28mm SYW Prussian 6pdr Battery

Zinnfiguren Prussian 6pdr guns plus limbers, Foundry gun crews and Front Rank horses.

40mm IR56 Daun

This is the second battalion of IR56 Daun, in the WAS, and 'Mercy' during the SYW. The facings are violet and this is a tricky colour to work with as you need to mix pink with it to give it a highlight not white.

There appears to be no unanimity as to whether violet was a facing colour used by the Austrians in this period. Greenwood & Ball list three regiments with violet facings – IR16 Konigsegg, IR 42 Gaisbruck and IR 56. Duffy says that 16 and 56 had “blue or violet facings” but that 42 had blue. Kronoskaf, on the other hand, says that 16 had blue facings, but that 42 had violet although it then muddies the water by calling it “violet blue”. It says that 56 had blue facings but adds that “ the blue distinctive colour is represented differently by every author.” This just shows how difficult it is to pin the colour down. Anyway, I'm happy with violet!

This anecdote about this regiment's musicians is given in Duffy:”....the woodwind of the regiment of Daun became so popular in Vienna that when the troops marched off to war in 1756 the citizens petitioned for the Hautboisten-Banda to stay behind.” This may well have been a visual thing as well as a musical one – the band would probably still have been dressed in violet coats,faced in white, so would have looked quite spectacular.

Phase one of this 40mm project is to do 10-10-6 by which I mean 10 battalions of infantry, 10 squadrons of cavalry and 6 guns – for both Austria and Prussia. For the Austrians, I have now finished 7 battalions, 5 squadrons and the guns are on their way here in the post. Cavalry will have to await hussars from Chris at Sash & Saber before they get reinforced. But I am making progress.

Berliner Zinnfiguren

Here are some really excellent guns from Berliner Zinnfiguren. The top two pictures show the Austrian 12pdr and limber while the bottom two pictures show the Prussian 6pdr and limber. Both are SYW and both are labelled as 30mm although they will do fine for 28mm. They come nicely boxed and assembled although they will need a drop of superglue in various places as I'm not sure what glue they have used.

When I saw these a year or so ago on their website I thought they were expensive at 21.75 euros per box but if you do the calculations they are not that expensive and you get a great deal more accuracy, especially in the limbers. The euro price works out at about £17.77 and if you consider that Front Rank's prices have been creeping up (a gun and a heavy limber from FR are £7.25 each) the price difference is now only £3.22
or about £1.60 per item. FR's equipment is also highly generic whereas these appear precise and are high quality products with almost no flash.

They appear in the 'Flats' section under SYW but here are the links:
Prussians:
http://www.zinnfigur.com/index.php?cPath=1_10_64_80_2561_2565&osCsid=vsoijjrjmk4mrt28efiehca7p0&ID=2565

The code is 268/1

Austrians:
http://www.zinnfigur.com/index.php?cPath=1_10_64_80_2578_2582&osCsid=vsoijjrjmk4mrt28efiehca7p0&ID=2582

The code is 268/5

I have finished a Prussian 6pdr battery and I'll show it over the weekend.

More 28mm SYW Generals

Frederick II command base. He liked to give orders to his horses by tapping them between the ears with his cane.

Lieutenant General Seydlitz (CR8)(Front Rank) presumably telling his kettledrummer to stop that wretched noise.

Lieutenant General Lieutenant General Friedrich von Forcade de Biaix (IR23) is actually the same figure as Goltz below but he has been converted by removing his cane and right hand, changing the shape of the arm and adding a sword.

Lieutenant General Carl von de Goltz (IR24), a Foundry figure, next to a Front Rank figure.

Four Prussian generals of Brigade: Schoning (IR46), Hagen (IR8), Itzenplitz (IR13) and Bornstedt (IR20). These are the finished versions and the painting method is described in the bottom picture.

Four Austrian generals of Brigade: Kottendorf, Angern, Haller and Draskowitz, a light cavalry general commanding the advance guard.

Prussian generals wore regimental uniforms so to paint them you have to name them first. This picture shows the preparation involved in that. From left to right they are Schoning, Hagen, Itzenplitz and Bornstedt, Inhabers of regiments 46, 8, 13 and 20. Then the figures need to match the personalities - in this case the Front Rank figure on the left has scalloped hat lace and that fits perfectly for IR46. The second figure from the left (Foundry) wears an eye patch but it was not possible to find out this level of detail so he was made into 'Hagen' anyway.

Austrian Generals

Here are some senior Generals of the Austrian SYW army in 28mm. Before I give details of who is represented I need to give a brief description of the senior ranks as they are different from the Prussian army.

Major General: In the Austrian service this is called General-Feldwachtmeister (G-FWM).

Lieutenant General: Feld-Marschall-Leutenant (FML) .

Full General: Of infantry Feldzuegmeister (FZM) and of cavalry General der Cavallerie (GdC).

Field-Marshal: Feld-Marschall (FM).

So the top two pictures show Feld-Marschall Maximilian Ulysses Count von Browne with a gentleman on foot, his secretary (Foundry figure), and two (Front Rank) mounted officers.

The figure of von Browne is actually a Russian General (Apraxin) from Front Rank and though the lace is slightly different the variation is not that noticeable. I like my command bases to have some sort of story to them, an interaction between the figures, and in this case my imagination tells me that the officer who has just arrived and is waving his right hand, has just interupted a discusion between Browne and his secretary about what will be served for lunch, which might account for the sour looks all around.

The third picture shows a familiar friend, Feld-Marschall-Leutenant Clerici who has doffed his hat at the excellent news that has just been brought to him by one of his officers - "Sir, the Prussians are in full retreat.......". The Clerici figure is by Front Rank and the other is by Elite but on a Foundry horse.

Finally, Feld-Marschall-Leutenant Margrave von Baden-Durlach is indicating to a sceptical Officer the direction he wants his division or 'Department' to deploy to. Again the Baden-Durlach figure is Front Rank and the other chap is an Elite figure on a Foundry horse.

Prié-Turinetti - 40mm WAS/SYW Austrians

This was another Walloon Regiment (No.30) that by the SYW was called Sachsen-Gotha. The blue facings were, according to Kronoskaf, 'Ultramarine' and I have shown the palate I tried to achieve. While there would appear to have been just one 'red' Austrian facing colour, there were many different types of blue and in the earlier WAS, this shade of blue was on the cuffs, lapels, waistcoat, trousers and turn backs. By the SYW, the blue facings remained only on the cuffs and lapels.

The trousers appear to have been the first to change to white and I have shown this 2nd battalion of the regiment in a transition phase before most of the blue disappeared.

In my army I will be fielding a number of single battalion regiments and this is the first. The next will have violet facings.