1809 Spaniards - some more test figures

Recently I've got into the habit of painting up prototype figures to see what the uniforms for specific units will look like, and how much work they involve. Here's another couple of trials for Spanish line regiments - on the left is a fusilier of the Regimiento de Ordenes Militares, in the 1805 regulation uniform (white with dark blue facings for this lot, and not much blue in this case), and on the right is the Regimiento de la Corona, in the 1802 uniform (which was the same for all line infantry regiments). Things did not happen very quickly in the Spanish army - Ordenes Militares received their 1805 kit by March 1808, while the Corona boys did not receive their 1802 uniforms until August 1804, and both these units would still have been dressed like this picture at the Battle of Ucles in 1809.

Notice also my "Silence of the Lambs" jeweller's loop specs, with which I have been known to frighten the postie if he rings the doorbell while I am painting, the base of my daylight lamp and one of my dad's old watercolour brushes, courtesy of HM Stationery Office, 1966 - still in good shape.

I was also toying with the idea of painting a staff figure or two tonight - I have Marshal Suchet and his aides to paint, and there is a bit of a backlog of other interesting little projects - including a Portuguese colonel - but the challenge of making a decision proved too much, so I'll try to make a choice tomorrow night.

Zzzzzz.

Sky Blue Pink with a Finny-Haddy Border

With better luck, this would have been a post about my trip on Saturday to the Durham Light Infantry Museum (that’s right, madam – in Durham), but I didn’t make it. After dithering over the weather forecast for an hour longer than I should have, I left home around 10am – Durham is about two and a half hours drive from here, and the museum is open 10:30 until 4pm.

The A1 in Northumberland, on a relatively dry day...

Alas, before I got to the border the rain was torrential, and it remained so – could hardly see through the spray, and I had the demister blowing so loud I couldn’t hear Wes Montgomery on the stereo. Not good. Near Stannington, not far north of Newcastle, there were some fairly routine roadworks, which required two lanes of the dual carriageway to merge into one, to be joined shortly afterwards by a busy slip road coming in from the left. Much too demanding for your average British motorist, I fear – no-one will give way; merging of traffic lanes is a simple process, screwed up by heroes (mostly in white 4WD BMWs, on Saturday) who insist on driving up the closed outside lane and forcing their way in at the bottleneck, thus gaining some 200 feet of priority in the queue, but stopping the whole thing dead. By the time I reached Washington services my Durham ETA had slipped by some 50 minutes, and the rain was coming on heavier again, after a brief lull. At best I could expect to get about an hour at the museum before it closed, and I was growing anxious about delays on the return trip. I had coffee and a piece of industrial chocolate cake at Washington, cast an expert eye at the lowering sky, and then headed for home, muttering. The weather and the traffic were both better than expected on the way back, in fact, and I survived to attempt the trip again in a week or two.

So – no news of Durham, and I wouldn’t recommend the chocolate cake.

Right – subject 2.

Painted miniature of an officer in the 1802 uniform

I am preparing to paint up another regiment for my 1809 Spanish army – this will be two battalions of the Regimiento de la Corona, and I intend to paint them in the 1802 regulation uniform, which involves jackets in what Godoy specified as deep sky blue – a shade which seems to be interpreted in a wide variety of ways. I have seen actual sky blue, and the Peter Bunde plates show it as a sort of royal blue. Hmmm.

Peter Bunde plate - not helped by the current state of my scanner

Any opinions on this? I was going to try for a sort of medium blue, not too psychedelic – my preferred options at present are a choice of two old Citadel colours which I have to hand - Ultramarine Blue, and Enchanted Blue – I have no idea what these are called now. I have the Cronin and Summerfield book, the Histoires et Collections volume on Ocaña and all the Bueno books for the period – inconclusive – in any case my colour vision is probably a bit dodgy anyway, but the problem with plates in books is that the reproduction is uncertain, and we don’t really know what the author intended.

So – Spanish soldiers, 1802 uniform – “deep-sky” jackets with black facings, edged red, red turnbacks, brass buttons – what do you reckon? What shade of blue? All clues welcome.

1809 Spaniards - Regimiento de Burgos

Two further battalions - more fine work by Lee (thanks again, mate!).

This 1809 Spanish army is progressing so well that there is only one more battalion of white-uniformed line infantry still to be painted. There are still a couple of battalions of The Royal Guard to come, and a two battalion line regiment in the 1802 blue and black uniform, plus various grenadier and light infantry units. Then, of course, there will be some cavalry, there are two field batteries to paint up, and after that we are onto odd bods like sappers and more generals and ADCs - it seems a lot when you list it like this, but we're getting there.

Really very pleased with all this - if anyone cares, these are NapoleoN figures, though the mounted colonels are a hybrid Kennington/Falcata conversion, one has a NapoleoN horse, the other has a Falcata one.

1809 Spaniards - A Run Out at Last - (2) Whitewash

Yesterday we went for a walk up in the Lammermuirs, taking advantage of a (mostly) dry afternoon, so the Battle of Not-Really-Espinosa took place in the evening.

I had done some reading on Really-Espinosa, and the first thing to note is that it was a much bigger battle than the CCN scenario, on terrain that wasn't quite the same either. The second thing is that the historical action lasted two days, the French spending one day struggling against determined resistance from the Spanish left wing, then rather quickly mopping up the rest of the army on day 2.

The miniature Battle-of-Somewhere-Else turned out to be a rather more one-sided affair. I used the scenario's initial deployment, as shown in the previous post, and I learned quite a bit more about the use of an unsupported Spanish army under these rules. I have to say that the French were a bit lucky with the cards, but the Spaniards had some fundamental problems which they were always going to struggle to work around:

(1) In this game, Spanish troops suffer double retreats (triple retreats for militia), and their lack of skill in manoeuvre is reflected in a combat penalty if they fire on the move or if they move into melee. They fight well enough if they stay put and defend.

(2) The double retreats are a killer - the units have to stand close together to provide support to reduce the number of individual retreats, but if anyone is forced to fall back, and if they do not have space to do so, then disorder and loss of morale cause a further loss of bases (runaways and troops losing motivation, rather than straight casualties).

(3) In this battle, General Blake had placed his right close-packed because of the restricted space, with an unfordable river behind them, and his left contained a large proportion of pretty shaky militia. Naturally, I will blame the scenario for this...

Straight away, the 1er Voluntarios de Cataluna (lights) demonstrate the Spanish problem;
a bit unlucky to get two retreat flags from artillery fire, they have enough friends
behind them to ignore one flag, but the other requires a retreat of two hexes, and those
same friends prevent their retiring, so they must lose two of their three bases. This is the
unit on the end of the right flank, alas.

The French had pretty good cards throughout. Ignoring history, Marshal Victor
gets his left wing moving up fast.

Due to a miscalculation, General Ruffin gets rather ahead of the advance
with the 2/69e, but they get bonus dice because of the Force March card, and
eliminate the unfortunate 1VdC.

Ruffin (Rod, is that you?) did very well - his boys took heavy casualties, and were
pushed back off the ridge, but the Spanish right had now called up its reserves to
repair the line.

Now, of course, the rest of Ruffin's men arrived, and the Spanish right flank
was looking very precarious indeed.

Quite quickly, the fresh French troops cleared the Vols de Guadalajara and the
Regto de Murcia off the high ground (and, presumably, into the river), and the
Spanish right suddenly consisted of the Walloon Guards and a couple of very nervous
batteries

Blake, the Spanish CinC, pulled back the remains of his flank, and created a
new defensive position outside the town of Not-Espinosa, while the
French caught their breath.

Here is Blake himself, reorganising things - very cool under fire...

...though his efforts were not helped when one battalion of the Regto de la
Reina panicked and retreated into a position which masked their own guns!

Blake planned to keep up as much fire as he could from this new position, and bring
some reinforcements, by pulling in his unengaged left wing 

So, over on the other flank, the Italians under Lapisse suddenly found their
enemy marching across their front, and thus advanced to attack, as it says
in the manual. This view is from behind the Italians, with the Spanish troops
moving right to left in the background.

One of the few minor Spanish successes of the day came when the 1er Voluntarios
de Aragon gave a battalion of Italian light infantry a good seeing to in a melee, and pushed
them back, thus securing the new Spanish left flank

So, seen from behind the French right, Blake had a new line established, comprising
the troops withdrawn from his left.

The bad news, of course, was that many of the troops in this new front were militia, and
they really couldn't stand a firefight. The white counters on the right edge of the photo reveal
that the French had won 8-0 on Victory Points, which is a bit of a hammering, really. I didn't work
out the actual casualty figures, but the French losses were relatively light and the  Spanish losses,
I would guess, would be mostly runaways and troops lost through the double retreat rule.
Mental note - never mind what the scenario says, give the boys room to fall back in
future. You can see that all the Spaniards have left at this point are the remains of the
artillery in front of the town and - in the distance - a crumbling line of militia on their left.  

1809 Spaniards - A Run Out at Last - (1) Set-up

General view from behind the French right flank. The stream in the foreground is fordable

Since a wild monsoon this morning caused our planned family walk to be postponed, I took the opportunity to set up a small battle involving some of the new 1809 Spaniards. I have picked on an action which looks remarkably like the Espinosa scenario from the Commands & Colors Expansion #1 (which I never bought, by the way).

Unusually, for me, I stuck to the given OOB (well, more or less...), and the game will be played using straight C&CN rules (though with my Spanish rules extensions, which are slightly different from Mr Borg's). I hope to play the game tomorrow or Monday - it depends on the weather!

It's rather a busy battlefield, with lots of woodland - I'm not sure how I'll play this. The Spaniards would be well advised to defend, given their limitations in the battlefield drill department, but the French look a bit short in numbers for an assault. Hmmm. The advantage of a solo game, of course, is that there is not the slightest need to have a balanced game, and it doesn't matter if the result is ridiculous (though I may choose not to mention it).

French dispositions from their left

...and the Spaniards, from their right

Spanish units are a mix of "old" regiments (mostly in white), "new" (post 1809)
regiments (mostly in round hats) and a sprinkling of militia

French foot artillery - if the French are to attack, skilful movement of the
artillery is important in CCN

Italians on the French right - including a rare glimpse of the Italian artillery

Not much cavalry present - two light units per side - here's the Spanish
contingent: two regiments of Cazadores a Caballo

And a general view back the other way from the first photo - we are now behind the Spanish right flank

The Imp of Perversity strikes - a cameo appearance by Preston Mill - the
full-size original watermill is actually here in East Lothian, at East Linton,
about 6 miles from where I'm sitting as I type this, and it's
beautifully maintained by the National Trust for Scotland, but it
amuses me to give it a day out in the Peninsular War

French line infantry skulking in a forest of Merit trees - Old School or what?

The French light cavalry also stand and wait in reserve - doesn't look like a cavalry field

Yet another battle honour coming up? - more tales of glory? - this is the
1st Battalion of the 6eme Leger, which is the longest-serving
Napoleonic unit in my collection, albeit with some newbie command figures
acquired over the years  

Anyway, it all looks rather nice for a first outing for the new army, so I'll report further once I've played the game. Any similarities between what follows and either history or the official CCN scenario will be, as ever, a complete accident.

1809 Spaniards - Milicias Provinciales completed

...and here are the same flags, with attached infantry. Four battalions of provinciales, in M1805 regulation dress, with a proportion of the other ranks in brown jackets instead of white. For what seemed like good reasons at the time, I did one battalion in white, one in brown, and two mixed. All officers have white jackets, since rank has its privileges.

My thanks to my friend Goya for help with the command figures.

These fellows look fine - I'm pleased with them - but this is the militia, gentlemen - in Commands & Colors these fellows suffer triple retreats, so they need to be treated with care. Fortunately they are spread among the line divisions...

I took photos with and without flash, and since I didn't think either was very successful, I've posted both! These guys can now go safely into the box files, and I can start looking at some more cavalry. I'm also giving some thought to a "unit" of British infantry (mixed facings) armed with shovels, to provide some labour for siege trenches. Hmmm - spoiled for choice!

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!

Fringe Players - tabletop units with an undeserved popularity...

Regimiento de la Muerte, 1809

Most wargames armies have some unit somewhere that turns out to be a bit of an embarrassment – mostly it’s because by rights it shouldn’t be there, and mostly that is because their owner fancied the uniforms, or found the figures cheap at a swapmeet. How many miniature Napoleonic French armies contain a completely inappropriate unit of Mamelukes of the Guard, for example? My own follies in the building up of my Peninsular War armies include a post-1813 line chevaux-legers unit (never set foot in Spain), which I still include in the OOB when it suits – well, they might have appeared (I got some old Garrison figures on eBay); the other was a smashing unit of Les Higgins/PMD Scots Greys – I converted the command figures and everything. This unit still causes me some grief, in retrospect – they were absolutely beautiful, but historically the regiment spent the entire Peninsular War in Britain and – more seriously – they threatened to encourage me to expand my collection to cover Waterloo, with two distinct types of light dragoons and so on. So I sold them on eBay a few years ago, and they went for the starting bid, which was a major heart breaker - not entirely because I am a skinflint, but because I loved them and was insulted.

In this vein, one unit which has always intrigued me is the Regimiento de la Muerte, one of the Spanish “new regiments” raised after the French invasion. These guys appear in just about every known book of uniforms for the Peninsular War, the early use of a British looking uniform is notable, and they became such an iconic Spanish unit (beginning at a time when relatively little was known about that army - by me, certainly) that a lot of tabletop Spanish armies had them. Bueno did a few illustrations of them, though I’m not sure why they have such prominence - Douglas Miniatures, in particular, had only three Spanish Napoleonic figures – a classic line grenadier, with bearskin, and a fusilero and officer of the “Death Regt”. The Death boys will paint up as 1812 blue-uniformed chaps, so they are useful anyway.

I have recently chanced upon a small additional supply of 1812-style S-Range Spaniards, which is very pleasing, and one possibility was that they could be painted up as the Muerte, and thus swell the ranks of my 1809 army, since my 1812 army is probably quite large enough. Problem is that my OOB is based on the battles of Ucles and (a bit) Ocaña, and Muerte were not at either of these places. Out of general interest, I thought I’d check out my JJ Sañudo database, and see what the facts are for Muerte.

Funcken: Who's the guy in the middle, then?

Well now. First thing to note is that their full name was Voluntarios de la Muerte o Victoria, they were raised in 1809, and disbanded 18 months later, and the second thing is that there was a completely different, much more famous light infantry unit named the Voluntarios de la Victoria (this is Volunteers of Victory – nothing at all to do with the city of Vitoria) who were featured in the old S-Range catalogue (SN7s, complete with brimmed hat) and had a long and distinguished war record right through to Toulouse in 1814.

Clonard plate: Left to Right: Voluntarios de la Patria, Leales de Fernando VII,
Santa Fe, La Muerte, Voluntarios de la Victoria

So what of the iconic Muerte, so well known to wargamers? Since it is not lengthy, and might be of interest, this is their full regimental history:

30 Jan 1809 - Single-battalion unit of line infantry raised by D. Francisco Colombo

18 Mar – present at action of Villafranca

20 Mar – official army return describes them as “Regto de la Victoria”, 1 battalion, strength 500 men, under “Capitan” Colombo

22 Mar – 500 men, under Colombo, present at action of Pontevedra

23 Mar – At Vigo, in Galicia – regt formed into 3 battalions, totalling 1000 men; these were built around 1 company of the “Regto de la Victoria”, 1 company of the line Regto de Zamora and 1 company of the Granaderos Provinciales de Galicia, with a substantial intake of volunteer recruits

24 Apr – Action of Santiago; regiment listed as “Regimiento de la Muerte”, consisting of 3 battalions.

26 Apr – at Caldas de Reyes

2 May – attached to La Carrera’s Division on the Miño, at a strength of 1 battalion [where were the rest?]

June – at the Siege of Tuy

7 Jun – 1 battalion present at Battle of Puente Sampayo, with Noroña’s Divn.

30 Jun – return has “Regto de la Victoria o Muerte” at a strength of 1725 men, which seems unlikely.

3 Jul - …they are once again “de la Muerte”, commanded by Colombo.

18 Oct – Battle of Tomames, 1 battalion with the Vanguard Divn, commanded by Mariscal de Campo Martin de la Carrera – 1 killed, 5 wounded, 1 slightly wounded(?).

23 Nov – Action of Medina del Campo, with La Carrera’s Vanguard Divn.

28 Nov – Battle of Alba de Tormes – 148 men present with La Carrera’s Divn.

18 Dec – Regimental cadre(?) marched to Galicia; 135 men transferred to 1^st Voluntarios de Cataluña [which is, in fact, one of the units in my Ucles OOB army].

5 Feb 1810 – Possible that 1^st Vols de Cataluña present at defence of Badajoz.

15 Jun – 1 battalion in Galicia, with Imaz’s “Vanguardia Provisional” division.

1 Jul – regiment disbanded – remaining strength absorbed by the Regimiento de Lobera.

And that, it seems, was that. It would appear that the battalions served separately, and their war service was brief but active – the numbers seem to have fluctuated wildly, though this may just be dodgy record keeping, and I would guess that the bulk of the men in the ranks had little training or experience. I have no wish to disapprove of anyone who served in defence of his native land, but the unit seems to be notable primarily because plates of their uniform survive rather than as a result of any particularly distinguished combat record. I shan’t bother adding them to my 1809 line-up – not least because they didn’t exist until some months after my target OOB.

I find Sañudo’s database a veritable goldmine of information – a great find.

The Pride and the Passion (1957)

I was reminded by a post on Stryker's splendid blog of my appreciation of CS Forester's two novels of Napoleonic land warfare in the Peninsular War - Death to the French and The Gun - and of the travesty of a film version of The Gun which staggered into cinemas in 1957, under the title The Pride and the Passion.

It would be possible to devote a very long criticism to this film, highlighting the complete lack of respect to both history and Forester's fine book, the awful characterisations and accents, the unrelenting flood of moronic national stereotypes and, especially, the spectacular switch of the plot to replace one of the guerrilla leaders with Sophia Loren; I shall rise above all this, and I merely offer a couple of glimpses, for those who have not seen this epic and for those who, like me, have seen it but may not be able to believe how bad it was.

Behind the impressive branding this was, as you will observe, a joint production by the Reader's Digest and Miss Bentham's class at Beaconsfield Primary School, but it cannot be faulted on expense or dedication to tasteless excess. Here is the assault on Avila, which is stirring stuff, though you may feel that the French could have been a bit more businesslike about the defence. I recall that my cousin and I, after we had seen it, were not surprised that poor old Sophia was wounded in the chest, since, if only from the point of view of proportional surface area, that seemed a very high probability. Shame, though.

Whatever else the French could have done better, I certainly hope they executed the uniform consultant - and you've seen nothing - wait till you see the cavalry. I was tempted to see how cheaply I could get a DVD of this film, but I haven't found one cheap enough yet. I shall continue to keep an eye open. In the meantime, perhaps you would join me in a quiet salute to the real CS Forester.

1809 Spaniards - Interim Group Photo

The new guys are at the far end

It's still early days for my 1809 Spanish army, but they are shaping up nicely, and the arrival of some long-awaited flags allows a first attempt at a mass photo. I haven't started on the grenadiers yet, the light and line infantry still have a lot to  come, and there is some more artillery (including some excellent stuff from GB Miniatures at Hagen). The light cavalry is about there now, but I haven't begun the dragoons or the line cavalry.

There is no attempt to line these up according to any OOB for this photo - the group on the viewer's left is the new stuff, painted up specifically for 1809. The group on your right represents the bits of my existing army which will fit in for 1809 - they are what in 1809 are termed "new regiments" - formed from May 1808 on.

I also have a sizeable force of irregular, partida-type troops who will be OK for 1809, but I've left those out of the picture simply because I felt it would be cheating to include them.

Current logic, then, is that anyone from my existing army who is wearing any British-style uniform, any artillery in shakos, plus any units which did not exist as early as 1809 (such as the Coraceros Españoles) are excluded from the new 1809 line-up. Rules, you see.

New, bicorne-hatted infantry

Light cavalry - 2 regts of cazadores and 2 of hussars - which reminds me - that
blue unit of Kennington figures at the back does not exactly fill me with delight
 - some creeping elegance required, methinks

Assorted Staff bods - more to come

The voluntarios and other units shared with the 1812 army

The new infantry march proudly into a stiff breeze, complete with flags at last

So it's a work in progress, as you see, but the arrival of the batch of new flags means that quite a lot more of them are suddenly ready for action.

* * * * * * * * *

Late edit: Completely different topic...

Anyone who, like me, got slightly burnt in the demise of NapoleoN Miniatures in 2009 may be interested to read a recent announcement from the management of Napoleon at War, which is an ambitious rules-plus-figures project run by some of the same people. I don't really have anything informed or worthwhile to say about what is going on there, other than that it would be a pity if it fizzled out, since the rules package and the 18mm(?) figures which are marketed under the same branding are really rather good, and since a lot of customers seem to have invested in the game and might - if things don't work out - end up stranded and out of pocket.

I didn't fare too badly at the end of NapoleoN - just some incomplete orders; other customers did much worse. In hindsight, NapoleoN was not such a strategic loss to the wargaming world as the Napoleon at War set up could be, since there were, and are, other suppliers of 1/72 metal figures - 18mm is much more rarified. [Though the loss of the NapoleoN-owned Les Higgins Napoleonics reissue was another matter altogether...]

I bought a lot of NapoleoN figures over the period they were active, and I purchased some stock remainders after they went under - a large part of my new 1809 army is built from exactly those NapoleoN figures. I don't know how NaW's 18mm soldiers match with other 18mm or with big 15mm (or small 20mm), but that sounds more tricky. I would be very nervous indeed at the prospect of committing my long-term hobby interests to a single supplier if there were no obvious back-up in the event of a commercial failure. Over the years, how many of us have eventually regretted getting involved with the little RSM figures, or Bataillon Fleur, or Hinchliffe System 12, or whatever else was heralded as the New Big Thing when it started up? Left snookered with incomplete armies, and no hope of rescuing the situation - especially in the days before eBay.

I bought the Napoleon at War rule book, and it really is well done. I never had any intention of going anywhere near their 18mm soldiers - even if I were not already committed to another scale, I wouldn't have entertained the idea. Too risky by half. Anyway, I hope they come through whatever problems they may be having at present, but - especially - I really hope that their loyal followers and collectors don't get hurt in the process.

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.