"Grenz Combined Landwehr appearance" Topic

OK, so I concede that it may not be possible to stoop lower in troop quality, but do we know what these looked like?

I note that Wargamerabbit, in his Gospic scenario link (honourably) used white-dressed Grenz for the regulars and Brown coated for these poorer troops but I wonder if we know more than that. I wondered if they might be a mix of brown coats and civilian dress, so in 15mm I'm thinking of some of these link

Any thoughts?

Cheers,
John

John, See the comment written by David Hollis under the same Gospic article. He added his thoughts to the question. Since I had no painted "Converged Grenzer" companies in the 25/28mm miniature collection my thought to keep them separate was to use a different coat color for the actual scenario game. But in reality…. a standardized uniform of any sort was properly questionable for the early months of the 1809 campaign.

Thanks.

For people's benefit, I hope you don't mind my posting David's comments here. I found them very helpful:

"The Dalmatian Freikorps were formally raised on 8th April under Major Ugarkovic. Their uniforms (see MAA299 and 431) were just local clothing, probably a mix of the blue and white Wurmser FK style and local brown Gunjacs with blue trousers and either small caps or simple Klobuks as headgear. Vanicek says 120 Seressaner on foot plus a composite mounted Seressaner squadron, so there may be some confusion here.

"There is a question on TMP about the composite Land(wehr) battalions – each Regiment had a couple of such companies for local defence. Vanicek's Specialgeschichte Vol4 p.123 says: "consisted partly of under age youths and partly of old men, of whom two-thirds had unservicable weapons and who carried their cartridges in linen bags, so that by the slightest rain, they would become unusable. Most came without uniforms, without cloaks, some not fully clothed and bare-footed."

"I doubt they had more than a 3pdr battery – the artillery allocations from Krieg 1809 come from a planning OB of 1st March and were somewhat ambitious. The batteries were manned by regular artillerymen as the 1808 regulation limited the Regiments to 50 artillerymen each, who were to remain in the border forts in wartime.

"I think the village of Kita is now part of Gospic, so it would be one of the hills around Gospic or Bilaj."

I have found online a copy of William Alexander's "Picturesque Representations of the Dress and Manners of the Austrians" which includes a lot of useful information on civilian dress of the border area. link Maybe a mix of figures looking like the appropriate examples there plus a few Seressaner types as the better equipped would be about right!

All fun and games anyway.

Cheers,
John

So my next question of course would be, who, in 15mm, makes such figures – I know Old Glory make Croats in their 30 Years War range (although I don't want 50 of them. I'd ideally like to find some manufacturer who makes the infantry for Wurmser's Freikorps but can't find any. The only "Pandours"I can find seem to be OG's 7YW range and they're uniformed Grenzer, not really irregular pandours.

So I've ordered some Seressaners from Hagen and I can get the AB seressaners from their Early Austrian range, but it's the really raggedy civilian attired ones I'm struggling with. Nothing has jumped out in Ottoman Turkish or Renaissance Polish or other ranges I've scoured. Any suggestions anyone?

Cheers,
John

ps. I might be willing to mess about with figures with green stuff if they weren't too far awry.

Continuing my search for figures suitable for the sub-Grenz troops in the far flung regions of the Hapsburg Empire, I wonder if anyone knows anything about the Lancashire games Russo-Turkish War ranges link or the OT34 Serbian, Croat or Bosnian Musketeers from their Venexia range link (which are probably wrong because they are too early).

The Turks from the Russo-Turkish War range look like they might be suitable but I don't trust my eyesight looking at small photos of unpainted figures. Has anyone seen these and could they comment? Size relative to other manufacturers would be helpful – I notice that the range is 15mm in a 15mm and 18mm section of their catalogue so I wonder if they are a bit on the small side. My existing figures are OG and I intend to supplement these with Blue Moon and others so small 15mm would not look so good.

Thanks in anticipation,
John

"By Fire and Sword" from NorthStar in the UK do some nicely irregular "Segbans"

Wow, now I suddenly seem spoilt for choice. There are the Honved ones I found, these North Star, that look really nice, and which fit scale wise, and now I've also found that Vexillia make some too. I've ordered the North Star (thanks Mad Malx) as well as the Honved ones so that'll be 42 figures I think.

I need a couple each for two Seressaner companies in a couple of Grenz regiments, the rest for irregular recruits and third battalions. I won't need them all so maybe I'll just have to get Ottoman Turks one day . . .

My current plan is that the 1809 Grenz are as follows:
Regular battalions – use official Grenz figures, mostly in white but with some brown and other non-regulation items because the Grenz were notoriously poorly supported. Most leatherwork black, some white. Also, add some red cloaks to some of the figures. Seressaners for those regiments that had them (Regts 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 11) for use in Grenz territory and thereabouts (eg Battle of Gospic).

The Grenz from the less reliable areas:
More brown, less white. Leatherwork likely to be ‘natural' brown. They would get their black ‘capuchin coats' instead of red cloaks. I presume this would apply to all 4 regiments (14th -17th).

Third battalions – a few Grenz figures, the rest these irregular types. These are really just for colour, and because I'd like to do a refight of Gospic.

Cheers,
John

If the subject of this thread is of interest to anyone, I recommend you head over to the wargamerabbit's page on the 1809 Battle of Gospic at link where I've been learning quite a bit from David Hollin's input on the subject. One of those cases where stumbling upon a page someone had put up a while ago has resulted in an interesting new discussion.

Cheers,
John