Thursday, March 19, 2015

Sessions Five and Six

Again a poor photo for which I apologise.

Sessions five and six saw all the black bits painted - hats, cartridge boxes and gaiters. A little toucching up was done on the white cross belts.

I like a nice cross-belt, I do.

Then some black-brown for the muskets, , then some yellow-white-red for the pom-poms, more red for the neck-stocks. metallics on (sword-hilt, cardtridge box plate and mustket battel and bayonette and we were pretty well done. I'll do the bases in green tonight and then gloss the living daylights out of them before sitting back and waiting for my next batch of Renedra 45*40mm placcy bases. Lovely.

The eagle-eyed among you will note that I have made a belayted start on the Regiment's grenadiers. Well done you! A day or do more and I'll have them done along with the command types ans we'll have them done by my birthday this Sunday.

A very satisfactory state of affairs.

Now, on a completely unrelated note, I was reading Charge! on the bus yesterday morning as I made my liesurely way to work and noted the following passage quoted by Young and Lawford from one Captain Nolan:

"In the retreat of our army from Burgos (in the Peninsular War) three squadrons of French chasseurs charged some squadrons of our rearguard; one of these advanced to meet them; both lines pulled up and stood fast, until one Frenchman made a cut at the man opposite him, upon which both lines instantly plunged forward and engaged; the Colonel of the chasseurs was killed, most of his officers wounded and the French were driven back with heavy loss."

It is interesting how like accounts of tribal warfare this sounds. How tentative the confrontation is to begin with.

How unlikely it is that masses of horsemen will go crashing into each other.



5 comments:

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

Absolutely gorgeous. Fine work. But can they fight?

Best Regards,

Stokes

Bloggerator said...

Let me get them based and we'll soon find out.

And to you,

GH

Ross Mac rmacfa@gmail.com said...

Looking fine!

In Denison's History of Cavalry he compares the experience of some officers he met or whose memoirs he had read describing multiple or prolonged cavalry melees or people getting a dozen scars in one battle and then describes a cavalry charge from the ACW where one side used revolvers and the other sabers. Over in under a minute with heavy losses and many dead on the sabre side. This wasn't your granddaddy's caracole.

Stryker said...

Interesting, makes a cavalry melee sound more like a WW2 dogfight than a typical Hollywood depiction!

Lovely paint job...

Bloggerator said...

Thanks chaps.

I was struck by how reluctant the two sides were to engage in violence until one man undertook a 'transgressive' action and then it was on in deadly earnest.

I contrasted this with the experience of watching last year's Biblical epic where chariots gladly hurled themselves to destruction on formed heavy infantry.

Yeah, right.