN5 Spanish Militia

After May 1808 Spain was fragmented with several different regional centres of power (juntas) - most of these were united in one thing, they didn't like the French. Unfortunately they were also not keen on one another, and for that matter were frequently suspicious of the English, who rather reciprocated that feeling.

The Juntas, in an attempt to resist the French, raised a huge number of militia units. These initially used Spanish equipment, and, as time went on increasing amounts of British made uniforms and muskets. Unfortunately, prior to 1808 most Spanish defence expenditure had gone into the navy - the army was definitely the poor relation. Also the conflict between church, state and nobility prior to the war meant that the Spanish officer corps had undergone little formal training, was stultified in its practices, and generally incompetent. What this meant was  that when the Juntas sought officers for the new militia units they naturally looked at former or serving officers from the army - on paper these people looked qualified to train and lead, but unfortunately all too many were useless at both.

The men, saddled with poor equipment, hopeless officers and a lack of training, behaved as you'd expect when thrown into action before they were ready - given a fixed position to defend they were competent but all too often their officers sought to manoeuvre battalions whose soldiers couldn't manage basic drills. When Spanish militia went into battle they frequently ran like rabbits in the face of the French - the lack of Spanish cavalry meant that the French horse could ride down fleeing Spanish with impunity leading to horrendous casualties. The survivors would melt away or be reformed into a new battalion. Conflicting information, continual destruction and reformation of battalions mean that it is almost impossible to produce a comprehensive list of units created in the Peninsula War.

And yet, when they were given time to learn their drills, and were properly led, they could be steadfast in the extreme. It should be remembered that, even though they were thrashed time and again, the Spanish kept coming back for more....

The 15mm Old Glory SPN5 Militia bag allows you to build these ephemeral battalions of inexperienced, badly equipped, ill fed and ill led men from the first years of the war. As you would expect there are the usual 50 figures in the bag. My initial reaction upon seeing them was that they were very nice by OG standards - there are eight different figures in the bag. The figures are wearing bicornes and the "top hat" favoured by the Spanish (which looked very similar to that worn by Royal Marines of the period) and are wearing a smock-like jacket. All of the figures are in that rushing forward high porte sort of pose that OG favour. Amazingly, to me, the rank and file actually had faces that looked human (I've had figures from the OG ACW range - and OG Austrian Napoleonics - whose faces were shapeless lumps of lead). The musket detail was a bit rough, and weak points meant there is a good chance of losing a figure or two as the musket (not the bayonet, the musket) breaks apart.

Here are the four options for ranks and file - two in top hat, and two in bicorne. I've no idea whether the packing in these is consistent or not but there are twice as many top hat guys as bicorne chaps.

And here are the same figures from behind.

I think the command figures are weaker sculpts (see above). The top hat standard bearer, to me, doesn't fit with the mad charge of the other figures in the bag, and the left arm on the bicorne standard bearer looks like it has just been stuck on the torso (also the flagpole goes right across the face of the bearer - which means if you are planning on removing it to replace with brass wire, you'd best have a steady hand). The officer in top hat works pretty well but his bicorne counterpart looks awful to me. There is only one drummer  (in top hat) who looks okay. In all there are 4 command groups included (two bicorne officer and standard bearers and the same again with top hats - plus four drummers in top hats).

And the same figures  from behind.

So, overall, these weren't bad figures - nice energetic poses, some nice details but let down by the usual OG niggles of poor finish and occasional iffy sculpting. Thinking about it, I'm inclined to ditch some of the command figures and replace them with AB. Two options occur to me. First, as many of the militia units were commanded by officers seconded from regular battalions or brought back from retirement, use regular line infantry command figures, and secondly, as AB do some Spanish militia packs buy a pack of officers for those.

Next, a picture of the rank and file with the usual AB French Line figure, his Blue Moon French counterpart, and a Xan miniatures French Legere figure.

And the command figures with the same figures for comparison. I've also slipped in an AB Spanish Militia officer who seems, to me, to work quite nicely.

All in all, I liked these figures, in some respects they are the nicest OG figures I've yet seen. I think they'll be simple to paint and work quite nicely. Of course,

Battle Honours BSP3 Spanish Infantry Defending Review

Apologies for not posting for a few weeks - I had ten days in Scotland visiting my Uncle, and I've had a lot of work on.  Just a quick photo review of the first of the Spanish infantry packs I bought at Salute. This one was BSP3 Spanish Infantry Defending - £15.00 for 50 infantry including three command sets (although I got 10% off because I'm a megalomaniac who couldn't resist spending more than £90 at the show with the chaps at Timecast).

I've bought one or two bags of Battle Honours troops in the past that have been a bit rough (and I'm not the only one - after the show, Giles and I had a few glasses of wine with Dave Brown and some of the chaps from Loughton Strike Force and at least one of them had had the same issue previously) - the moulds seem to be coming to the end of their natural lifespan on some of the more popular bags and are rougher castings than they used to be. I'm pleased to say, these Spanish are very nice - not as clean as AB castings but generally fine. They all seem to have an issue with a bit of roughness on the lower side of the bicorne, particularly where the bottom of the bicorne and the figure's shoulders are in close proximity - but this is nothing that a few moments with a file can't fix. Apart from that it is the usual vent scrap, a little bit of flash on the bayonets (which seem to vary between quite long on some figures and quite short on others) and a few chunks on the bottom of the base. The metal isn't super hard so clean up is no problem.

So, the first thing to say is that BH don't do separate packs of grenadiers (which is odd as the Spanish generally used grenadier companies in converged battalions) so there are grenadiers wearing their distinctive bearskin mixed in with the regular line infantry in bicornes. Out of the 50 figures 16 are grenadiers. This is also a somewhat haphazardly packed bag (more on this later) in another sense: Spanish Infantry "Defending" made me think of chaps preparing to receive a charge, firing their muskets and so on. And I did see some of those in the pack (8 grenadiers and 12 chaps in bicornes) - the balance of the bag are troops standing with their muskets on their shoulders, and the command groups.

First Picture shows the two different standing grenadiers you get (6x of the one on the left, 2x the one on the right) - I really like these, good detail, a bit of character, nicely cast, excellent figures. The standard bearer I'm not quite so keen on - there's nothing terribly wrong with him, it's a good pose that will work with both the "standing around" figures and the "defending figures" - but he doesn't grab me (as I only got two of these I guess that is okay). And that flagstaff will need to be replaced as it is rather weedy. The drummer is another fine figure (3 of these in the bag) - the black wash really brought out the character on this chap - you can see the flash on the bicorne (I've removed excess metal from air vents and the small amount of flash from the bottom of the base on some figures but, otherwise, these are as bought). And finally the officer - when I first looked at him I really didn't take to him - frankly, I thought the pose looked a bit effeminate (which, given the poor calibre of so many Spanish officers, might be rather apt) but again, now that the wash is on, he is rather growing on me.

And the same figures from behind.

Next up, more rank and file including the two "defending" poses. As far as I could tell there were no pose variants with these two - you just got 12 of the bicorne defender, and 8 of the grenadier. The figures are very similar in pose but aren't just a head swap - the grenadier has gaiters, his cartridge case has a grenade symbol on it and he has the sword bayonet in it's scabbard. And finally we have the three "standing around" poses to finish off the pack - I got nine of the middle figure, three of the chap with the musket over his right shoulder, and two chaps smoking a cigarette.

And the same figures from behind.

Now if you've been keeping pace with the numbers of figures in each pose I've been mentioning, you will see that, while I got exactly 50 figures in the bag, only 20 were actually in what I'd term a "defending" pose - and of those you'd need to use the 8 grenadiers separately. So, unless you wanted to mix in the "standing around" figures with the defending figures (perhaps in the second rank? I have a mental image of the front rank being braced to receive cavalry while at least one chap nonchalantly smokes a fag), you won't have enough figures of any one style to make up a 24 figure battalion. And another problem - grenadiers had officers and drummers who wore bearskins, not bicornes - so the 20 grenadiers in the bag have nobody to command them.

All this means that, for me, the packing of this bags is a bit of an issue. At first glance, without counting figures you'd think "50 figures, 3 command groups - okay, two 24 figure battalions with a spare officer and standard bearer" - and you would be dished once you opened the bag and found what you actually had. Obviously, for me, the solution is to simply buy more (when the maths gets tough, the wargamer goes shopping). So, having a second bag of BSP3 in the drawer, I opened it and had a headcount. Now the chap from Loughton had warned me there was some variation between bags (ie it isn't like Wargames Foundry where there was one mould for each pack, and each spin produced one pack, so no variation in what you got each time). This time round I got the following (1st pack count in brackets):

Officer x3 (x3)
Drummer x3 (x3)
Standard Bearer x3 (x2)

Grenadier Defending x9 (x8)
Grenadier Standing Around x8 (x8)

Bicorne Defending x6 (x12)
Bicorne Standing Around x18 (x14)

So, you can see the proportion of grenadier figures is fairly constant, as is the command element, but the mix between standing around and defending varies a bit. Now, looking at the Deep Fried Happy Mice review of BSP1 Spanish Standing & Firing it looks like you get the same command, and standing around figures, along with some guys loading and firing. It would also appear he got some chaps defending too. Plus he got 16 grenadiers. Whether there was a kitchen sink in the bag too he didn't say.

I should also say that the second bag was much more cleanly cast than the bag I used for the photos - little or no roughness on the bicornes and mostly just vent metal on the rest of the figures.

I'm therefore thinking that you have two options with the BH figures. First, just take the bag and paint what you've got, and then use the grenadiers with bicorne command (they were a slovenly lot, the Spanish) and damn the historical accuracy, and mix up the standing and defending guys in bicorne. Secondly, buy three bags and separate the figures to make the best units you can. The AB grenadier command would work with either the standing around or defending poses so you should be able to get two grenadier battalions from three bags, and a 24 figure bicorne defending battalion and a couple of bicorne standing around units as well.

And, just to complicate matters even more, it seems that the foreign regiments didn't necessarily detach their grenadier companies (irritatingly I can't find the thread on TMP that I saw this), so, if you are painting a nice Irish or Swiss unit you could mop up a few grenadier figures by including a stand of those.  

And a picture with an AB French Ligne figure, a Blue Moon French Ligne figure and a Campaign Games Miniature figure, a Xan Miniatures Voltigeur and an AB Spanish marching figure for comparison purposes. Sadly, the AB and BH figures don't work terribly well together in my eyes - I think you'd need to slip a thin shim under the BH figures to make them go well together.

And this is a rather more "wordy" photo review than I originally intended - I do blether on!