1757 LEUTHEN: ZIETEN HUSAREN - LIVE VIEW

 

Well I really liked the pictures I did of this hussar squadron of the Zieten Regiment at the Battle of Leuthen.

So I decided to write a second post with this new set of photos.

You can also see the Captain of this Squadron leading his troops. The background is still to be done better, but the effect is quite good. I think

I started to take some pictures from a very particular point: As I was present at the battle myself, with the men and horses just in front of me. You can easly see the Captain (without sabre) and the rest of the men.

The total view is -  my opinion - really good. It is acutally pratically impossible to see on wargames a so huge amount of horses ... papersoldiers allow you to recreate the real visul effect of a battle, without spending so much

Also the details of the uniforms are really well visible, and to paint them by hand would be impossible on a so huge scale.

1757 BATTLE OF LEUTHEN: ZIETEN HUSAREN

Actually, I wanted to write this post about the possibilities of making a good background for pictures of papersoldiers. I used for this purpose the Zieten Hussars.
At the Battle of Leuthen they were 10 squadrons i.e. 950 men circa.

 

In these pictures the Squadron is passing by a little farm by a village south of Leuthen. The ratio is always 1:1

 What was really important for me was the background. I think I did the snowy ground a little bit to high but the sky is quite good and the effect all together also very cool.

AUSTERLITZ: GRENADIERS OF THE NOVGOROD REGIMENT

I am going to be alone for  two weeks ! so home is all for me and I decided to use the (half empty) bed as a board (considering white blankets) for the battle of Austerlitz. At least it won't be so empty.

I decided to array the Grenadier Battalion of the Novgorod at the Battle of Austerlitz on 5th December 1805.

This battalion - together with other troops - was deployed on the Pratzen Hill, encharged to defend that position from the French attacks. This battalion (actually very under numbered) fought with quite few impetus, and it gave field and the village of Pratze to the French

Here bottom the two flags (in the corrected colours) of the Novgorod Regiment.

Note that the Leibfahne or Colour of the Colonel was present with the Grenadiers Regiment of every Musketeers regiment

 Bottom: a vision of the Battalion at 1:1 ratio

I know already that you will question why these Grenadiers are wearing the mitres. This was for me a big challenge to understand if the Grenadiers of the Novgorod Regiment were actually carrying the miteres at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805.
I did a lot of research and I posted my ideas on The Miniatures Page.
I will report that topic:
Retention of Miters
The grenadiers and fusiliers were ordered to replace their miters with shakos on Feb. 25, 1805. Austerlitz and the Polish campaign soon followed, and it is known that some regiments fought wearing their miters, but information is scarce.
-- Kaluga, Estonia, Mogilev, Kostroma, Odessa, Vilna, and Penza were all raised after the introduction of the shako.
-- The Jan. 4, 1806 order, allowing officers in the Caucasus Inspection to wear shakos in action, may imply they had converted.
-- The Pavlovsk Grenadiers famously wore their miters through the Wars, redistributing the grenadier and fusilier miters by company with the 1811 restructuring.
-- Austerlitz relics, an all light crimson miter, and a straw miter with a dark band, have been identified as belonging to the Narva and Old Ingermanland grenadier battalions.
-- An officer's diary indicates the Apsheron grenadier battalion had switched before Austerlitz.
-- The regimental history of the New Ingermanland is said to relate a Nov. 1805 order to change the miter bags to dark green. However, since the facing change occurred in Nov. 1804, this is an error as to the year.
-- The Moscow Grenadier and Vladimir grenadier battalion are thought to have fought at Eylau in miters.
-- The Azov regiment was fully re-equiped (presumably with shakos) after heavy losses as Austerlitz. Other regiments suffering heavily would include: Galich, Butyrki, Narva, Podolia, Kursk, and Perm.

 Bottom: details of the colours

I read the 3 or 4 posts regarding this topic, because I wanted to create my Russian Army for the battle of Austerlitz.
I simply summarize the information I've gotten here:
Every Grenadier Regiment had:
1 battalion grenadiers + 2 battallions fusiliers
Every Musketeer Regiment had:
1 battalion grenadier + 2 battalion musketeer.
The problem is the head-wear of the Grenadiers (and therefore of the Fusiliers). Did they fight with mitre or shako?
According to the information I've gotten, surely at the battle of Austerlitz fought with the mitre the following battalions of grenadiers:
*Novij Ingermanland Musketeer Rgt
*Old (starij) Ingermanland Musketeer Rgt
*Moskowskij (grenadier regiment)
*Vladimirskij Musketeer Rgt
*Kievskij (grenadier regt)
*Fanagoriskij (grenadier regt)
*Narvskij Musketeer regt
*Malorossiski (grenadier regt)
(Obviously there is also the Pavlov regiment and some others that by sure wore the mitre at the epoch, but they didn't participate to the battle of Austerlitz: *Pavlov, *Ekaterinenbourg etc )
Starting from an information about the Caucasian inspection where it is told that "all men of that inspection"already wore the shako, I considered that if the grenadiers of that regiment in that inspection wore mitre also the other regiment of the same inspection did the same; this system will give a quite accurate idea of the regiments that at the battle of Austerlitz wore the mitre. And so:
*ARCHANGEL Musketeerl Regiment: Lithuania Inspection (where there is the Ekaterinenbourg Regiment) so its grenadiers wore the mitre.
*PSKOV Musketeer Regt: Lithuania Inspection (as above); grenadiers with mitre
*JAROSLAVSKIJ Musketeer Regt: Dniestr Inspection (where there was the Novj Ingermanland regiment with mitre); its grenadiers wore mitre
*BRIANSKIJ Musketeers Regt: Ucraina Inspection (where there was the Malorusskij Regt with mitre) its grenadiers wore the mitre
*MOSKOWSKIJ Musketeers Regt (not to be confused with the Moskow grenadiers regt): Kiev Inspection (where there was the Narvskij regt with mitre); hence its grenadiers wore the mitre too.
*VIATSKIJ Musketeer regt: Inspection Kiev (as above): hence its grenadiers wore mitre
*KURSK and PERM Musketeers Rgt: Smolensk Inspection; no reference; hence they wore shako
*VYBORG Musketeers: Brest Inspection (whrere there was the Old Ingermanland regt with mitre ) hence its grenadiers wore mitre; NB in this inspectionb there is also the Rgt Apcheron, that is known because one of its officers wrote they got the shako just before the battle of Austerlitz; so this inspection was in transition. So I considered Old Ingermanland as with mitre (because it was one othe oldest regiments of the army, while the rest got the new shako
*RIAZAN Musketeers rgt. Finalnd Inspection: shako
*GALICIA Musketeers: Ucraina Inspection. As above: hence mitre
*BOUTYRSK Musketeers Rgt: Kiev Inspection, As above: hence its grenadiers wore mitre too
*AZOV + PODOLSK Musketeers: Brest Inspection; as above:hence their grenadiers wore shako
*APCHERON Musketeer regiment: shako
*NOVGOROD Musketeers: Kiev Inspection: as above; its grenadiers wore mitre
*SMOLENSK Musketeers; Ucraina Inspection; as above; its grenadiers wore mitre
*IMPERIAL GUARD: all with shako
*LEIB-GRENADIER with shako

 Bottom: a complete view of the Battalion. As you can see the order is not perfect, as in reality

Bottom and top: here a little comparation between a "normal" wargame board (bottom) - picture taken from this site http://www.mapsymbs.com/austerlitz.html - and (top) a 1:1 ration battalion in papersoldiers. Consider that in the "normal" wargame there are represented 5 battalions, while (top) just one battalion.

 Top and bottom: behind the unit there was a cloud of NCO's and Officers to keep the order. In vain at the battle of Austerlitz

Bottom: I used some cotton (from the make-up!!!) to recreate the idea of the firing of the Battalion. Up to you to judge the effect

Bottom: a better detail of the Grenadiers. In foreground a Lieutenent

WW I - TANNENBERG AT 1:1 RATIO (Part 1)

One can wonder if and how it's possible to recreate a huge battle involving hundreds of thousands of men on a 50 km wide front in a 1:1 ratio scale.

It's quite a challege, I would say. But it's not impossible, using some phantasy and capacity of scaling down.

The Battle of Tannenberg, or the Campaign on the eastern Front saw the Germans and the Russians to face each other in a fierce series of battles.

I intended to recreate this giants' battle. 

First I decided to draw the Germans in their beautiful uniforms:

 In this case, 2 Companies of an Infantry regiment are attacking a village on Eastern Prussiam September 1914, at 1:1 ratio, i.e. every papersolidiers represents a real soldier.

What now matters is to understand the real composition of a German Regiment at the epoch.

So an Infantry regiment was on 3 Battalions, each on 4 Companies, each on 3 Platoons, each on 4 Sections, each on 2 Squads.

I decided to split the Squad in two stands: the first of 4 papersoldires and the second of 5 papersoldiers.

This means that a Company will have 48 stands (each with 5/4 papersoldiers glued on), for a total of about 210/2016 papersoldier/Company.

In this pictures you can see an attack delivered by almost 2 companies in close formation,as they were fighting at the beginning of the WW1; in the pictures the stands of 4/5 men are well visible; I think they recreate quite realisticly the shape of a company at the beginning of the War, while giving the possibilities to move them in a quite simple way

How to menage to recreate a 100.000 papersoldiers vs 150.000 papersoldiers is the challenge of the text post.

For the moment, please enjoy this regiment

BATTLE OF TURIN 1706

This morning I would like to celebrate an historical - though very forgotten by British authors - battle in 1706. Actually, while Marlborough was winning at Ramilles in the same period his counterpart and ally, Prince Eugenio von Savoy got an extraordinary victory against the French after an even more extraordinary expedition through Northern Italy. 

Identically the pride resistance of the little but proud Dukedom of Savoy and the siege of Turin, its capital, represent a masterpiece of brave and stubborn skill to fight of the Savoy/Piedmontese people that the official historiography guilty forgets. Even when I proposed to Osprey Publishing to publish one of their booklet on this incredible battle, they simply and gently expressed their not-interest, quite a one-side vision of history.

Today I want to celebrate on this blog the courage and skill to fight of the Imperial Army (Prussians, Hungarians, Austrians, Palatines, Savoy/Piedmontese) that totally annihilated the French Army that since then - at the contrary of what happened in the Northern front - never menaced again the Dukedom of Savoy and Piedmont

This said, here a little vision of the Pfalz "Division" (even though this tactical term was not used and we could then call it Brigades group) with the Prince Eugene

For the uniform of the Prince Eugene I simply copied his portrait from the museums

 prince Eugenio von Savoy is reviewing the troops of the Pfalz Group of Brigades before the Battle of Turin - September 1706