French Guards from Schilling's

And for those of you not interested in Ancients here are some more photos of the new French Guard Grenadiers for the 1815 campaign. Well I guess I will use mine as other units too. Would be a nice idea to do a contest of possible painting-conversions.

Ulrike and Jörg told me that the figures will come with a lot of head-variants too. My hope is to make revolutioniary infantry out of them.

And Pyrrhus the last test!

Puh after four hours sleep tonight I will post now the photos from the last two days. Three of us whom together have already 7000 painted figures for the diorama met on Friday to organise the diorama, glue the figures on stands, seeing what is still missing etc.

Well, we painted the whole night as you can see here Rainer who finished several Roman centuries

Ok, I won't show a photo of myself in this stage:-)

Here we tried to put some units together, change the positions on the plates to make it less static. We had not the space we needed but you may get an idea how it should look like.
The Greeks in one long formation, checkerboard phalanx beside Hypaspists, Hoplits or Samnites and again a Phalanx. Light infantry will be mixed in.
On the other side the Romans in the typical republican formation of Hastat and Prinzeps (8 ranks deep) and in reserve the Triari.  Of course the distance between the Roman lines should be wider. On the one flank will be a cavalryfight, on the other the Elephants against the wagons.

And now enjoy the photos! The DUZI is in two weeks and then you may be able to see the diorama life or simply wait for more photos here.

More Pyrrhus

This time photos from Schmitty's figures which he put on show as an appetiser on the model-show in Mainz.

Russian Rockets in the Russo-Turkish war 1853-55

Some of you know Hank and his faible for the Turkish army in the Crimea. I have posted photos from his Kalafat project somewhere here month ago.

Now he is working on the siege of Silistra and as Hank tries to do everything perfect, he now asked me what I know on Russian rockets which were used in the Crimea.

In my archive I have the book "Geschichte der Kriegsraketen und der Raketenartillerie im 19. Jahrhundert" by Hand-Dierk Fricke from which I translated some interesting parts on the subject. Strangely I was not able to send him the photos I made through my T-online account, so I thought it could be interesting for you too and here I can post the photos...

The first Russian Rocket-Company was established on the 1st April 1827. In 1831 there were 6 0fficers, 17 1st gunners and 300 Raketeurs. They had 6  "stations" to fire 20pound rockets and 6 each on a tripod for 6- and 12-pound rockets. Beside this two tripods in reserve. They had 3000 rockets with them!

First they saw action in the Russo-persian war in 1827. Then a lot of actions in the Russo-Turkish war.

There was some change in the technique as they didn't worked too good then. The worth of the weapon was recognised in the 1840ies in the fighting against Shamil in Tschetschnia. It seems they had no wagons like the British but simple tripods loaded on mules.

In the meantime they suceeded in producing gun-rockets with which the sharpshooters were equiped (don't ask me how these looked like).

In 1854 the Russians had one Rocket-Battery with:

1 Captain

2 Lieutenants

2 Second Lieutenants

1 Ensign

2 Gunners 1st class

4 Gunners 2nd class

7 Gunners 3rd class

7 Gunners 4th class

3 Drummers

3 Hornists

48 Bombardiers

144 gunners

12 "ouvriers"

20 Train

64 horses

16 cards (8 12pounder, 8 sixpounder)

1 fieldforge

1 technical wagon (?)

4 "Rospusken" small four-wheeled wagons

3 train-wagons

1 Pharmazy-wagon

The Russian rockets have seen action at the siege of Silistra, battle of Babadag 1854, Karadag 1855 and especially at Kyuruk-Dara on the 24th July 1854.

In Asia operated the Russian army under General Count Bebutov. This army included two Rocket-units with 16 tripods attached to the 20th Don-Cossack regiment.  Russian history sais this rockets won a great battle against the Turks there.

And here are some photos. Sadly I have none about the card. If someone could help out I would be greatful.

Pyrhus is comming close

Next weekend I will have a meeting with some of the guys and together we will glue the units in battleformation on the plates. I changed some of my formations and did "battlelines" of units locked together in close combat. Looks much better than static units. Well let's see what photos I can show you next week.

For now three photos which Rainer sent over of units he already painted for the diorama.

Sokoto history

To give you some idea for what the figures are useful, read here a short history of the Sokoto caliphate.

Westafrikan cavalry

This morning a friend sent me a mail telling me that he likes especially this mix of total different subjects on my blog. Ok, I thought to make him happy here something again very exotic.

A hobbyfriend from the UK onces asked me if I can arrange the production of figures for him. We wanted to have something totally exotic, so for me this was of course a teaser.

And here you have them. Two different poses of Sokotho califate African heavy cavalry. Usefull from 1700 unitl 1904 when they tried to break British squares and afterwards disappeared from history as a fighting force.

There are seven different heads available and I wanted to have open hands too to have some variations. I know this is really too exotic for most collectors. But in case someone is interested, I have around 200 of them left.

Of course as usual I have made the historical research before. Here are some nice paintings for them

Today they have still this kind of dress on ceremonial occasions

And they were as colourful in the old days too, no matter what the b/w-drawings suggest

At least then a suggestion for a book if you really want to go deeper into the subject
http://www.amazon.co.uk/African-Knights-Bagirmi-Nineteenth-Century/dp/1901543080/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1316267223&sr=8-3

Merde - 18.06.1815

Well I don't know how the official text of General Cambronne sounds exactly in English, but I know the second option which is more a soldiers one in French:-)

Here you have the guys to put around him in the last stand on the evening of the 18th June. News from Schilling - I got the photos yesterday night. There will be 29 poses with different headgear and they are for sell next weekend at the Mainz model-fair. Or you simply order him from Jörg's shop at www.zinnfiguren-schilling.de.

I suggested a bicorne and a helmet for Revolutionary infantry too and it seems he will make this too.
Ok, here are the first photos, more will follow soon.