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.

Guest Appearance: ECW Hinton Hunt

Steve Cooney sent me an email, and was kind enough to include some photos, which are definitely worth a look, I think. Steve makes the point that, for devotees of Hinton Hunt, since tabletop Napoleonic battles normally feature large numbers of units, the small matter (literally) of keeping the footprint down, plus the limited availability of figures, mean that there has evolved a standard battalion size of two dozen or so figures. On the other hand, the smaller numbers of units needed for ECW actions have allowed Steve to experiment with larger regiment sizes, with greater emphasis on the look of the thing. His preferred unit size is 42-45 men for foot - you can see the effect in the pictures.

Nice, eh?

Thanks Steve - I for one am now crippled with envy, but I'll be all right...

The Last Trumpet - for the Moment

Last night I finished off the last of my little quartet of cuirassier trumpeters. This one is another Art Miniaturen casting - I have figures from two different Französischer Kürassiere Command sets by AM - one rather more recent than the other. The later set (which includes the chap in the photo) is more vigorously animated and more like modern plastic diorama box sets than the earlier one. This in itself introduces a very slight problem - it does limit the number of raw repeats; for example, the eagle bearer in the new set is bare-headed, having lost his helmet [duh], but it would be silly indeed if one had a number of cuirassier units, each of which had the same porte-aigle without a helmet. One such is OK, of course, but this is getting out of the normal run-of-the-mill for wargames figures.

A rather bigger surprise for me is that the newer set is a little bit larger than the older one. Nothing disastrous, but the Higgins/PMD troopers in my cuirassier division will be somewhere between the two sizes. Since all of AM's output is very officially 1/72 scale, and no messing, the idea that Herr Schmäling is introducing a smidgeon of refined scale creep is a novelty. Presumably the plastic sets with which he shares the market are getting a bit larger too? Who knows - whatever, it isn't a problem.

Just because it will cause trouble in The Cupboard if this guy doesn't get his photo on the blog when the other three did, here he is, at the top, with his PMD trooper mate. The more dramatic styling is quite fun - the two figures here are closer to each other in scale than the foreshortening effect of the camera lens seems to suggest. These are from the 2nd regiment - I'm definitely moving on to the officers now.

Conversions and Paint Jobs - French Heavy Cavalry Trumpeters

I've been happily fiddling away at filling the "Command" gaps in my unplanned Reserve Cavalry Division. Yesterday it was trumpeters - I still have one trumpeter to finish off, then I move on to officers and eagle bearers. I've decided (or have been convinced by shortage of troopers) that my French cuirassiers will break with house tradition and will carry (1804-pattern) standards in action.

I'll get to that - any excuse for a play with Paintshop Pro to knock up some flags. In the meantime, just because I have nothing else to post about, here are some trumpeters. Nothing great, to be sure, but any kind of conversion or paint-conversion work is almost always satisfying work.

Each trumpeter is sentenced to spend his operational life based with a trooper he never
met before. The troopers are all PMD, with the compulsory "eyes-right" pose. The trumpeter
on the left (8th regt) is Art Miniaturen, kindly supplied by the Old Metal Detector - strictly this
is from an OOP dragoon command set, but perfectly suitable; the one in the middle (3rd regt) is
an old (and not very ambitious) conversion by a previous owner, based on the trooper next to
him - I've revised the paint job extensively, and left him with his carbine; the one on the right
(7th regt) is the official PMD-issue trumpeter (officially a dragoon, but intended to serve in
the cuirassiers as well), and I've mounted him on a 20mm Garrison horse - partly for variety,
but also because it's a far better horse.

The uniforms are sort of 1809, and the regiments are selected so that the facings will also be suitable for 1813-14.

Another Bavarian Paint Test - 5th Line Infantry

Time for another test figure for my first Bavarian Division - this is a fusilier of the 5th Line Infantry Von Preysing. Once again this is a Der Kriegsspieler casting, but this time it's a slightly different pose - this is the first one I've done from the DK set 175 "advancing"; the previous line infantry figures tested and painted up have been from set 174 "at ready" (which, confusingly, looks very like the Hinton Hunt "charging" pose).

I was nervous about the pink facing colour - I've used Foundry's Nipple Pink [yes, all right, thank you - calm down now]. It worked out better than I expected. This unit has a rather unusual uniform. The good news is that there is no piping around the lapels or the collars, which simplifies things a lot, but the pink is potentially a bit weird with the red turnbacks, cuff piping and shoulder strap piping. The shades chosen seem to work OK - the red and the pink are clearly different. This pose has a rather more open stance than, and looks a bit more slender than, set 174.

Current record of getting units finished after production of a test figure is good - really much better than I had expected. Once this regiment is painted (maybe a month or 6 weeks?), there is one line regiment still to do for this Division (10th LIR), then there are two cavalry regiments, a horse battery, a foot battery and some staff. That sounds like a fair amount of work - especially since I am busy refurbing various French units as well - but I'm keen to keep cracking on.

The cavalry will be Hinton Hunt OPCs, with various conversions and (probably) a few Garrison horses drafted in. The artillery will almost certainly be SHQ (I'd have loved some FranzNaps for this, but they're expensive and tricky to get hold of). I have a very limited range of general officers available at the moment, and no ADCs at all, so some creativity is needed here. There is a chance that General Deroy may be in a carriage - still thinking about this.

Senior Debutante - Battle of Santiago Martir 1809

Marshal Victor and his young men decide what to do first

At the end of last week and over the weekend we had a family visitor staying with us; my mother's half-sister, my aunt, in fact, who is 83 and lives in far-off Somerset.

To put this into context, she is a very tough egg indeed. She travels a lot, drives over to France to visit her brother a couple of times a year, and has destroyed all her former hill-walking colleagues, who have all given up trying to keep pace with her. She was on her way home from a tour of the Highlands - particularly castles and the battlefield at Culloden - and took the opportunity to visit us, and thus to visit my mother, who is in a local care home.

Recently, I sent my aunt some pictures of my miniature Battle of Marston Moor, and she was so fascinated that she asked if it would be possible to invite someone in while she was visiting, to put on another wargame, so she could witness it at first hand. Hmmm. I thought long and hard about this, being pretty certain that there would be a very short queue indeed of people volunteering to come out here simply to demonstrate a wargame for my elderly aunt. I decided the best thing to do would be to stage what would in effect be a collaborative solo game - she and I would play out a game together to see what happened. Saturday morning was pencilled in for the occasion.

I dreamed up a fictitious but credible action from Central Spain in Spring 1809, and we used a cut-down version of Commands & Colors:Napoleonics which I have used successfully in the past for very large games. Our game was sort of medium-sized. Everything went well - we had about half an hour's discussion of the situation and the rules, then the game played to a conclusion in just over 90 minutes. The French won easily, which is as it should be, and my aunt thinks that wargames are fantastic. Does anyone know of a more unlikely debutante at a wargame?

The battle takes place somewhere between Madrid and Cuenca. The initial Spanish defensive set-up was decided by a couple of dice rolls, to select from a variety of possibilities. There were a few surprising choices made as a result - choosing to set up in front of a river seemed questionable, but it gave us a nice vigorous game. The Spanish troops included a proportion of Milicias Provinciales, who were kept to the rear, and (because they are colourful and excellent fun on the battlefield, and they don't get out much) a force of guerrilleros led by the dodgy-looking Don Pedro de Gentusa.

The narrative, very briefly, is that General Cuesta has sent forward an advance guard under the Conde de Belvedere, to deny the French the crossing over the Rio Mezquino at Santiago Martir. There are a good bridge and a couple of fords; wagons and artillery cannot use the fords, so the French will save a lot of time if they can capture the bridge. Bonus Victory Points (VPs) are available to the French for possession of any part of the town, the bridge and for each ford. The French will not gain VPs for the elimination of any of the guerrillero units. 9 points wins the day.

The French are commanded by Marshal Victor, Duc de Belluno (or "General Perrin" as he is known here), and he has brought forward his own advance guard in attempt to secure the river crossing. Imagine his disappointment when he arrives and learns that Belvedere is already there...

Victor has the infantry divisions of Leval (Germans) and Sebastiani (French) from IV Corps, and some cavalry from the Reserve under La Tour-Mauburg. Belvedere has the divisions of Del Parque and Portago and a brigade of cavalry under Ramos de Silva, plus Gentusa's fragile irregulars.

Victor has 15000 infantry, 1000 cavalry and 16 guns; Belvedere has 10400 infantry, 1000 cavalry and 12 guns, plus about 1600 irregulars, whom he sticks behind his left flank, to help out if everything else collapses...

General view at the start, from behind French right flank. Note that Belvedere (far side of
the table) defended his right flank strongly (the river behind that right flank is unfordable!)
to keep the French away from the little town, and was persuaded by the initial dice rolls to place
 his left flank on the wrong side of the river (he explained that the idea was that he could retire
them over the fords if necessary...). The fords can be spotted as a rather lighter blue in the river,
beyond the little wood.

Same moment, this time from behind the Spanish right. The troops behind the ridge in the
foreground are the Provincial Militia regiments of Cordoba and Granada, who were kept pretty
much out of sight.

Looking along the Spanish line. The division commanders (just identifiable by the white
edging to the bases) were both wounded during the day. The river this side (downstream)
of the bridge is unfordable, so the troops on this flank are in an uncomfortable situation.  

Along the French line, from their left. The infantry on this side are Sebastiani's division,
Leval's Germans at the far end.

The Spanish centre - grenadiers in the town. The Walloon Guards and some of the best
of the line infantry on the far side of the road, in front of the fords. Victor decided that
a direct attack on the town would be costly...

...so he commenced a demonstration against the (stronger) Spanish right flank, to
discourage Belvedere from shifting any troops to support his left...

...where a major fire-fight commenced, which resulted in a big panic in the Spanish
army. The Walloon Guards were eliminated very quickly, General Del Parque was
wounded and captured, and the defenders on the Spanish left melted away.

At this point, the French only had to march forward; taking possession of the two fords would
be enough to get up to 9 VPs and win the day

Cometh the hour - nothing left on this flank but to send forward some of the guerrilleros,
to keep the French off the fords while reinforcements came from the town. They surprised
Leval's Confederation troops with the accuracy and weight of their musketry, but they didn't
last long...

...and Leval himself took one ford with the 2nd battalion of the 2nd Nassau. Just 1 VP
needed - get more infantry on the second ford (where are the light infantry when you need
them?). At this point Don Pedro himself brought up another unit of irregulars, but the game
ended suddenly...

...and it came in an unexpected way. The Lanceros de Carmona advanced to help delay the
French advance, but they took fire and, though they lost no men, they were forced to fall back.
On the French turn, the lancers took more fire, this time from the converged voltigeurs of Chassé's brigade
in the wood; again, they suffered no hits, but they did receive two "retreat flag" results. Without
support, and with no Leader present, they were obliged to retreat for both the flag rolls. Spanish
regulars have to retreat 2 hexes for each flag, and 1 hex movement forced the lanceros back into
the corner of the table - they couldn't cross the river at this point, so they had to take 3 loss counters
 in lieu of the extra retreat. The unit is only 3 "bases" strong, so 3 losses eliminated it. That was the 9th
VP - game over.

Here's a general view of the vanished Spanish left flank. Surmising beyond the technical end
of the game, the French now had the fords, and were able to cross the river, which would make
things very sticky indeed for the rest of the Spanish army. The boys in the town might make a
run for it over the bridge, or might fight on. Or, of course, they might surrender...

Here's the end of the game from another angle. The Spanish right flank, out of the picture to
 the left of the town, would now be cut off, and would mostly become prisoners, I think.
This photo gives us a rare glimpse of the Conde de Belvedere, with the yellow base-edging,
near the bridge, next to the beaker of red loss counters. We agreed that the Conde would have
a very fast horse (certainly it had been resting throughout the action), and he would be able to
go to report in person to Cuesta on what had happened to the advance guard. 

Flotsam and Jetsam (and Sesame)

At the end of 2016 I spent a remarkable month clearing out my mother's house - in a big hurry - prior to selling it, since she was going into a care home. I did this more or less single-handed - just a bit of help to shift big items. I used my van to take things to the dump. Long days, late nights. Looking back, I have difficulty believing that I managed to be so vigorous and single-minded about it - I guess I was focused on how badly we needed to sell it.

I spent a while with mountains and boxes of junk in our garage. A lot of things went to the charity shops, we gave stuff away by the cubic yard; I did manage to sell a few things, locally and on eBay, but mostly this whole period was just a monster chucking-out session. In amongst all the other debris, I hung on to a few items which had some personal sentimental value to me - not very much, in fact - my granddad's pocket watch, a couple of bits and pieces that meant something in my childhood.

I left home when I was 17, to go to university, and never went back apart from short visits. Over the years, my parents lives and my life rolled along independently. That does make it easier when ditching a lifetime's agglomeration of someone else's junk.

Just a doo-dad. Old junk - £1 coin for scale

One thing I rescued was the little item in the photo. From my earliest memory, it sat on the dressing table in my bedroom. I knew it had been in the family for years, but knew nothing else about it. Originally I didn't know what teak was (I assumed it was a part of a ship), though I did know that HMS Sesame was a ship (or had been a ship). I remember being painfully embarrassed at the age of about 5, when my Auntie Monica spotted it and asked me about it. Not only did I know nothing about it, but she explained to me that it was not pronounced Sessaym - two fails in one effort. Amazing how these things stick in the memory.

Since I rescued it from the back of a cupboard at Mum's house, it's been sitting on top of my painting bureau, collecting solitary cufflinks, buttons, paper-clips, rubber bands, pins - pretty much the same stuff that went in it in the old days. Typecasting? Anyway, it occurred to me that I still know nothing about it, though it and I are old friends. So I had a poke about online.

First off, there are masses of these on eBay and elsewhere. Also barometers, inkstands and similar, all with the same plaques. There must have been a lot of teak in the old Sesame. Shades of fragments of the Original Cross. Or the Berlin Wall. The other thing I found out is that there were two HMS Sesames.

One was a destroyer built in 1917, which was broken up in 1935. The other was a rescue tug which was sunk by an E-Boat a few days after the D-Day landings. Since the ship sunk in 1944 is in fairly deep water off Le Havre (it is a well-known wreck site for divers), and since the public appetite for souvenirs from sunken ships would have been pretty feeble in 1944, I guess that my little barrel must be from the 1935 breaking-up of the destroyer.

No big deal, obviously, but I'm quietly pleased to have finally got around to checking up. You may well have one of these sitting on a shelf somewhere yourself - there are certainly a lot of them about. Mine, as you see, is rather battered. If anyone knows of any interesting stories concerning HMS Sesame, I'd be very interested to hear them.