"What Figures for Austrian-Ottoman War 1593-1606" Topic

Would Thirty Years War figures work best for this earlier time period?

Early Thirty Years War figures should work pretty well. Appears they were a bit more likely to be wearing armour than in TYW. At least going by the amount of armour in Austrian museums. Armour, by the way, seems to consistently be blackened.

Lots of sieges in that war, very few field battles. So more swordsmen and halbardiers instead of pike blocks. (The men were organized in pike units, but for storming parties they'd often use the more manageable weapons.) Of course, there were always the many skirmishes and small actions, which could involve lots of colorful Balkan troops.

Not sure were you get idea that there was few field battles,many sieges involved one or more battles against forces trying to raise the siege. Digging through the sources I can find references to total of 83 engagements in the open field and 37 sieges. Now some of those engagements would have been skirmishes and smaller actions but keep in mind that the recorded/named skirmishes in this war often involved thousand men each while actions (gefechte) were as large or larger than many ECW "battles". (I.e battles such as Hopton Heath, Roundway Down, Winceby and the like)

OK, point taken. Strategically, most of the operations involved taking forts, but I will concede there could be lots of fights around those sieges.

Where are you getting your information. Sounds like you have better ones than I do. There is not much published, especially in English, that I know of. I'd like references I can find (and I can read German if needed). I've seen boxes, many boxes, of records in the Vienna archives, but as far as I know no one has produced a thorough military history with them.

Clothing was diffrent in the "Long War" and in TYW, even early TYW military dress looks not much like clothes and armour worn during 1593-1606

Habsburg army was multi-national even among 'Western' and 'German' troops. Western troops included Walloons, Frenchmen and Italians all with their own fashion of dress while "Germans" included not only troops from Habsburg lands but also troops from the rest of Empire. And Habsburg troops were not only actual Germans like Austrians but Bohemians, Silesians and Moravians who had both mix of German dress and native clothes. (But unclear if miltiary dress was strictly German or mixed.)

Best choice is probably to look for wars of Religion or "Armada 1588" figures for Western mercenaries and allies. Germans are hard because few seem to do German figures for later half of 1500's. Khurasan does have good start of German range in 15mm though link
They have actual reiters and proper late Landsknechts
Khurasan Spanish figures would be ok for Italians compared to other choices and I think they are working on both French and Dutch as well. Also saw Haramia (Grenzers) on their facebook.

Yep, I literally finished sculpting those grenzers yesterday! Also on the desk are some Hungarian cavalry, and additions to the German and French troop types.
Dutch, French and Swiss infantry were done a while ago and are in the queue for release I believe. Quite a few Ottoman sculpts have been done too.

Qurchi Bashi,
Sources are hard, my wargames group is lucky that a member ("Daniel S") on TMP is interested in the war and put together a package of sources for us. He wrote that most research is done by Hungarians, Austrians and Germans have had not much interest in this war.

Sources in English include
Tibor Szalontay "The Art of War during the Ottoman-Habsburg Long War" phd thesis, very interesting start point.

Joszef Kelenik "The Military Revolution in Hungary", article based on research in Vienna archive. Lots of data about how troops were armed. Suffers a bit from quality of translation from Hungarian to English, translator not familiar with period or military terms. Things lost in translation, particularly when translated from 1500s German to Hungarian and the to English.

Also author name Parry wrote article with French title (La Manier de Combattre I think) about tactics used against ottomans from 16th to 18th C.

Other English sources as well, one author was Gabor Agaston/Agoston who write much about Ottoman side.

Don't remember the German books as I only know a little German but some books were part of series of booklets published by Austrian Army museum. Very dense text, IIRC one was about raids and invasion by rebelious Haiduks in 1605.

You also had a lot of fights in the open due to raiding warfare and when Ottomans attacked part of Habsburg army on the march or tried to block marches. Famous TYW commander Count Tilly made his name in several such battles in 1600 with his Walloon Cuirassiers and Musketeers.

In 25mm,Old Glory's extensive Eastern Renaissance lines should offer a number of figures. The Wars of Religion range has Landsknechts in pluderhosen. And of course,they have 16th century Ottomans.

Great. Thanks.