Prints Militaire NB1 British Infantry of the Line, 1812-15, officers and drummer

Prints Militaire NB2 British Infantry of the Line, 1812-15, NCOs and men

Prints Militaire NB4 Royal Horse Artillery, Britain, 1812/15

Prints Militaire NB5 The Black Watch, 42nd Regiment, 1812/15

Can you ever have enough artillery?

After the last three weeks, my answer is yes, especially if you have to paint them all.

Things have been quiet here on the posting front as I have been conducingd a major audit of my French and British artillery, sorting into crews, allocating guns, and painting and basing the unpainted and unbased. The results are posted below.

I had thought I had finished, but have found one extra painted British gun, for which I will paint up one further RHA crew, and also I need to paint up a small number of extra French artillery drivers.

Though I wouldn't swear to it, I think the final tally is in the region of:

French

23 guns and 3 howitzers
4 caissons
6 limbers
around 30 horses

British

24 guns and three howitzers
Siege train of 2 18 pounders and a 10" howitzer
A rocket troop in light order (pack horses rather than rocket carts)
1 ammunition limber
12 limbers
around 50 horses

Guns are a mixture of Hinchliffe 20mm, Hinton Hunt, Der Kriegspieler and Newline Designs. There are also a couple of Fine Scale factory siege guns

It has to be said that Marcus Hinton was not at his best with artillery guns and equipment - managing to get them looking chunky and underscale at the same time.

The old Hinchliffe 20mm pieces are miniature masterpieces. The best currently available substitute for Hinton Hunt guns and limbers are those from Newline Designs - a big range, and as they are small 20mm pleasingly recall the slightly undersize look of Hinton Hunt ones, while being considerably more detailed.

My French artillery arm suffers from the usual over-representation of Guard units and the absence of line horse artillery from the Hinton Hunt range. I am intending to second some Guard horse artillery units to support of my Grand Duchy of Warsaw forces.

The acquisition of 30 or so Der Kriegspieler Royal Artillery gunners helped achieve a better balance between foot and horse artillery units for the British. I am also pleased with the siege train - I will sort out some trains for these, as I have considerable numbers of Jacklex oxen which serve a bridging train and colonial artillery units, and which can easily do double duty for the Napoleonic period.

Next task is a second (Der Kriegspieler) Hesse Darmstadt battalion. This will leave me with some new Russian and Prussian acquisitions to complete; and audit of my Austrians; and then facing up to around 100 battalions of French and British infantry - and then the cavalry.... I think in the circumstances the approach of completing national contingents has worked quite well

British Artillery - Royal Horse Artillery

Eleven RHA crews, all Hinton Hunt figures, serving a mixture of Hinton Hunt and Newline guns.

British Artillery - Royal Artillery

Thirteen Royal Artillery crews - a mixture of Hinton Hunt and Der Kriegspieler figures - with Newline guns, including 2 howitzers (can you spot the deliberate mistake in the first photograph?)


Finally, a third howitzer crew, this time Alberken/Minifigs 20mm figures, also serving a Newline gun

British Artillery - Royal Artillery siege train

Produced for the siege warfare try out with Tony over at the Prometheus in Aspic blog, the gus are a Hinchliffe 20mm British 10" howitzer and two Fine Scale Factory 18 pounders. The crews are a mixture of Hinton Hunt and Der Kriegspieler figures, and the gun emplacements are from the Italeri plastic artillery sets - these come in both the Napoleonic French and American Civil War large sets.

Bases are some of the emergency MDF sabots I had cut at my local timber merchants for our Command & Colours Napoleonic excursion. I am not sure yet whether to leave these as they are or to try to add some landscaping to the bases. I rather like them as they are.

British Artillery - Rocket troop conversions

Bought on ebay a while ago, I think these may have been from Pete Bateman, but I am not sure

British Artillery - Royal Horse Artillery Limbers

Eleven British Limbers and a single British Ammunition limber (on the left hand side of the front row.

Four of the limbers (two of which are on flocked, two on unflocked bases) are Hinchliffe 20mm models, the rest are Hinton Hunt. I am not sure about the ammunition limber, I suspect it is also the Hinchliffe 20mm one rather than the Hinton Hunt AL2A, as it is a much better and finer model than other Hinton Hunt artillery equipment.

British Artillery - Royal Artillery Limber

A Hinchlifee 20mm limber, ridden by S Range Royal Artillery limber twins (Hinton Hunt didn't do such figures), with a Hinton Hunt driver and horses. As these are my only RA limber riders, I have only one RA limber.

British Artillery - Limbers and horse-saving system

As mentioned elsewhere, because I am better supplied with limbers than horses, I have a modular system designed to stretch a limited number of horses as far as possible. Each limber has a two horse team; I then also have some extra pairs and four horse teams on separate bases, which can be added to limbers as required. My idea is that perhaps when guns are being moved this will be marked by the use of these extra teams.

The two pictures show the modular system with the teams and limbers, first separated and then closed up.

Additionally some of my limbers have longer bases to accommodate guns being towed behind them.

Wargames Holiday Centre: British Units: 1st Foot (Royal Scots)

The sergeant looks to be a conversion of an Alberken/Minigigs 20mm British infantryman with the addition of an outsize poke.

Wargames Holiday Centre: British Units: 40th Foot (2nd Somersetshire)

The officers seem to have been given over-length replacement wire swords.

Der Kriegspieler British Light Infantry drummer

Though I have mostly been posting information about Der Kriegspieler figures over on The Old Metal Detector I thought this oddity was of enough Hinton Hunt interest to post here. I don't really recall any British Light Infantry drummer figures from any manufacturer (I'm sure someone will know of any there are out there). Der Kriegspieler did a number of command sets and this figure must be part of 825-154, British Light Infantry Command Group. Looks like a standard BN 12 drummer figure with a replacement Light Infantry head.

The figure has a fair amount of flash on his right arm, which should clean up nicely, and a very thin base.

Off topic units - Sepoys

Not strictly relevant to this site, squeezing in though through their officers, these are privately commissioned sepoy figures - two battalions of Bengal infantry, one of Madras, and one of Bombay Grenadiers. For their European officers I have used spare Hinton Hunt Royal Marines and a Portuguese officer.

The Uniforms of Leipzig - The Allies part 1

Hinton Hunt Painting Instructions: BN 253 Lt Gen Sir Thomas Picton

Hinton Hunt Painting Instructions: BN 257 Lt Gen Sir William Ponsonby

BNH 10 British General's horse