First item is a little unusual - I'm not sure how such a thing could feature in a game, but it's interesting anyway; no, it's not an early support vehicle for the Tour de France, it is a Napoleonic British Artillery Spare Wheel Cart. Odd contraption comprises a standard gun carriage, adorned with spare wheels and towed behind a standard limber - enough bits and pieces to repair just about anything that might break in an artillery battery on campaign. A British example of the benefits of standardisation in the field. Vehicles here are Hinchliffe 20mm, and the draught team and driver are recognisably Lamming. If you are dubious about the authenticity of such a device, you'll find all the details in Carl Franklin's fine book on the subject.
I also finished off another ammo caisson for the French horse artillery - Lamming caisson with Hinton Hunt motive power this time.
All in the box-files and out of sight now - as I have observed before, sometimes this seems a peculiar end-state for a hobby collection, but no matter.
Well, never saw a spare wheel train before. Interesting piece and a nifty model.
ReplyDeleteAny movement of unpainted objects from the lead pile to the table (or storage box) is a victory in anyone's books!
Tony - you know a project is moving towards completion when you paint up a Wheel Cart! Lovely piece though...
ReplyDeleteNow you'll just have to come up with a rule tweak to use them!
ReplyDeleteArtillery stands without a spare wheel cart in 2 hexes cannot move more than 5 times. Heh heh!
Yes, the very act of painting up a Spare Wheel Cart says something about the phase this army has reached - it also opens the door to all sorts of stuff like mobile forges (you mean you haven't got one?), field kitchens, medical facilities and so on. Each of these would make an interesting minidiorama subject - which is not my thing, really - and each of them, like my problematic ECW preacher figure, has no obvious use in something as abstracted as a wargame. Might be fun to do, though. I'm already teetering on the edge of a dangerous precipice - my intention has always been to set up the siege troops so that the (Peninsular) Allies attack and the French/Confederation boys defend. Thus the Anglo/Portuguese have siege guns, and will have trench diggers, while the French have guns on garrison carriages - it's all set up so that I can play a siege a particular way round. Now that I am building up a Spanish army for 1809, it occurred to me that it would be nice to be able to do sieges with the French attacking the Spanish (which was a more frequent occurrence in the Peninsula, really). Since I have no idea where I could get French siege cannons in 20mm scale, I am trying not to develop this theme...
ReplyDeleteI can't remember where - probably on the Hagen site - but there is a particularly grisly 1/72 white metal set available which includes surgeons sawing off legs etc. Have to keep that well away from the field kitchens.
Field forge might be safer ground, though not very useful without trick rules.
Anyway - I have some seven or eight actual gun limber teams for the French, unfinished - I should be getting those fonoshed off rather than fiddling around with a circus!
..."fonoshed"? - semething gone wring with the tooping...
ReplyDelete