"Russian Line Infantry (1/72) - Finland " Topic

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Very nice!

Great work!

I did not realize until my recent visit there how fond the Finns remember Imperial Russia – so these would be solid lads to serve the Little Father the Czar!

Excellent!

I like Finland very much, and the Finns. I also like Helsinki, ….but….wrt architecture, I find it an eclectic mix of Imperial Russian and bad 70s…..LOL!

No ligh infantry on the left to match the grenadiers on the right? Or have I misunderstood Russian organisation again?

Marc, to my present knowledge, by lights, if you mean jagers, I believe they formed separated regiments on their own, not "combined" regiments, as grenadiers.

I may be wrong, though (probably am).

Someone here with further expertise should enlighten us both.

First of all, your figures are beautiful, as always.

Years ago, I painted some 15mm Napoleonic Russian infantry, circa 1812-1815. If I remember correctly, each infantry battalion at that time had four companies. Three of the companies were composed of musketeers. The fourth company was split into two platoons, one of grenadiers and one of lights, or jaegers. The jaegers were armed with muskets like the rest of the soldiers in the battalion. Their uniform was similar to the grenadiers in that they wore plumes on their shakos. They MIGHT have had a yellow pompom; I am not certain at this point. Other small details, like sword knots, probably differed too.

I cannot prove this. But I seem to remember reading that at least one author stated that he believed that the fourth company generally functioned solely as a grenadier company, in spite of half of it being composed of light troops.

I hope this helps!

Jeff

I took a look at a couple books I have on my shelf.

George Nafziger published "The Imperial Russian Army (1763-1815)" in two volumes. These are paper-bound books which have a lot of info and a few illustrations. These books have a lot about uniforms.

Rafm used to have a really nice paperbound book about the Russians of the Napoleonic era, which I used to own. It too was written by George Nafziger. You might like "The Russian Army 1800-1815."

Two of the Hourtelle books, "Borodino: the Moskova" and "1814: The Campaign for France" have plenty of illustrations of Russian soldiers, including infantry. Unfortunately, the illustrations don't mention anything about the troop types represented.

I always liked Philip Haythornthwaite's "Uniforms of the Retreat from Moscow." It won't answer everyone's questions, but it has a lot of information for its size.

If I can look up anything for you, please let me know.

Frederick,

I did not realize until my recent visit there how fond the Finns remember Imperial Russia – so these would be solid lads to serve the Little Father the Czar!

Finland isn't and never really were fond of Imperial Russia. On the contrary, it was under Imperial Russia that Finnish nationalism was born, that people took an interest in their (or the others', as many were Swedish native speakers) language and in their oral tradition Kalevala epos; composers (Sibelius) and artists started creating patriotic work.
When later Finland fought against the Soviet Union in WWII, it wasn't the communist system they were fighting – it was Russia. And nowadays they are still wary of (again, kind of Imperial) Russia.

Besides, the regiment has nothing in common with Finland, despite the name. It was created South of St.Petersburg and was always composed by Russian soldiers, I think.