"Saxon cavalry 1866" Topic

Currently working on Saxon forces to use alongside my Austrians and I'm wondering what I should field as the Saxon cavalry, seeing as they are described as Reiter and also defined as 'light' cavalry. Are Dragoon figures appropriate or should I be looking at Hussars, as I can't find any reference to Saxon Hussars anywhere and assume that if they were Hussars they'd have been referred to as such?

This might help:

link

For 1870

Thanks, that confirms what I thought.

link

Hope this link works

dbf1676's link is perfect for 1866. The Saxon Reuter's changed the design of their helmets between 1866 and 1870.

The Knötel plate show the appearance of the Saxon Reiter-Regiments for 1866: link

If you're interested in the "new uniform" from 1867 onwards, just look at the Beck uniform series at link

Greetings from Berlin
Markus Stein
2empire.de

Thank you all for your help, it has been most useful. I'm currently painting Saxon infantry in 6mm and the Baccus figures for Jager have a standard bearer. I can't find any information on Jager flags, I assume they would follow the same principle as the Line Infantry? Looking at the blog Carrying on up the Dale and the 1866 Saxons on there I see that Mollinary gets a namecheck for his knowledge of Saxon flags. I wonder if he knows the answer please?

@Volleyfire

The Saxon Jäger and Schützen never had flags – confirmed by Fiebig "Unsterbliche Treue" and the histories of the Jäger Bataillon No. 12 and Schützen-Regiment No. 108.

Greetings from Berlin
Markus Stein

Many thanks Marcus, I thought that might be the case. I was wondering why Baccus gave them a standard bearer.

Marcus is, of course, right! The answer to your question might, however, lie in which Baccus figures you are using as Saxon jägers? Do you have a product code? Indeed, as far as I recall Baccus don't do any figures for 1866 Saxons?

I picked up a pack of FPP02 at Partizan, Prussian Jagers formed, which was probably the wrong pack you're going to inform me, although looking at Osprey's Prussian Allies 1870-1871 it looked the closest uniform. I removed the standard bearers pole to make him look as though he is another sword wielding officer. I do have Jager's skirmishing currently on order as well though.

It all depends on whether you are modelling 1866 or 1870. In 1866 all the infantry, both jägers and line, wore peaked caps. Not sure which Baccus troops would be a good proxy for those. For 1870, I think you are probably correct, they are the closest, although they should have that small drooping plume at the front.

Unfortunately Peter says he has no plans to make the Prussian line and Jagers with peaked caps suitable for 1866 so I had to go with pickelhaubes and shakos.

NPR03, Prussian Landwehr, might make a closer approximation, given that in 6mm Headgear is particularly important. Might be worth getting a pack, and one of the skirmishers, and experimenting?

I did ask Peter about Landwehr being a substitute, I thought the coat might be too long though.

That is the question of course. However, the coat on Peter's Landwehr is shorter than some others (it looks well above the knee to me) so it boils down to which aspect you are more willing to compromise on. For me, the only characteristic of the Prussian figure that is right is the length of tunic, everything else is wrong. But in the final analysis it is your choice, and your view of what the painted result looks like to you. Is it possible Peter might send you some samples (for a reasonable price of course!) to do a test paint? The green flags from Peter's Saxon flag sheet would be fine for the 16 battalions of 1866 Line infantry.