"Caisson Convoy" Topic

Liam kindly painted a battery of Foot Artillery of the Old Guard a few months ago. The battery consisted of the usual eight pieces but did not have its caissons.

The sad demise of Westfalia Miniatures means that, along with Schilling, these wonderful figures will no longer be available. Taking advantage of the huge generosity of Thomas Mischak who bought up most of the remaining stock, Liam has painted eight An XI caissons and ancillary vehicles to give this Guard battery the ammunition and spares it needs.

Space is short at La Belle Alliance so the caisson convoy is sitting further back, a little north of Rossomme and south of the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the 1st Grenadiers shown in my last post.

The pictures show just how much space Napoleonic artillery needed to deploy. Napoleon had 254 guns at Waterloo and this shows the caissons needed to serve just eight of them.

It is a shame about Shilling and Westphalia miniatures.

Thomas is an extraordinary ambassador to our hobby and his generosity, as witnessed by myself, is legendary.

Chris

James photographic skills are transformed these days. Low angle shots and great scenery flatters these figures +++.

The loss of Schilling is indeed a shame, but we already knew we could not order from the UK. The bureaucracy post Brexit proved a huge deterrent. They had a drop down menu for location that included Polynesian islands I had never heard of and even those UK Indian Ocean island dependencies about to be handed over to China….no, sorry, what am I thinking? To Mauritius of course. Lack of access from the UK made Thomas' gesture all the more welcome.

Westfalia and Niels Rullkotter produced great 28mm vehicles and some individuals for our era. Through Schilling we could get the limited 20mm range. Some of these are available through Franznap, but many seem lost.

Westfalia have gone over to the dark side and solely do Fantasy figures now. NR is of course a very familiar monogram for anyone going through a Perry catalogue.

Photos and paint job are excellent!

Shows how much real-estate a battery takes up, 12pdrs even more

I believe that the Guard allocated three cassions per gun and five for a howitzer if at all possible. (Adkin).

On top of that their were the forges, supply wagons etc.

That is a huge amount of vehicles and horseflesh ( preferably black for the guard) to obtain and maintain on campaign.

The good Captain is one of the few modellers who tries to represent this accurately in his magnificent project.

Chris

If every French gun had three caissons ( and I know you are only saying the Guard) that would be 762 caissons and 4,572 horses, which is as many as there were in the 12 regiments of cuirassiers. It's lucky therefore that I asked Zvezda to do a special print run of their caissons and have these in my stocks. However, they are such a intimidating prospect that I am now a little scared of them!

Hello Captain.

Adkin states that the Line had two cassions per 6pdr and three for a howitzer/ 12Pdr.

He states that the Beautiful Daughters occupied 700 metres of road alone!

Personally I would suggest that these were best case figures after the 1812/1813 losses.

Nevertheless, that is a lot of chaps and their kit.

I thought painting Austrian whites in their thousands was bad!

Best wishes, from a sympathetic

Chris

wow impressive, I like the images with the train there it provides an idea what space they occupied quite long.

It is bad enough with that huge train behind the main gunline. But consider that Horse Artillery (certainly Guard HA) accompanied the cavalry attacks, in an advanced position obviously. But, for the guns alone, how could they have found any space? Then of course the limbers in close attendance, with six horses each, then the caissons, which had to be there.

How did they do it? LHS to Hgmt is no great distance to walk and I wonder can James possibly fit them into that frontage?

Horse colours. Nothing would be easier than sprayed black at first glance, but that takes real skill. Bays are a cinch, greys are hard work but I have had much success there. Chestnuts I simply cannot do convincingly and black…… I keep reading blue washes, dry brush grey highlights, lots of white points, grey leatherwork, ultra dark brown instead of black. By 1815 Boney would take what he could get, I tell myself.

Having walked up that slope personally, in bad weather, the question of space is relevant.

Perhaps, just as importantly, the wet crops and churned up terrain, littered with dead and crazed animals/ men would have presented huge deployment issues.

It is a very slippy loam on that slope, the skid risk is high and it sticks like glue to your boots.

Keep up the good work Mr D, your output is tremendous.

Best wishes,

Chris

We know that at the end of the battle as the French began to crack, some French batteries were sent to try and stem the flow of Prussians from the East. At least one of these batteries deployed without ammunition because it had run out. I wonder whether Adkin is working off theoretical allocations rather than actual availability?