"Other uses for Hanoverians" Topic

Having been playing Napoleonic skirmish (Song of Drums & Shakos) for some years a recent windfall has allowed me to scratch the big battle itch. I've grabbed the warlord Black Powder Waterloo starter box to give me rules and a decent pile of rank and file and I also brought more cavalry and artillery for both sides. I'm not a button counter and am quite happy to use these figures for my preferred Peninsular area but I'm wondering if anyone knows of any units in the peninsular that wore the Hanoverian hats?

If not I can probably scrounge up enough shakos to make them another unit of British.

Robert

The rumour is that even the Hanoverians did not wear them at Waterloo, let alone in the Peninsula.

No. Take those idiotic hats and give them to the Prussian Army for reservists and freiwiliger jaeger. Or build the Kielmansegge Falt-jaegare Korps, which requires different torsos. Real Hanoverians wore stovepipe and Belgic shakos. Not Warlord's finest hour.

General Picton's blog is very good on Hanoverians (only at Waterloo of course) and certainly casts doubts on the headgear.

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As he shows, the Waterloo Battlefield museum has a couple of Militia thus turned out, as does the Mt St Jean website, but that again is just an idea that crept in from earlier use and the rifle units. I guess it also makes them easier to distinguish on a table and it is no worse than having your Polish lancers charging in magnificent full dress

I'm with Deadhead on this one but even less precious about the details. All the previous research that I have done certainly indicates that the Hanoverian Landwehr in general had Blue facings and wore Stovepipe shakos. There is also some indication that the shako cord tassles fell on the left side of the hat rather than the right, although this is probably an error based on picture transposition. They also had yellow sashes for the officers and NCO's and Mont St Jean shows the Officers with white over yellow plumes. The Osterode battalion of Landwehr is shown with green facings on Mont St Jean. As for flags…..
BUT despite all that, I still decided to paint two of my battalions for Best's Brigade with the 'idiotic caps' for precisely the reason that Deadhead suggests. Although my Napoleonic army is based on the general order of battle at Waterloo, most of the battles that my little plastic men fight are with my mates at the pub or in one of our gaming rooms and tend to be 'Club Battles' rather than any attempt to constantly refight Waterloo (as is often done on these pages ….). So if you are not a button counter and are not likely to be putting on a Demonstration game in public that claims to be historically accurate, go ahead and use them as they are. It just depends on your OCD tolerance…..:)

Good point, Steve, but they fall just beyond my tolerance. I'll fight the Peninsular War with Belgic shakos and have Austrians in helmets in 1813-14, and my Continentals are a lot spiffier than anything Washington was ever able to maintain--but it does have to be something that was actually issued or decreed as a uniform and not something I just made up. For that I have science fiction armies.

For what it's worth, I know wargamers who use those white tropical wear shakos as a distinction, and I don't fuss over that one.

When you do your Napoleonics mostly in 6 mm these problems just shrink away!

I've only ever seen the 'Hanoverian cap' for the Waterloo period in one plate – by Knotel:

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The figure depicts an Officer in greatcoat so you can't tell what Regt. he is from. The cap band is usually in the facing colour of the Regt. in other countries, so I assume he is from a yellow faced Regt.

Cap bands for blue faced Landwehr should be blue.
And you wonder where all those caps would have come from.
The British supplied all the Landwehr uniforms and the caps
were NOT standard British gear.

Imagi-nations. That's about it.

Not Warlord's finest hour.

What exactly is warlords finest hour for their napoleonic range?
All the napoleonic sets seems to be made on the cheap, with little regards for quality and history.

Compare any warlord set with the Perry sets…

What can I say, Gunfreak? I'm doing guides units out of both Perry and Warlord hussars--and Perry Chasseurs--as we speak. The Perry kit gives me more flexibility, but you could make a serviceable French hussar of the Warlord. What burned me about the Hanoverian kit was that you couldn't make a Hanoverian out of it. If they'd included heads in stovepipe as an option, I'd have let the flat caps pass.

Camcleod, you're right of course. But when I only have one plate--no description, no regs, no clothing purchase--I tend to figure it's a one-off. Officers especially usually have some flexibility. And as you suggest, everything else seems to have been something the British could pull out of inventory. Except for Kielmansegge, the whole Hanoverian Army is kitted out in British war surplus--except for the caps. Someone would have to present me with evidence for them.

Thanks everyone,

I do have Victrix and Perry kits so lots of spare shakos to be had, Warlord was a cheap option for the rank and file.

Since no one seems to think the flat caps were ever seen on the peninsular I'll go with another unit of British.

Robert

"What exactly is warlords finest hour for their napoleonic range?"

Well, I don't have any Warlord figures but their Imperial Guard head of column is very tempting. It's on my list.

For other Hanoverian inspiration see plates in "Göhrde, Quatre-bras, Waterloo, Troupes hanovriennes. 1813-1815" Author : Aerts, Winand (1879-1960). link

Camcleod, you say "Cap bands for blue faced Landwehr should be blue." The centjours site shows yellow cap bands for blue faced landwehr regiments.

I'm painting a unit of Connoisseur Hanoverian landwehr in stovepipes but the officers have the cap. I was going to paint the cap bands yellow like the sashes, following the centjours pictures. Do you have any sources for saying blue cap bands, or is it another case where no-one really knows?

I may have answered my own question. The Osprey says officers wore a red cap with yellow band, no mention of rank and file caps…but probably that's because they wore the stovepipe.

Lambert

I don't believe anyone actually knows for sure, but the
earlier Hanoverian caps shown in the "Göhrde, Quatre-bras, Waterloo, Troupes hanovriennes. 1813-1815" linked to by
Prince of Essling are green with facing colour band matching their uniforms.
Feldjager Korps – green cap with light green band and facings.
Luneburg Bn. – green cap with light blue band and facings.
Lauenberg Bn. – all blue cap and facings.

The only yellow band is for that Officer in greatcoat that you can't tell what Regt. he belongs to and what facing colour he may have. Two of the Landwehr regts, did have yellow facings so it is possible.
The Hanoverians were very short of cash to pay for caps for their entire Landwer but an Officer might have bought his own uniform and cap with a band in the National colour to go with it.

Also in other armies such as the Prussians Landwer the cap band matched the facing and Provincial colour.

I have used the Warlord Hanoverian heads when making up several Russian companies,(see Plate G and page 19 of the Osprey Men at Arms – The Russian Army of the Napoleonic Wars 1799 1814). Although perhaps not accurate depictions of the real Russian forage caps they are in my opinion acceptable and make an attractive variation when fielding the Russians.

The cap is close enough to the British Army garrison/fatigue cap warn at the time. Some had peaks and others not.

Prussian Reserve Infantry Regiments wore this type of cap if they could not get a shako or stovepipe. So could be mixed in.

Prussian Landwehr of M1814 uniform had short coatee rather than Litewka. So could be mixed in with removal of the lace.
link

Prussian Freiwillger and Lutzow Freikorps is a posibility.
link

The 1813 Honoverians definitly had this uniform. Whether replaced by stovepipe shako by 1815 is an interesting question. Still could be mixed in.

Yes the heads could be used for Russians whether Opolchenie or Line.

Many possibilities.
Stephen

Brunswickers?

This certainly suggests a possibility. Similar uniform other than the need to remove the coat tails.

link