BATTLE OF THE SCHELLENBERG 1704

 At the defense of the hill of the Schellenberg in 1704there was the creme of the Bavarian Army that had to face the British Army.

In between the troops that fought there was the Leibregiment, on 3 battalions, 1 of Grenadier and 2 of Musketiers for a total of 2.100 men.

I don't know if I will be able to finish this battle with my papersoldiers but I am sure I can represent this regiment (while I am writing this article 2 battallions and half are already totally done).

So I wanted to start to show the Grenadier Battalion on 700 paperfigures that gives a real vision if what meant a unit like this, hoping to show in short time the entire regiment.

The regiment was on 5 companies, each of 140 men and each with colours.

Here above the Elector Maximilian Emanuel II (see my previous blog) is reviewing the troops.

MAXIMILIAN EMANUEL II OF BAVARIA

 Being at almost the end of my Battalion of Leibgrenadieren of the Bavarian Army for the Battle of Schellenberg, I thought I had to prepare, once, also an historical figure, and obviously I wanted to prepare the Commander in Chief of the Bavarian Army, i.e. the Prince-Elector Maximilian Emanuel II.

Maximilian Emanuel II of Bavaria (1662 - 1726)
Copyright Michele L. SAVASTA FIORE

For this purpose, I used this image:

WSS ARMIES - DEPLOYMENT. DETAILS

Following up my previous post and some comments from Gentlemen from TMP, I finally tried to sum up all the suggestions. I an sorry to have to abandon some static and beautiful poses, but the majority of comments was for a marching pose. I didn't want to give up all the different poses and above all the possibility to put some shooting men. So I had to go for a compromise.

Here above 1 company (around 55 men) of the Bavarian Grenadier Leibregiment that fought at the Battle of Schellenberg. In this example I used 2 rows of marching poses and 2 rows of ready to fight/charge/shoot so very versatile units. I think better would have been to have 3 marching ranks but I did not have enough papersoldiers.

Here above 1 company of the British 1st Foot Regiment; on 3 ranks. 2 marching (please note different position of the musket than those of the Bavarians).

Above: Ready to fight

Above: To show that the British are going to shoot I have to substitute some (not all!!) units in the front ranks. This operation is quite simple due to the fact that my papersoldiers can be easly detached from the stand, being attached just with a magnet (a quite unique solution, I would say)

Above: here the result. The shooting poses are installed

Above: shooting effect

Above -the result: out of 55 firing men/papersoldiers 5 enemies loss.

Above: contemporay back-shooting with 62 men (lower rate than british) just 4 losses: but what is needed to be seen here is the effect of the Bavarian with smoke. Sincerly I think that the way I represented the shooting of the British infantry (adding some shooting posese) gives a much better effect.

BRITISH ARMY - WSS - REGIMENT 1st FOOT GUARDS: DEPLOYMENT

During the War of Spanish Succession  the British Army was, along with the Dutch, the unique army that deployed on three ranks, This said, I was wondering, in general, how to deploy my 1:1 ratio soldiers in order to give a more realistic vision of a unit.

I took as example 1 company of the 1st Foot Guards Regiment. The different possibilities in wargaming can be:

a) unit in movement

b) unit firing

c) unit standing

There is hence the problem to recreate the maximum effect of these 3 different situations at 1:1 ratio (i.e. 1 man represented by 1 papersoldier); this is not only a matter for WSS but in general for all my wargames. I actually opted for 2 different arrays: from Napolonic period on a sort of mix of postures of the men all togheter without any firing soldier. For the period before Napoleon a static and more uniform array of the unit.

Here some example:

1 Napoleon's and later period "mixed array"

2) Pre-Napoleonic period

As you can see in the previous pictures, the papersoldiers have all the same position. Here comes the problem: trying to increase the realistic vision of a wargame battlefield, for my last units (February 2023) I tried to prepare some examples of deployment for WSS and in particular 1 company of the British Regiment Foot Guards.

Picture 1. Three  metal stripes where to put the papersoldiers with magnet

Picture 2. The Company in "firing position". To show it, I put shooting men in the front, while the rest are just ready to shoot. This gives l'idea that: a. the unit will not move in that turn; b. they are ready to shoot 

Picture 3. The same as before but with the effect of the shooting. This means that that unit already shot in that turn and cannot shoot again

Picture 3. Once the shooting phase is over, the fron line must be removed and a third line must be added 

Picture 5. The company in "standing position"; this means that the unit is waiting for orders, or can move (see the last rank). The visual picture is not the top, because of the V effect of the guns: the front in opposite direction that the rear.

Picture 6. An alternative: to avoid to make too many papersoldiers, it would be possible to add just some shooting papersoldiers, giving the idea as in picture 2, but with much less papersoldiers.

I checked over some pictures on Internet about how units are deployed in wargaming:

 

As you can see the units are in a mix of shooting / standing /ready to fire /marching positions without a real pattern. This put me even more in confusion.

Also "der Alte Fritz Journal" goes for a plastic unique position

but then.... he changed

Any comment is more than welcome....

BAVARIAN ARMY 1704 BATTLE OF SCHELLENBERG: LEIBREGIMENT - GRENADIER

I am not the only one to be fascinated by the unique colour of the uniforms of the Bavarian Army. So I decided to prepare some templates for this army as well to be used in the defense of the hill of Schellenberg on 2nd July 1704. During this battle the Bavarians fought gallantry and suffered high rate of losses. The top units of the army partecipated to this battle and namely the Leibregiment with its Grenadier Battalion and its Mosquetiers Battalions. 

I prepared the template, but the problem that arose immediatly in the marching position is the inclination of the musket: totally vertical or somehow on the shoulder. I cannot decide which one to do.

Any suggestion is welcome

I have gotten some suggestions. By the way I like them both but I was not able to decide which one to go for. the left one is too vertical and the right one was good but not so vertical like in other figures. Solution? to make something in between. Her bottom the result:

I do think that the number 3 represents a good compromise betewwn them all and maybe even the historical more correct.

and even more straight (nr. 4)

BOURBON SPANISH DRAGONS DURING WAR OF SPANISH SUCCESSION 1701 - 1715

 During Covid I did a lot of efforts to keep my mind busy. One of the (many) things I was able to do was a deep research aobut uniforms (and history) of the Spanish Dragons  under the Bourbon colours, i.e. fighting for Filipe V de Burbon, grandson of Luis XIV. There was no particular reason to do all this job. I just enjoyed it. Then I passed all the material to Kronoskaf's Author to increase the new born page on the WSS.

So regardless it is already published (maybe not all) I am pleased to publish them here.

to be continued...
 

BRITISH 1st FOOT GUARDS REGIMENT AT SCHELLEMBERG 1704

Having in mind to change a little bit my last topic (Crusades) I went back to one of my favourite period, the War of Spanish Succession. Usually I am very keen for the Piedmontese front, but this time I went northeast to Bavaria to prepare some new templates for the bloody Battle of chellemberg on 2nd July 1704.

The furious attacks of the British troops were led by 80 Grenadiers of the 1st Foot Guards Regiment. I decided to prepare one template (that I will print in bigger scale, like my last ones, i.e. Arabs and 1848 Italian Risorgimento).

I noticed that there is a lot of disagreement on the actual uniforms (I mean the details); moreover about the mitre that the Grenadiers wore.

So I prepared 2 versions: one marked with A and the other with B, hoping to get an opinion on TMP (some details still to amend). Any comment is welcome

TMP's funs voted for A version. So I prepared a second Grenadier with the A type mitre. I think it looks quite good.