"Weirdest / most out-there unit you own?" Topic

A mention of the Krakus in another thread got me thinking of this. What's the most obscure / abstruse unit you have as a unit?

Who for example has those horse archers who fought with the Russians in 1812?

Does anyone have the Ashford Volunteer Light Infantry?

Who has siege assault / escalade infantry in steel body armour?

Who has Mahratta Wars Indian cataphracts?

Pictures if you've got them, obvs…

I am sure that some while ago I read that some French appeared on a battlefield straight from Mardi Gras, still in costume! Should think they would make a colourful unit!

Tally Ho!

I once painted a number of 'French' Napoleonic battalions for a friend and every single unit was non-French.

From memory I did some Swiss units, Irish, Dutch Grenadiers, Neuchatel etc.

Jim, that's sounds like the Union ACW armies that are full of zouaves, marines, the Iron Brigade, etc. without a single unit in regulation dress.

But to the question at hand, probably a French Napoleonic Coast Guard unit.

Bashkirs with arrows (even if the ethnic Cherkese NCO's and officers among them sported some chainmail and spiked Turkic helmets) are not so obscure – exotic, but not obscure. Their capital, Ufa, had been a noted city as far back as the 1300's and you could get to it by rivers. As Muslims, they were even literate (to read the the Holy Koran)

Kalmyks are better : they were ethnic Mongols, semi-nomadic and practised Buddhism (with their own regimental Buddhist monks) – but again, you could actually find them – go east from Rostov toward Astrakhan and look for yurts.

And being Buddhists is that not so strange either. Ataman Platov himself had a necromancer-astrologist on his staff, as well as an Orthodox monk and an eman. I think that could be called "belt and suspenders and another belt", religion-wise.

If you want really obscure, you would have to go with the 18th Druzhina of the Saint-Petersburg opolchenie (militia).

This was a batallion of free (non-serf) Urdmurt and Permiak hunters and trappers from the dense forests north-east of Vologda. The territory to this day is mostly unsettled, except for a few towns grown up around trading posts along the Northern Dvina. Most were pagans, animists. When they got to Petersburg they were mass converted to Orthodoxy, which they might not have noticed too much given their general inability to speak Russian. They were issued a 50/50 mix of Russian obr. 1808 rifles and captured French muskets to replace the hunting weapons that they had brought with them – and the plain green uniforms of the Petersburg opolchenie. Maybe they thought of their new flag as a kind of totem.

Their small training cadre came from the 2nd Marine regiment and the 4 company sergent-majors from the instructors at the NCO school. In early October 1812, they mustered 18 company-grade officers (mostly from remote internal security units) and 593 other ranks, under the command of the recently retired lieutenant-colonel of marines, Ivan Fyodorovich Morental' (whose last assignment had been the formation of the 47th Jägers).

They set off to join Vitgenshteyn's 1st Separate Corps, arriving after 2nd Polotsk. They fought every action thereafter, including stopping a cuirassier charge toward the imperial staff and His Majesty at Leipzig, and being the first infantry unit to enter Paris. Despite the marines' and NCO instructors' best efforts, they were deemed utterly incapable of any sort of formation (even a jäger chain), and were allowed to fight as they wished – which was typically single riflemen shooting lying down, and the musketeers in reserve covering them. Like the hunters they were, they developed a reputation for sniping at enemy officers and gun crews.

Toward the end of August 1814, the survivors (10 company-grade officers and 208 other ranks present under arms), turned back east for the long walk home. On the way, the Petersburg Arsenal traded back the military longarms for their personal weapons. They were dismissed at Vologda at the end of February 1815, and they disappeared into the arctic cold of the snow-laden forests.

Possibly those civilian indigo planters Havelock used for scouts on his march to Cawnpore? And at one time I owned a full-bore 30mm CLS 1803 Electoral Hanoverian army.

But standards vary with time. When I started raising 1813-15 Hanoverians, they were preposterously obscure, and about half guesswork. Today, they're a rather unimaginative and easy choice.

What I really want and can't get the information for is the Percy Tenantry Volunteers during the Napoleonic Wars. Anyone know anything?

These dudes?:

link

Anyway, there is a good wiki entry if you haven't seen it: link

I'd look at the Ottomans in the Napoleonic period
Say Albanian Arnouts or even the Janisseries themselves

Of course I have Bashkirs in my Russian Napoleoic era army, but my favorite is a company of foot jagers in Holb's brigade in the Prussian Army

Must dig out a pic but I have a unit of female Numidian chariot archers

Which I think is total fantasy but I use them as an auxiliary unit for my Amazon army

You truly must find out a picture of your "unit of female Numidian chariot archers"…

Do you know how you sometimes scan text in an instant?

I swear I read the word "nude" in your posting. (I do love doing cryptic crosswords and am a very sad person). Even now I can see how the four letters appeared……

What a new Perry range that would be…but then I am the first to condemn those weird images, of incredibly fit 21stC girls in ridiculously tailored Napoleonic uniforms…as just reinforcing the stereotype that folk like us need to get out more.

This one.

link

That is one neat looking unit! Odd but still very cool! Elisa Regiment raised by Nappy's sis.

Brian for the win and Le Breton for a nice read.

I have a unit of Austrian Marines, nice uniform and I've never seen anyone else field them.

If I had a Russian army for 1812 (or even later), I'd definitely have those horse archer units in it, assuming I could find the figures.

I have an alternate history short story about real-world Amazons that survive into the 19th century and send a contingent to la Grande Armee in 1812 as allies. That would be a very exotic unit if it were real! (They wear a quasi-Napoleonic type uniform that's a mix of contemporary styles with their own distinctive flourishes.)

Would you believe Greek female marine mounted rifles ?

Amazon company, formed in 1787 in the Greek (marine) infantry regiment at Balaklava, and commanded by Madame Captain Yelena Sarandova (wife of Captain Sarandov), composed of 100 virgin daughters of the officers and marines of the regiment, a priest and a lady monk as an accolyte. The rode white horses (virgins always ride white horses – it's a thing, right?)

Catherine the Great reviewed them and gave "kapitanshi" Sarandova a diamond ring worth about 9 years of her husband's pay and 100 rubles to each of the amazons.

It was all Potemkin's idea, like his (in)famous "vllages", to impress Catherine. The unit broke up and the amazons started marrying towards the end of 1790.

Wow! That's very amazing. I had no idea.

The Amazons I had in mind are more the real thing, not "Potemkin Amazons", they are some of the last survivors of a slowly decaying Caucasian mountain gynocracy that retreated into religious orders during the Byzantine era, had branches in Malta and Montenegro during the resistance to the Ottomans, and seek Napoleon's patronage to reestablish their realm once he subdues Russia in 1812. A "lost battalion" of dreamers, idealists, and romantics who are slowly annihilated during the great retreat.

I recently picked up some French armoured miners from Black Hussar, but I haven't painted them up. Going to make a small engineer-focused skirmish force some day, with Engineers of the Guard and some sapeurs as well. Maybe pontoneers as well? It'll be an odd collection. :)

I have the Uhlans Britanniques and the York Hussars for my Napoleonic-era British.

Piper,

I should have added that these nominal "Greeks" included quite a few Christian Albanians (now we are quite close to your Montenegrins), and a smattering of other Christian refugees from the Ottoman empire. I get the impression that the amazons took their job rather seriously, and did provide coastal patrols in the Crimea and act as dragoons (police) in the ports. One of their assignments was to check incoming ships for possible quarantine and smuggling. With the sensitivity of physically examining women (especially Muslim women) in the era, having female dragoons was actually rather useful.

Still true today, at least for the US military – one of my female cousins once removed has seen much more combat in the war on terror than I ever did in the 1980's.

But with 100 rubles extra dowry – 10 years pay for a Russian marine – and approved as a "virgin of excellent character" by the local administration, they might have been the most eligible bachelorettes in the Crimea!

"Uhlans Britanniques"? What they?

A 2, later3 -squadron unit mainly of Frenchmen raised in Belgium 1793; served there, fought at Gerdermalsen then retreated into Hanover; embarked for the Quiberon operation but didn't land, fought in the West Indies (sometimes dismounted!), disbanded 1796. Very lovely lancer uniform, of red jacket faced green, green trousers and white-topped czapka.

Was sorely tempted to do a Minions artillery unit as per the first few minutes of the Minions Movie, but it never got beyond a trial piece, using a tic-tac and Green Stuff.

ARRRRGGGGHHHH!

I have a number of Napoleons foriegn troops That I have never seen anyone else do. Poor troops for the most part, but pretty. My sone used to call them the rainbow division when I put them on the table.

But, I cant for the life of me remember which regiments they were, cant find the box I put them in, and cant find the reference book I used to fix them up.

So I have some troops in 1/72 that are so obscure I dont know who they are. Isnt getting old lovely?

Owen

When courting Mrs Turner Mk I in about 1998 we arranged to meet at Kensington Town Hall, oh Salute! She had never seen this wargaming thing before and one of the first games she saw was a Teletubbies Vs the Smurfs!

Surprised Royal Marine has not appeared yet with some of his rather bizzare HOT armies,

Tally Ho!

"so obscure I dont know who they are"

That's like "Schrödinger's cat obscure".
They can be any troops, until they are killed off, then they are identifiable as the enemy of their successful foes.
Formidable.

This can more or less actually happen in what was once called "low intensity conflict":
--- me (pointing) : those guys, the ones with the guns, are they on our side?
--- my driver : I wouldn't know, sir …. we could try calling headquarters
--- radioman : radio's broken …. …. …. , sir
--- me : what ? I should go over and ask them ???
--- all : [long silence]

Not sure if "Weird" describes this unit .. definitely "obscure"

Royal Sicilian Regiment – light infantry regiment recruited in Siciliy in 1806 to fight for the British crown. Disbanded in 1816.

link

These guys got around! First fighting at Maida in 1806 they then went to Constantinople, the Peninsula, Malta.

Basically they fought in the Mediterranean area.

From the article:

In 1810 the Sicilian Regiment wore the scarlet British infantry coat with dark green facings, collar and cuffs, white lace, stovepipe shako with bugle badge (which may later have been replaced by a Tarleton helmet) with a green plume, white breeches and black 3/4 gaiters. Officers' "metal" was gold.

Regiment de Chasseurs Illyriens. All 4 of them, which works out to about 4 BNs of troops.

Le Breton I had something similar only we were the troops they sent the Humvee to check on. We were clearly american SP howitzers no Idea why they thought we might be Iraqi tanks

Owen