"WAS can i use SYW?" Topic

I bought a nice book on Fontenoy in my search for books on the Duke of Cumberland and would like to do this battle as the basis for my mid 18th C collection. Can i get away with using SYW figures( IN particluar Minden which are winging there way to me as we speak)?

If not then maybe i will do Hastenbeck.

cheers

FM

if you don't mind having mildly anachronistic uniforms..you can use what you desire.. the British uniform has some difference in the lapel and sword belt areas and the colour of the cartridge box…. most people don't worry about it..or even know now the French that is who;e kettle of differences . a very arcane study French uniforms very arcane..Hastenbeck is a tricky battle to play on a table..there are no British in the battle so I assume you are getting Hanoverians and Prussian to make into Hessians and Brunswickers..Minden Prussians make fine Brunswickers.. it could be argued the musketeer makes a better Brunswicker than he does a Prussian..

Don't forget the joys of Dettingen. If it is for you and your happy using them, great you can then do both WAS and SYW. I find the issue with wrong period figs tends to be opponants rather than for myself.

Thank you gentlemen….I shall think about it further

I do all the time.

Sure beats using ACW or WSS.

I use my Prussians for both WAS battles and SYW battles happily. but they're 15mm so details like cuffs and lace patterns are largely invisible.

for WAS with Prussians it is generally all right if you don't use fusliers in your infantry and you can live with dragoons in blue coats not white.. most people really don't wory that much. We are going to play Fontenoy using imagination armies.. we had a Prussian Swedish battle SYW battle with an imagination army standing in for the Swedes..
link

Prussians are essentially the same, except at the Cardinal pointed out the dragoons wore white in the WAS. Minden French have collars but otherwise will work for WAS. Hanoverians will work as well. Austrians will be fine. British are a bit of a problem as explained by the Cardinal.

Eureka does WAS Dutch and their Saxon line can be used for WAS as well. They fit with Minden if put in separate battalions.

I thought that the Prussian dragoons were in the process of switching from white to light blue coats during the WAS and that the Bayreuth Dragoons (DR5) was the last regiment to make the conversion in 1745. Certainly for 1740-42 the dragoons would probably wear white coats. That said, I use my light blue dragoons for both wars.

Most people who game this era will cut you a lot of slack on using WAS/SYW armies interchangeably.

Per His Eminence's remark on the Minden Prussians as Brunswickers, it is due to the fact that the Mindens all have the "Swedish cuff" instead of the "Brandenbourg cuff". The former is wider and the latter is a tighter fit. Brunswick troops wore the looser, larger Swedish cuff, but only a few of the Prussian regiments used Swedish cuffs.

But I paint the Mindens as any regiment in the Prussian army, regardless of the cuff that was used by the regiment.

et tu, Friderice?!

Minden French, being without turnbacks, should work reasonably well for the 1740s.
Ditto the Hanoverians, being sculpted with the lace edging to cuffs and lapels which they abandoned in 1758.

Re. Swedish cuffs – for the purists: By the SYW there were 6 regiments of Prussian musketeers wearing those, including the 3-battalion Guard (IR15). Two of those (IR 28 and 32) converged their grenadiers. So that's 14 battalions you can build without committing sacrilege, before we even get to fusiliers, their converged grenadiers, or garrison regiments 9, 10 and 12.

Well done musketier..I had to sell 200 crusader Prussians I had bought for Brunswickers because of that damned cuff!!!

I do – despite the technical differences explained above. I'm a 15mm player and find it quite acceptable.

I tend not to worry about details too much on the table.
Probably works better to field older units in more recent battles though.
After all a lot of the uniform changes took years to work their way down to units, especially during a war.
Even today you see modern units in the field with old kit.

They were issued new coats every two years..sometimes more often .

They were better organised than during the Napoleonic period then! The official orders never seemed to match the issuing of old stores. Individual commanding officers also seemed to flout regulations given half a chance.

During annual inspections Fritz wouldn't give them half a chance, not even 1/16th… Any colonel presenting a regiment less than smartly turned out could kiss his major-generalcy goodbye!

Ah.. but not everyone was Prussian in those days ;-)
The French seemed to have a lot of leeway and the Morier paintings show differences in the cut and style of the British uniforms that don't tally with the Royal Warrants. I'm sure if anyone of us could travel back in time to see the actual regiments in the field, we would be disappointed to find they were not the perfectly dressed tailors dummies that the uniform guides would have us believe.