"28mm TYW Swedish Infantry Regiment" Topic

28mm native Swedish infantry regiment for my Breitenfeld project.

The musketeers are all 1st Corps, the pike block are all TAG. I wanted these to give the appearance of a regiment straight out of boot camp and dressed more or less uniformly. It seems that there still isn't a definitive view on whether or not the Swedish national regiments were uniformed so I've taken the plunge and gone for the blue that Brzezinski suggest that there is 'some' evidence for.

The shade of blue may be unexpected. At the time, the import of indigo was banned in many European countries as it was considered threatening to the indigenous woad producers (17th Century Trumpery. It didn't work then…) I'm presuming that this regiment is clothed in English cloth bought in the Baltic trading cities, so it is a washed-out woad colour.

Yet again, flags are difficult. I've given this regiment one copied from the Pike & Shotte (shot is spelled s h o t, fellas) book and listed as 'Vastergotland'. I'm not sure of the provenance, so if anyone can give me a positive steer towards any of the regimental colours in Hand's brigade at Breitenfeld, I'd be delighted.

A note on basing: I put foot four to a 40mm base, somewhat conventionally. I arrange infantry units in 4 ranks (pike and shot same depth, always) with the front rank of the musketeers attempting to give the impression of an imminent salvo. I agonised for, literally, years about the basing style. My pal Dave Jarvis kept egging me on to use the Gilder-inspired style of mini-diorama, with very light earth liberally exposed. I'm not sure my painting is good enough for this style but, more to the point, it doesn't look anything like the ground on which these troops would have fought. The principal battles were fought in northern Germany between September and November, in the middle of the 17th century, which is slap in the middle of what the climatologists call the mini ice-age. So, having visited the battlefields at that time of year, I've gone for verdant, lush with hints of dead grass.

Hope these discourses have been some interest.

Cheers,
Steve

Wow! Again extremely impressed. The idea of having the front ranks firing salvee is really great; I shall be nicking that :-). The basing is very effective.

Beautiful work

Your stuff is fantastic and with historical justification behind it, showing your attention to detail. Impressive!

The Pike & Shotte "Västergötland" flag is part conjectural, the Västergötland regiment of Karl Hård was issued with green flags in 1630 but there is no evidence that they were marked with red devices. The shape of the cross is also wrong as the Swedish army used the saltire rather than a classic cross at the time.

At Breitenfeld Hand's brigade had an unusual organisation as the sources suggest that it included a German infantry squadron drawn from Hogendorf's German "Red regiment" alongside the native Swedish troops troops from Karl Hård's "Västergötland" regiment and Hand's own "Östergötland" regiment. As mentioned Hård's regiment had green flags while Hand's probably carried blue flags.

The actual design of the flags takes us into the the difficult territory of interpreting the flags drawn by Reginbaldus Möhner based on the Swedish troops he saw in Augsburg 1632 to 1635.
There has always been a tendecy to connect these flags with the most famous of Gustavus' regiments even when there is little or no supporting evidence. For example flags of Monro of Foulis German regiments have been connected with Monro's Scots squadron of MacKays regiment.
The most contentious issue is probably the identity of 3 sets of flags that Möhner labled as beloning to "Blaues Schwedisches Leib regiment" (Blue Swedish life regiment), "Grünes Schwedisches Leibregiment" (Green Swedish life regiment) and "Roth regiment" (Red regiment)

In his Osprey book on the infantry of Gustavus Adolphus Richard Brzezinski connects all of these sets with the famous "Coloured" regiments but the question is if this is supported by the evidence?

Let's start with the easiest set of colours, those in red which Möhner atributed to a nameless "Red regiment". The coloured regiment refered to as the "Red regiment" was led by Geisbrecht von Hogendorf. In April 1632 Hogendorf's regiment not part of the Swedish army which entered Augsburg as it had remained behind at the Rhine to provide the Swedish army being formed there with some veteran troops. So the red flags drawn by Möhner could not have belonged to Hogendorf's regiment.

On the other hand both Hepburn's Green regiment and Winckel's Blue regiment were part of Gustavus army in Augsburg so it is possible that the flags did indeed belong to those two regiments. The question is if it plausible? Möhner refers to both regiments as being "Swedish" while the other infantry usualy are only identified with the colonel's name.
As early as 1939 Swedish historians Zeeh & Nordström identified the blue flags as belonging to Erik Hand's "New Blue regiment", Brzezinski challenged this based on the number of blue flags drawn by Möhner (10) which was more than the 8 companies found in a native Swedish regiment. But Hand's regiment was not a typical native regiment as companies from other native regiments were attached to it to create a 12/16 company unit. The symbology also points to a native Swedish unit, for example one flag has 3 crossbow bolts/quarrels and these were a traditonal symbol of the freedom and rights of Swedish yeomen and peasants.

Based on the available evidence I consider it more than possible that the 3 sets of flags of the "Blue", "Green" and "Red" regiments drawn by Möhner belonged to native units, indeed IMHO the most plausible indentification is that the blue flags belonged to Erik Hand's "Östergötland" regiment and the companies of Åke Oxenstierna's "Dalregiment" which had been subordinated to Hand while the red flags belonged to Axel Lille's "Uppland" regiment (also merged with Hand) and the green flags were those of Karl Hård's "Västergötland" regiment.

Last but not least it should be noted that the Osprey is in error regarding the colour of the symbols of the "Blue" flags, shown as white in the Osprey they were yellow in the orignal drawings.

Thank you Daniel for the free dissemination of your hard-won research. I wish there was some way to repay you.

Regards,
Steve

Excellent work Steve!!
Great info Daniel S!
When is your book going to be published? :)

Always get a lot out of Daniel's research.
Thank you

Just lovely. You might not be going Gilder in your basing, but the units are definitely 'in the grand manner'. Beautiful.
Cheers,
Chris

As always Daniel S has a wealth of knowledge based upon solid research. Really useful stuff too. Really makes me want to make a start on some TYW troops next.

I am curious about how you intend to game with the above unit. Considering that a typical Swedish Brigade would deploy in a staggered formation (see below) it seems to me that either you're planning to do Breitenfeld at a very low figure ratio or you're showing the regiments in a kind of caricature formation. Or perhaps another option that I haven't thought of?

I use that exact T.O. for my 30YW Swedes. Our figure ratio is 1 figure equals 10 actual men. Swedes are usually 200+ figure brigades… 7 infantry brigades in my army. The Imperialist have a "somewhat" similar formation but are restricted to 10 company regiments and don't actually have "established" brigades like the Swedes…Imperialist are more ad hoc. Table top battles are usually around 1,000+ figures a side. If we have really big battles we rent hotel conference room for the day. Battles are really "bloody" and we are physically tired afterwards …..but it is GREAT FUN!

EXCUSE ME! I forgot to mention that my figures are 15-18mm so 1 to 10 is still practical for 18 X 5 ft. area.

Hi. The unit is a regiment, not a brigade. When the other two regts are finished, I'll deploy the brigade of three squadrons, not four and surplus musketeers will go to line the cavalry. Scale is at 1:10, with occasional rounding up or down for visual symmetry.

The club I game at has its own premises, figures can be left in situ and games can take many weeks to resolve. Should this game ever happen (!) we can manage upto 36 feet of table and several players per side.

Regards,
Steve

WOW! S.T.T.! That is impressive!