"Balloons across the Nile - the Battle of Abu Bay 1799" Topic

Dear All,

Please find below a link to General Ralph Abercrombie's despatch about the unfortunate battle of Abu Bay.

Executive summary – It wasn't his fault, he was let down by unreliable allies, unsporting French tactics and unmanly air lofted spotting contraptions, and it wasn't his fault…

link

Needless to say, I am certain that the real Sir Ralph was actually a capable and gallant General and Gentleman!

Great looking game and painted miniatures. Thanks!

Very inspiring!

Hi there,

Many moons ago I said I'd describe the construction of the balloon, as you can see pictured in Mr Sparker's blog AAR.

The balloon-bag is a plastic christmas tree decoration, the glossy red paint and heavy mould line came off with a light touch of sandpaper.

The netting over the bag is taken from one of those plastic string bags that you might find holding fruit or other food, the 'ropes' from the bag to the basket are an upturned wire cage that come off champaigne bottle corks.

The basket itself is made from a curl of basketry matterial I sculpted and had cast up (flat) in white-metal strips for odd jobs like this. The tricolour streamers from the basket are thick aluminium sheet cut to shape.

The crew in the basket are a pair of 10mm ACW generals with modified hats, I made the air crew 10mm and the ground crew 15mm to suggest that you are seeing the balloon flying high.

The ropes from the basket to the ground crew are thick copper wrapped around a really thick copper (maybe 4mm) central wire that joins the base of the basket. The ropes were stuck together with a load of epoxy glue for strength.

The thick central wire is curled on the base – think a snake rearing up – to give the model strength.

The curled up bit of the central rope is buried under washers, sinkers, rocks and modelling matterial to make sure the whole thing is bottom-heavy.

Most of the ground crew are AB artillerymen (one Chariot Mini I think) with gun tools removed and converted to hold ropes, the mounted officer is one from Mike Broadbent's South American range – the Arab helpers are my own.

Regards

David F Brown

Very cool. Great to see more Napoleonic gamers branching out to these more exotic theatres of the conflict. And an amusingly written report, it was a very enjoyable read.

David,
Thanks very much for offering up details for how you made the balloon. Rather synchronistically, I had been thiking of ways that I could build my own Revolutionary Balloon (for Fleurus) on my way to work just this morning. You have some great ideas there.

While giving away secrets, the boat model was extracted from a bottle, it was a tacky tourist thing acquired from a garage sale for 50 cents.

I wrapped the bottle in several layers of sticky tape and gave it a tap with a hammer. Something of a risk (of that 50 cents) but only the front mast needed rebuilding.

David F Brown

Ah, I was going to ask about the boat.

Thanks again.

Outstanding! Great minis and a very well written AAR – love the epitaph to brave but not too bright British cavalry commanders!

May I ask, which unit of French Dragoons had the white (yellow?) uniform? I like the look of them

Which dragoons in white?

Possibly all of them, Grant's book depicts the 3rd Regt in what is described as a summer uniform, IIRC the rankers had unbleached linen and officers in white.

The stranded French could not find enough blue cloth to re-fit their infantry so they used whatever could be scrounged.

So we end up with units in violet, purple, brown, grey, black, red, green, light blue uniforms – which was probably the main reason I built the army as I hate painting multiples of the same figure / colour.

The other arms had uniform variations but the information is less consistent. The detail on which units wore which colour can be confusing and contradictory, not helped by some units changing colour a few times.

Regards

David F Brown

there is usually a bit of confusion about the French uniforms in Egypt

The French had 3 uniforms

1. That one from Europe
soon replaced by the so called
2. Cotton uniform (mostly in dark blue – with the casque a pouf)- soon found out to be of poor protection against the cold nights and therefore great coats of linen and or cotton were introduced.
The cotton uniforms were called " cotonnade"
Rousselot shows the demi brigades lègère in complete dark blue, while the de lignes had a red collar and red cuffs, in style this tunis were as the later woolen uniforms, so one row of buttons – very short turn backs.
The officers' coats had long coat tails.
This should be the uniforms worn in the Syrian campaign, usually completly ignored.
It came gradually in use after the capture of Cairo.

3. The coat made from wool, multicoloured demi brigades there the available woolen cloth available was not sufficient to pick a uniform colour.(this came in use when Kleber became général en Chef – and were worn when fighting against the British

I did not find a source confirming that a complete dragoon regiment had tuncis made of unbleached linen.

Gamers with a balloon unit are a happy bunch. Nice write up and enjoyable read Sparker!
Tabletop ruins remind me of my HMGS-PSW Battle of Alexandria 1801 game last October.

link

M aka WR

Thanks mate – and thank you all for the kind comments. Good to see earlier actions being run.

Great game, nice comments and pictures and good period. What need a wargamer more.
Like these a lot.