WSS: The 5th Army - Flags in a Hurry

 My new project extension - the addition of a small contingent of troops from Hesse-Kassel - is under way. For this phase I'll be including a few more Irregular figures in the mix, to add variety and also because I have a lot of them, and I'm starting to run low on some of the Les Higgins stocks.

To help the Irregular boys fit in nicely, I have purchased a supply of 12mm brass discs, to add a little height to the Irregulars, and also give something closer to the standard Higgins bases.

The other thing I need, before painted soldiers start arriving, is a set of laser-printed flags to cover the units I am intending to field. I knocked up some flag images and emailed them yesterday to my man Malcolm at the local print-shop. He rang me this morning to tell me my flags were ready, and I collected them this afternoon. I don't have anything similar to compare this with, but that is an impressive turnaround by my usual standards.

I am more than a little shame-faced to air my home-brewed flags where comparisons might be made with the real deal, but felt that they might be of interest, and might even be useful if anyone else is considering a Hesse-Kassel force.

The Leibfahne flags are mostly guesswork, and the rest are sort of OK at best. Please note that the green surrounds on the white flags are not part of the flag, they are to make it easier to cut a white flag out of a white sheet (an eternal problem). From starting to think about this, these flags have gone from sketches to laser-printed sheet in about 48 hours. What they lack in quality they made up in rapid arrival! The small items at the bottom are cavalry flags.

These are intended for use with 20mm figures - I would certainly not recommend them for 28mm or larger.

 

  

WSS: First French Unit

 I'm very pleased to welcome a refurbished battalion of French infantry - this is the Regt de Nettancourt, beautifully painted by Aly Morrison.

 

Nettancourt - 20mm Les Higgins castings, though the mounted officer is from Irregular, on a Higgins horse. Most of the figures are from the Eric Knowles collection

 

Interesting drummer - derived from an illustration in Mark Allen's book - Nettancourt, from the Lorraine region, earlier had green facings, and the livery reflects that history of green. Perfectly painted, it goes without saying!

I have attached laser printed flags - a new experiment for me. The flags are from the excellent Not By Appointment blog - with the author's approval, and certainly laser printing shows off the quality of the artwork, but I need to do some more research on this - I have some issues with this first trial batch. The paper, at 120g/sm, is a little too heavy, and the satin paper produces flags which are probably too glossy - I'll work on this. I think this is promising, but I need to discuss the matter with Malcolm the Printer to see what works best. Since I am gluing the flags with PVA, I can remove and replace them very easily.

WSS Flags - looking for clues

 Very quick post today - I'm looking for a bit of information, if anyone can help. I don't think this is at all complicated, but I've read different opinions on this topic, and am uncertain about what to do.

 

Photo of flags of a French regiment from someone else's army, someone else's blog. Two flags is a nice look - colonel's colour on the left here - is this applicable to all battalions in a French regiment?

My emerging WSS armies use a vanilla, one-size-fits-all-nations establishment scheme. I know that this is probably not awfully clever, but the convenience suits me nicely.

In particular, my infantry battalions consist of 3 bases; two of these have 5 other ranks and 1 officer/NCO (and one of these two bases may contain grenadiers, depending on national practice), and the third one contains 3 other ranks, a standard, a drummer and a mounted colonel.

I'm now starting to plan for the French and British contingents. For each of these nations, I am tempted to be swayed by "the look of the thing" and go for 2 standards per battalion. Now that I've started to read about the French, it is suggested that a regiment's first battalion should carry the colonel's (white) colour and the ordnance (patterned) colour, but the other battalions did not carry the colonel's colour, so that my planned two-battalion French regiments would have 2 flags for the first battalion, but only 1 for the second.

Of course, I've also read sources which say two for each. I'm happy to do two for each anyway, but wondered if there are any strong views? All ideas welcome!

WSS: The Missing Flag Appears

 Quick footnote to yesterday's game - I've now fitted a 75cm (in scale!) flag to the Imperial C-in-C stand, and photos are necessary. I've also added the requisite magnetic sheet, and the chaps are now safely stored away with their army in the Really Useful Boxes.

I'm pleased because getting this group painted and based has been another hanging-around task, but am also interested because it gave me a chance try out some combinations of figure makers.

Here they are - the gentleman in the brown (civilian) coat is the boss - he could be Prince Eugene himself if it weren't for the moustache. Mind you, old PE wore some pretty outrageous wigs, so a false muzzer can't be completely out of the question? - maybe it was Mo-vember?

The commander is a Les Higgins casting on a Higgins horse, which is an obvious and standard arrangement hereabouts; the adjutant in the blue coat is an Irregular casting on an SHQ (ECW period) horse, and the standard bearer is Irregular on a Hinton Hunt ECW horse, and I'm delighted to see that these all work nicely, and are happily compatible with each other.

 

The flag - if you have exceptional eyesight - is the correct edition of the arms of the Holy Roman Empire for the time of Leopold I. It would be a terrible thing, I'm sure you'll agree, if I had got that wrong.

WSS - Flag Day

I spent some time last week working on my backlog of flags - this requires a lot of scanning and lifting screenshots, some actual freehand artwork (large, to be reduced) and a whole lot of graphic editing using my much-loved old version of Paintshop Pro. I also have Photoshop, which is certainly more versatile, but Photoshop does a zillion things I don't need, and requires a PhD to use it properly. If I really need to use transparent png files, or to add shadow texturing, Photoshop is the fellow, but not this time.

Once again, I come up against a regular complaint of mine, which is the fact that you can't get proper photo-quality print paper in 80g/sm weight any more, so the finished flags are sort of OK - they'll do until I can get the good stuff again, at which point I may reprint them. This morning I attached 14 missing flags to recently-completed WSS units, which is a comfort. I also have flags prepared for the next 6 battalions I'll be painting, so I'm (briefly?) ahead of the game.

I have yet to design/draw/edit flags for 3 of my Bavarian cavalry units, but that shouldn't take long.

Here are the flags I've been working with this weekend. I've only included a small sized image here, as you will observe - oh yes, the French 1804-pattern flags at the bottom are just because I stuck them on the print file - they will not be appearing in the WSS. Also - in case it matters - please note that any direct connection between these flags and the stated units may be questionable. One does one's best.

0.75Meg

Just look at that - it seems that my total hits count has slithered past 750,000 while I wasn't paying attention. I don't normally bother about such things, but it's a pleasingly off-beat sort of landmark, and it is a surprisingly big number - it is so big, in fact, that if I started counting now I would have forgotten what I was doing long before I got there. That's big.

Even allowing for the RSI problems I've got from pressing "cmd-R" for hours at a time ("F5" in my Windows days), and ignoring the strange visits I get from the Ukraine and elsewhere, that still leaves a lot of genuine hits for which I must thank all readers, past and present. I am, honestly, humbled by the thought. Thank you all very much.

Separate Topic

It really doesn't matter, but it has been drawn to my attention that someone is selling 28mm printed Napoleonic flags on eBay, and some of them (by no means all) are my original work. I'm sure the guy makes a lovely job of printing them, and I'm also pretty sure that the files are in the public domain, so I have no right to complain or feel aggrieved - they are not copyrighted in any way, and the seller almost certainly doesn't know the origin of the files he is using.

I know they are mine because (a) I recognise quite a few, and (b) he has faithfully reproduced some which were mere educated guesses on my part, and a couple which are actually incorrect. A couple of his flags are also incorrectly titled, and at least one is from the wrong century.

So - no hard feelings - it doesn't seem quite right (since I wouldn't do this myself), but he is selling them pretty cheap. I would just say that if anyone wants to download and use any of my flags for free, from this blog, please do so - I'm sure the seller won't notice. Just look under the download and flags labels on the right hand side. Cut out the entrepreneur.

A Tale of Two Flags

Yesterday was a flagging day, which means I was involved in attaching a flag to a new unit. I keep stocks of my home-printed flags, and fitting them is not complicated, but it does require some care, because it is very easy to mess it up. And I do mean a mess. Water-based glues and ink-jet printed flags are a potent mixture, especially if you have fingers like elephants' feet.

Thus my stock of flags includes enough extra copies to allow for the odd failure.

Since I had the flagging kit out anyway, and since I have now (at long last) produced a correct flag for the Régiment de Prusse (4eme Étranger), I thought I might as well invest in a little drop of creeping elegance, and replace the flag for that unit. A tale of yesteryear beckons...

The fact that I have a Napoleonic army at all has a lot to do with the OOB for the Battle of Salamanca, which has always been a central inspiration. I'm not sure exactly when, but maybe 10 years ago I was tempted by mention of the Regt de Prusse in that OOB - admittedly only a residue of 80-odd men by 1812 (in Brennier's [Taupin's] 6th Divn), but that was enough of an excuse to encourage me to paint up a battalion of something (anything?) to provide a little variety among the otherwise relentless blue and white of the Armée de Portugal.

At this time NapoleoN Miniaturas had released their pack of "Allied Infantry", which basically represented Confederation troops in Spain during the 1808 period. These chaps are in moderately scruffy campaign dress, with covered shakos and rolled overalls. I painted them in the dark green of the Foreign regiments - the Prussians had red facings, silver lace and rank insignia. They also had, I had read, a non-standard flag - it was 162cm square instead of the normal 80cm for a French 1804 flag - and it had a spearpoint finial instead of an eagle. This was all faithfully reproduced in my little battalion.

A couple of asides here.

NapoleoN Miniaturas are sadly missed nowadays, but their figures are an odd mixture, ranging in quality from the exquisite to the downright agricultural. This is probably not unconnected with the fact that they had two master-makers, one of whom was a very talented sculptor and one of whom was the owner. Interestingly, a close parallel might be argued to have existed at Falcata, around the same time, and maybe even Les Higgins (much earlier). Whatever, the Allied Infantry set was not one of NapoleoN's best. In particular, there was an officer on foot, marching, wearing a bicorn with an oilskin cover - I've seen the same JM Bueno plate as the sculptor obviously had, but the hat is so blatantly made of a folded newspaper that I omitted this particular officer from the unit.

As originally recruited, with big flag. Both the photos in this post look a bit washed-out - the reds are proper reds in real life. The figures are from the NapoleoN "Allied Infantry" set, with the mounted and foot officers from Kennington - the foot officer at the end of the 2nd rank was drafted in to replace the man with the newspaper hat.

The authentically oversized flag I produced looked - well, daft. I've always been a bit touchy about it. If anyone were ever to comment on it, I had even memorised the references in Dempsey's Napoleon's Mercenaries so I could justify it! This is an area where I am a tad fussy. Stupid really, since my French army includes Les Higgins figures sporting 1806-style queues but wearing square-lapelled Bardin-type habits, not to mention Garrisons with high gaiters and the same late-model coat. Many of my British infantry strut happily around the Peninsula, wearing their Waterloo shakos. My armies are full of howlers, inconsistencies and known inaccuracies. I gloss over them all, but I do like the flags to be reasonable.

The infamous Bueno drawing of Confederation troops in Spain, featuring the officer in the newspaper hat

One trend in wargame armies which I have not approved of over the last couple of decades has been caricaturisation (if there is such a word). Beautifully- painted 28mm figures with grotesque faces, huge hands, outsize heads, giant muskets - OK - that's all down to the sculptors; there has also been a move to crazily-oversized flags. The French flag of 1804, let us remember, was 80cm square. If your French army has lovely flags which are 6 feet square in scale then that is your taste and your choice - no problem - but to me that looks daft. Thus my big Regt de Prusse flag, authentic or not, has troubled me.

With replacement (regulation) flag. Of course, it may be incorrect now. Hmmm. Must give the flag a little curl. Flags which look like hatchets are not cool.

Yesterday I replaced it. It no longer looks daft, I think - of course, it may be incorrect. I'll have to worry about that for a while now...

If I change it back then I promise I won't mention the fact.

***** Late Edit *****

By special request, for Liverpool Dave, here's another dodgy photo of one of my Confederation battalions. This time these are Badeners (alas the Baden infantry in Spain did not wear the fabby helmet) - the newspaper hat is in evidence on the left end of the second row. 

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French Refurb Project - More Homebrewed Flags

This morning I've been fiddling away with good old Paintshop Pro, making up flags for the new units which my Refurb Project will deliver. I'm quite excited for a number of reasons, but one in particular is that I had a Good Idea - it had to happen eventually.

I've had a problem for a few years in that the old-fashioned coated-on-one-side-only high quality print paper which I used for flags went out of production. When I asked about it, I just got blank looks - there had never been any such thing (a bit like the 20mm Hinchliffe Napoleonic artillery pieces, in fact). So I've been struggling a little since then with available papers. The advantage of the single-sided stuff (provided you put it the right way round in the printer, of course), is that you can get it thinner than the two-sided paper, and it is more flexible. This means it will produce nice curvy flags without creasing - when the PVA dries you have a splendid standard, fluttering in the breeze. [How lovely]

The Good Idea was that I remembered that I have a large envelope full of spare flags which I have printed in the past on this extinct paper, and these are mostly printed 2 flags to a sheet of A4, with the flags in diagonally opposite corners. I was shaving when it occurred to me that each of these sheets has a large unprinted space in the middle, so that all I have to do is overprint some of these old sheets with new flags in the centre of the page, and it will be just like 2011 once again.

You will understand my excitement.

So this morning's flags are ready to be printed and - just in case they are of any use to anyone - here they are. These are 1804 pattern flags, as you see, for units in the 3rd and 6th Divisions of the French Armee de Portugal in 1812, which comprise the planned extension to my army. For 1/72 (approx) I like my French infantry flags to be about 15 to 16mm high.

If you wish to use them, please do so. A couple of notes:


* Click on the image and save the big version.

* Experiment with the print scaling to suit your figures - I wouldn't recommend these for anything bigger than 1/72

* The individual flags in the image are only roughly lined up by eye, so I recommend you cut them out singly - don't try to cut a row at one go!

* If you pass them on, or become famous using them, that's no problem, but please mention where you got them. [Usual deal]




***** Late Edit *****

I hadn't realised that Blogger would restrict the file size for the flag sheet - if you want the bigger version, it's available at Google Drive via this link. Any problems with access or download, please leave a comment here or email.

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Homebrewed Flags - Old Guard Grenadiers 1804-11

Today's minor achievements have been (1) basing up two battalions of the Bavarian 5th Line Infantry and (2) hashing up some half-decent flags for my new Old Guard units (does that make sense?). A couple of hours playing around with Paintshop Pro and here are the flags. If they are of any use to you, please feel free to copy them. If you pass them on, I would appreciate a brief mention - nothing heavy, of course.

Just click on the image to get the full-size version, and save that. I'm sorry the files are so small, my starting images were lower-res than I expected - these flags should work up to just about 28mm scale, certainly no bigger than that. At 1/72 scale, since the real flags were 80cm square, the printed flags should be 11mm across - I like my flags a bit oversized, so I do them at 16mm. Whatever - you work out the scale reduction!

These flags are correct for the Grenadiers a Pied for 1804-1811. Between 1806 and 1808 (I think) there was a second regiment - during this period the 2nd Battalion colour would have been carried by the 1st Bn of the 2nd Regt, and after 1808 they went back to a single regiment, so the 2nd Bn would have got their flag back. In 1811 there was a further re-organisation to three Grenadier regiments, and the replacement flags from this date are recognisable because they have the number of the regiment in the corners instead of the grenade symbol. In 1812, of course, the flags were completely redesigned.

With luck and a steady hand, tomorrow I should have photos of the Guard battalions and the Bavarians all based and finished. No pressure...

Home-Brewed Flags: French Cuirassiers

In case they are any use to anyone, here are the 1804-pattern flags I've drawn up for my cuirassiers. The real flags were 60cm square, which is about 9mm in 1/72 scale. If I print this image at 58% full size I get 1cm flags, which is near enough for jazz. Click on the image below to get the full size, and save it.

Bavarians - Flags, and a Possible Wizard Wheeze...

Continued (very useful) correspondence with Giovanni suggested that the line infantry flags I have used with my new Bavarians might be of wider interest. Now I have to say straight away that the flags are such a nightmare to draw (not to mention the risk of epileptic seizure) that, unusually for me, I was happy to go for the examples in the Napflag bit of the Warflags site. I have long admired the Napflag material - Alan Pendlebury did a splendid job of giving a free offering of all his research and very impressive graphic work. The pity is that the site hasn't been updated since 2001 - not because the flags are wrong, but because more modern internet bandwidths would have permitted higher-resolution (bigger) files.

So I downloaded Alan's Bavarian flags image and - entirely for my own preferences and use - I used the trusty Paintshop Pro to alter the shade of blue a bit, and to replace the black outlines and construction lines in the image with the predominant blue shade. I've also, for my own purposes, swapped some of the centre sections between flags. The tweaked image is here, if it is of any use to anyone - please note that this is Alan's intellectual property, from the Napflag site, and I take no credit for any of this. The images are a lot smaller than I would normally use, but for my 20mm soldiers I have printed them so that each flag comes out 24mm high (they were 173cm, according to the regulations), which is 1/72, and they work out fine. I would not recommend them for anything larger. Oh yes, the Leibfahne (carried by 1st Bn) is on the right of each horizontal pair, the Ordinarfahne (2nd Bn) is on the left. If you want more details of dates etc, check the Napflag site.

These are slightly tweaked versions of Alan Pendlebury's flags from the old
Napflag site. If you use them, or pass them to anyone else, please explain that
they are Alan's flags, though it was me who probably spoiled them! 

I was mentioning to Gio that my only concern about having a burgeoning Bavarian army is that I don't have anybody for them to fight. Yes, they could have a bash against the French after Leipzig, and I can always change history and get them sent to Spain as part of the Confederation contingent, but for the most part I will be relying on visiting (or hosting) generals at social games to provide an Austrian army for opposition. Gio, of course, humorously suggested that I was now irrevocably committed to building an Austrian army of my own to complement them. This has already been suggested by a number of other humorists, and the joke is not what it was. The Austrians are no kind of niche army - that would be a very serious undertaking, though the idea does have a strong appeal for about 8 seconds, until the full horror of the implications hits you.

One campaign I do have an interest in, however, is the Bavarian involvement in the Tirolean Rebellion in 1809. This would be a smaller undertaking all round, would involve relatively few Austrian line troops, and, for me, has the scholarly underpinning that my imagination was caught by Andreas Hofer and all that lot during a couple of fairly recent holidays in the Tirol. Yes, all right, all right. Hofer and ice cream. Highbrow stuff.

There is still the problem of sourcing suitable figures. The only known models of Tyrolean rebels in a scale which suits me are a single set of plastics by German, which got a very muted reception in the pages of Plastic Soldier Review.

German's Tirolean rebels

However, Gio suggested that my existing Napoleonic Spanish guerrilleros might just slot right into the Tirol. Hey! There are plenty of round hats and capes, lots of knee-breeches, priests, mad women with blunderbusses. He may well be on to something. And, of course, I have about 130 of them. As Napoleon said, quantity has a quality all of its own.

Thinks: if I added a sprinkling of celebrity figures - maybe a box or two of the German plastics - I could already have the makings of a rebel army. Some of the flags might seem a bit inappropriate, but that's not bad for this week's potential Wizard Wheeze. If you half-closed your eyes, you might not notice that some of Hofer's heroes looked a bit Spanish.

I'll probably have gone off the idea, or have been talked out of it, by this time next week. My local providers of Austrians may have some understandable doubts about their prized regiments appearing alongside some very scruffy guerrillas. It does go to show, though, how sometimes we are so hidebound by history that we can't see the possibilities.

Part of the Bergisel Panorama, Innsbruck

1809 Spaniards - Light Infantry Completed!

This morning I have two new light infantry units ready for action, so I am pleased to note that the original planned four such units are now finished. Another little milestone (as opposed to a millstone, which is a different thing altogether).

With skirmishers deployed

In close order - skirmishers tucked away at the back

These are the Voluntarios de Gerona (yellow facings) and the Cazadores de Barbastro (red). The castings are Falcata, apart from the marching officer and the drummer in Barbastro, which are NapoleoN. The Falcata figures paint up nicely, but the moulds were suffering badly when these chaps were produced, and it took a lot of filing and re-carving to get them into shape.

According to my (expanded) target OOB for the 1809 Spaniards, the only things I still have to paint are 2 battalions of grenadiers, 3 units of line cavalry, 1 of dragoons, 1 foot battery, a few more generals and ADCs and a small group of zapadores (individually based). Apart from elegances like limbers and some garrison artillery that's the lot, so I hope I can finish them this year.

Cazadores de Barbastro

Voluntarios de Gerona

In case they are useful, here are the flags for these units, which I have produced with Paintshop Pro - if you print them at about 20mm high (cut off the green bits!) that's near enough 1/72 scale - I would not recommend them for anything bigger than that. Feel free to use them, but if you share them or publish any pictures, I'd appreciate a mention!

A quick word on Spanish light infantry flags - these units each consisted of a single battalion, which carried the Coronela national flag; if they still had a Sencilla (battalion flag) left over from an earlier regimental organisation, it would be stored away in a church or a depot somewhere. There is a very tattered sencilla for the Barbastro unit still in existence, but by 1809 it was no longer carried on campaign.

Homebrewed Flags - more 1809 Spanish

I'm doing some catching-up here, since I have a number of units who are ready for action apart from the flags. Here's another batch; strictly speaking, I've posted the La Corona flags before, but I wasn't happy with the proportions, so I've re-done them. My Cantabria regiment has only one battalion, so I've only done the coronela.

I have more cavalry and light infantry flags to get ready, so I'll get to those when the soldiers are painted. If these are any use to you, please feel free to download and use them as you wish. Usual instructions - click on the image above, right-click on the enlarged version, and download. If you print the entire image 105mm high, the individual flags will be 20mm high, which is fine for 1/72, or you can scale them up or down in proportion - these are not good enough for anything larger than 30mm, by the way! The green surround is not part of each flag - it's just there to enable you to cut a white flag out of white paper!

Use the best quality 80gsm paper you can get hold of. If you can get single-coated paper it's easier to fold and shape. More soon.

1809 Spaniards - Flags for the Milicias Provinciales

More downloadables from Max Foy's Cheapo Productions Homebrewed Flags department. If these are useful, please feel free to use them - please just mention me if you pass them further. If you click on this image, to get the big version, save that, and print it on your premier-quality paper with the image 50mm high - that will give you flags which are correct for 1/72 or 20mm scale. As I always mention, the green surrounds are not part of the flags, and the resolution will not be good enough to print them any larger than 28mm scale.

Provincial Militia, 1809 - Top, L to R: Granada, Jaen
Bottom, L to R: Ciudad Real, Cordoba

Here, then, are the regulation coronelas for the provinciales of Granada, Jaen, Ciudad Real and Cordoba, all ready to have a bad day at the Battle of Ucles. I hope to have the tabletop units finished,  with their flags, in a day or two, so a photo should appear in the fullness of time.

I confess that I wimped out on the Cordoba flag - I was so impressed by Bueno's prints of blue militia flags for units from the Asturias that yesterday I produced a striking red, non-regulation flag for Cordoba bearing some funky text and the province's coat of arms. It looked fantastic, but after a night worrying about it I replaced it with the normal, boring coronela this morning. Of course I haven't the faintest idea what the unit actually carried into battle, but the version reproduced here is pretty much what they were supposed to carry!

1809 Spaniards - Odd Flags

My new book on the Regimientos Provinciales sets out standard patterns for their flags which are the same as those of the line regiments - the book also gives a page of line drawings of the provincial escudos which would have been placed in the corners for each unit. I am still poring over that lot.

I was reminded that I also have some Bueno plates on file showing various chaps carrying regimental flags which don't look much like the regulations. I can't remember where I got them - I think they may be from a book on the history of units from Asturias - but anyway I thought it might be useful to post them here, if only to add to the confusion!

Milicias Provinciales de Oviedo - 1808

Regto de Candas y Luanco - new unit raised May 1808

Regto de Cangas de Onis - new May 1808

Regto de Luarca - new June 1808

Apart from the militia unit at the top, these all purported to be regiments of line infantry - they each had a single battalion, so the last example may be related to the practice of combining a central coat of arms with the Bourbon cross which was introduced as a new-look coronela for single battalion units. All of this, of course, has to be seen in the light of the general confusion which reigned over the classification of units (such as which ones were irregulars, for a start) and the level of informality in design of colours which might be accepted to show allegiance to a locality, or to reflect the personal whim of the guy who was paying for the regiment's kit.

Some of these would certainly produce a touch of colourful variety on the battlefield.

1809 Spaniards - more on Granaderos Provinciales

After being assured by all sorts of specialists that it is no longer available, anywhere, I ordered up this book direct from the publisher, and after a brief delay it turned up. Well now.

Apologies for the photographs - no flash because the book is
printed on shiny paper, and the binding is such that I
will surely wreck the  poor thing if I try to force it flat on the
scanner

My Spanish is kind of plodding, but I can find my way around if no-one is in a hurry. I found a fair amount on flags (of which more some other time), and also on those mysterious Provincial Grenadier chaps. There is evidence throughout the plates that the Provinciales had rather simplified versions of the the line infantry uniforms (minimal piping throughout), but there is no mention of any downsized version of the grenadier cap - in fact the plates show a pretty standard looking bonnet.

Provincial Grenadiers at Medellin - fine big, furry hats
with flammes; that'll do for me

More of them, this time in 1802 with the earlier blue
uniform - again, normal grenadier headwear

It's not conclusive, certainly, but that's good enough for me - I have spent enough time dithering around on this - my provincial grenadiers will have normal bearskin caps, complete with appendages.

While I was looking over the boxes of collected grenadier castings which will form my elite battalions, I noted that I had carefully included a very fine standard bearer figure in each battalion. The reasons, of course, are [1] all my battalions have a standard bearer and [2] Falcata included one in the boxed sets. However, now I come to think of it, what flag would such a fellow carry? The provincial grenadiers were formed into permanent battalions, so some sort of flag might be expected there, but the line and the guard grenadier units were "converged" (ooh - I have a vision of them being forced through some kind of blending machine) from the grenadier companies of battalions in the brigade, so they would not be expected to take any regimental colours away from their parent units, despite pictures to the contrary on the Front Rank site and elsewhere. Unless the grenadiers got a flag of their own to play with, I don't think the standard bearer would have anything to do, and these converged units did not have any permanent status such as might justify a flag.

OK - decree No.2 for today is that my provincial grenadier battalions will have a standard (of some sort) but the converged line grenadiers will not.

There you are.

Two decrees in one day.  

Home brewed Flags - Spanish backlog (4)

Now some light cavalry - this will be enough for the moment, I think. Certainly that's all I need to get the painted units finished off. There will certainly be more later on.

If you wish to make use of these cavalry flags, click on the image, save the larger version, and if you print at 13mm high (including the fringes) that's about 1/72 scale.

Cazadores de Olivencia (L) & Husares de Maria Luisa (R)

Husares Espanoles (L) & Cazadores "Voluntarios de Espana" (R)

Home brewed flags - Spanish backlog (3)

Yet more of the same - I was beginning to think this is all getting a bit boring for anyone who doesn't actually care about my Spanish army, but then it occurred to me that this is probably as good a free download of Spanish Napoleonic flags as you're likely to find (with all due humility), so I've decided to carry on for a bit. Somewhere, someone may find them useful one day...

I only have the first battalion of the Guardias Wallones in my army, and the flag appears here, but I am slightly crestfallen to read that the flag for the 2nd battalion was rather more interesting, having a blue ground. Not to worry. The Cataluña regiment were light infantry, by the way.

Instructions are the same as before - save large version, and print at 23mm high for 1/72 - trim off the green border.

Regto de la Reina - coronela

Regto do la Reina - sencilla

1st Bn Guardias Walones

1.Voluntarios de Cataluna

That's enough infantry flags to give me something to work with for now. Next up are some cavalry flags - they are fun, but there's hardly any source images, so this is real head-crushing stuff. Watch this space...

Home brewed Flags - Spanish backlog (2)

And here's some more. Irlanda and Murcia only have one battalion present with my army (OOB loosely based on Ucles), which saves me doing a couple of sencillas! The technique here is (probably obviously) copying and pasting and dropping bits in - the skills are those of desktop publishing rather than graphic art - most of the Spanish flags are pretty much the same.

Since I was asked, the flagpoles were covered in crimson velvet, the cravats were red and the spearhead and the fringes on the cravats were in the regimental button colour.

Regto de Africa - coronela

Regto de Africa - sencilla

Regto de Irlanda - coronela

Regto de Murcia - coronela

As before, the big version of these images should be saved and printed to be 23mm high for 1/72 scale. The green border is not part of the flag, and should be cut away.

Home-brewed Flags - Spanish backlog

My 1809 Spanish army has now progressed far enough for the lack of flags to have become an embarrassing bottleneck, so I am obliged to crack on a bit with them. These have been produced, as ever, using my ancient version of PaintShop Pro, and they are intended for my own use, but (as ever) if anyone wants to use them, please feel free - they are non-copyright. The resolution is not brilliant, so they are not recommended for 54mm - if you wish to print them out, click on the image below, save the larger version and print each one at 23mm high for 1/72 scale (I'll leave you to do the arithmetic for other scales!).

The green border is not part of the flag - it is simply to enable me to cut a white flag out of a white sheet of paper. The 1st battalion of the regiment would carry the coronela - the colonel's colour - and the 2nd battalion the sencilla (or ordenanza).

There will be more of these (there had better be!) - what I might describe as an intermittent rush. The queue includes long-overdue flags for the otherwise complete regiments of Africa, Reina, Irlanda, Guardias Walonas, Murcia and a bunch of others - and then there's the cavalry...

Regto de Burgos - coronela

Regto de Burgos - sencilla

Regto de La Corona - coronela

Regto de La Corona - sencilla