"Swedish Leather Guns" Topic

"Under the keen eye of Gustavus Adolphus (ruled 1611 to 1632), Swedish artillery was the best in Europe. Numerous developments, including better standardisation of calibres and better tactics to integrate actions with the rest of the army, gave Sweden's artillery a great advantage on the battlefield, which would be put to good use in the Thirty Years War, which Sweden entered properly in 1630. However, as far as is known not a single leather gun was ever deployed by Sweden or anyone else during the Thirty Years War. Leather guns were experimental weapons which varied in composition but were a relatively thin copper tube/barrel which was reinforced by coiled rope, canvas or plaster, and then encased with a covering of leather for protection. The aim was to make the gun lighter and so more mobile, allowing it to be moved around a battlefield so it could be used far more than the heavy, existing guns. The resulting weapon was indeed lighter and an improvement, but it quickly overheated, distorting the barrel, reducing accuracy and potentially pre-igniting powder, destroying gun and crew. The first were used in 1627 during the Swedish-Polish War, and the last two years later during the same conflict, but the experiment was a failure, hence their abandonment before the war in Germany.

So, Mars have invented the notion, presumably to make the set seem more useful, but we now need to look at what the box actually offers. What we find is the usual Mars formula of a gun with six crew poses, multiplied by four per box. Taking the figures first, some of them have a rather old-fashioned look to them, with costume that seems more for the end of the previous century, though of course in reality some people dress in an old-fashioned style, so not really a problem. The short tabard worn by the figure in the second row catches the eye, but otherwise the only feature of note in the costume is the false sleeves worn on a surprising number of the figures…"
See here
link

Amicalement
Armand

As always Mars shows complete lack of historical research for their products.

Why?…

Amicalement
Armand

Weird how much worse looking sets got a higher rating on the sculpting – at points, the PSR reviews of the Mars sets seem absolutely unfair.