To the Barricades!

With uncharacteristic elan, I am dashing on to the next little part of my project to complete the terrain elements I want for the Franco-Prussian War. This time it's three sections of barricade. As part of preparing a village for defence the roads in the enemy's direction would be blocked off, and cover created to fire from, by building improvised barriers like these. 

The barricades that perhaps spring most readily to mind are those built by revolutionary populations within cities, notably during the Paris Commune of 1870 and the Europe-wide revolutions of 1848. These were actually rather different in construction, because nineteenth-century cities generally had their roads paved with stone blocks. These were laid on sand rather than being cemented together and were the perfect thing  for pulling up and building into substantial stone barriers, from which to resist the forces of oppression!

Anyway, our more rustic barricades were built by sending soldiers into the houses and farms of the village to find what could be piled up to create an obstacle to an enemy charge. What they came back with was piled up higgledy-piggledy, but was enough to give cover from bullets and to give resolute defenders an advantage over anyone struggling to surmount or remove the obstacle. As always when I am building something new, I search online for images that will give information and inspiration, crop and assemble these into a Word document and print it off using the best quality available. This then sits in front of me as I plan and build the item in question. The single best image I found was that of  Le Bourget during the Siege of Paris, and a cropped version is below if you scroll down. Helpfully it is in colour, giving an idea of the different shades of wood involved.

Here's the three sections from the front. The most common materials were wagons/ carts, furniture and storage containers, mostly barrels. You might also see logs and cut timber, wheels, ladders and farm tools such as harrows and ploughs. Doors and shutters could be torn from their hinges for use. Mattresses could feature, usually at the back of the barricade, both for resisting bullets and as something for the defenders to lean against. Illustrators and modelmakers seem to think dead horses were also a component, but I am sceptical as these would quickly decay and produce a horrendous stink.

The same from the back. The pieces do have backs and fronts to a certain degree. I sort of imagined the defenders clambering onto something to fire over the higher parts.

Here is one barricade, defended by Prussian infantry. As with the earthworks these pieces are useful for other periods as improvised barricades must have been built from ancient times onwards, and remained in use notably in the Spanish Civil War of the 1930's, or even street-fighting in World War Two. Strictly, the available material would change; the piece here uses a lot of "bentwood" chairs, which were only around from the mid nineteenth century. But few wargamers will be very picky on such details.

This time the French defend a barrier based on a farm wagon. This wagon was a plastic item from Rubicon Models. It works OK here, but probably a metal wagon from one of the Perry Napoleonic range would have been better detailed and cheaper. Boxes and barrels are available from any number of traders.

The third one is based mostly on furniture, and here the Rubicon Domestic Furniture set is ideal. Building the pieces on bases helps hold everything together. I painted them as the bare earth of the roads. By the way, each piece has some metal barrels or whatever within it, just to give it enough weight not to float out of place on the table. The defenders here are French chasseurs a pied, painted by my friend Garry Broom.

From the defending side. A bit more of an action scene than I usually get around to arranging. That line from the 1964 Zulu film springs to mind here: "thousands of 'em"!

Finally, the best image I could find for reference, the Prussian Guard Grenadiers storming the village of Le Bourget in October 1870 during the siege of Paris. I used a lot of elements from this, but as ever "condensed" to fit the scale of my wargames villages.

The next stage of this project is going to be some sections of "abbatis". I'm still at the planning stage with this, but hopefully will have something to show you in a few weeks time.

More Prussians, More Earthworks

Here are some Prussian infantry and artillery painted over December to February, and then a project to build the earthworks needed to refight some Franco Prussian battles. So without further ado...

Infantry Regiment No 50 (3rd Lower Silesian) march out of a Lorraine village.The figures are from the Perry plastic set of course, but with the odd conversion.

Here No 47 (2nd Lower Silesian) advances to the attack. I really like the "advancing at the trail" pose you can get out the plastic sets. There are a couple of metal figures in here and some major conversions, but even without that you can get a very varied unit with no two figures the same. The flag is hand painted, and I cut away the huge streamer that forms part of the set's flag-top, nice as it is, because this regiment only had the 1866 campaign streamer.

The whole brigade storms forward. 

Two four-pounders and a six-pounder (left). These are the three Prussian artillery packs in Michael Perry's range: crews loading and firing for the light gun, loading only for the heavier piece. Even though it was me who built the masters for these two guns, they were a bit of a job to assemble! Locating holes for the more fiddly fittings have got lost in the moulding and casting process so have to be drilled out. The crew figures are in accurate poses for serving the guns and well animated, but I'm afraid some of the sculpting detail isn't the best ever from the Perrys.

This closeup may be a little help to anyone painting these models. The woodwork on the guns was mid-blue, not blue-grey or pale blue as many seem to think, and the seats were all black-painted ironwork (which can't have been very comfy to ride on). The barrels were steel, but chemically treated to avoid rust, producing a dark brown effect. They were supposed to be polished with linseed oil, so presumably had a dull sheen, at least for parades.

Moving on, here's my new batch of earthworks. I have done eighteen sections to add to the four built a couple of years ago and shown then. I used exactly the same method this time, ie triangular sections of blue foam backed with Renedra wattle fencing. Filler and glue provides the earth texture. 

The medium sized sections accomodate two of my bases, which are 45mm wide by 40mm deep. For compatibility I kept the same height as before, ie 20mm. That was designed to fit my older FPW figures from the old Foundry range, but the new figures are a good bit taller. They still just about fit these fieldworks.

The smaller pieces fit a single base of infantry or artillery. Earthworks played a part in many FPW battles. Sometimes the defending French dug themselves in, more or less, and the various sorties from besieged Metz and Paris came up against extensive field fortifications. These included barricaded roads and abattis, both of which are next on my list of projects.

Prussians defend the edge of a fortified village. 

More French 1870 Generals

Hello again, back with a series of French 1870 converted command groups. I'm sorry it's been a while again since the previous post; I have been fairly busy painting, but not got around to photography. A session with the camera yesterday, however, has produced these images and there are some more of Prussian units I've painted, ready to be posted shortly.

I previously showed two corps command groups, of three mounted figures each. One of them was Frossard of the 2nd Corps, so these generals start with his three divisional commanders, on two-figure bases. All are fairly heavyweight conversions.

First of all here is the splendidly-bearded General Laveaucoupet of the 3rd infantry division. I think the figure started off as an American Civil War general. As you can hopefully see I have tried to get some likeness to the real generals, which included researching and modelling the medals each one wore at the time of the FPW. Laveaucoupet is accompanied by Lieut.-Col Billot, who evaded capture at the surrender of Metz and was massively promoted to command a corps of his own in the Army of the Loire. Sadly he proved a bit rubbish in this role, and was largely responsible for the Frennch defeat at the Battle of Beaune-la-Rolande. This figure began as a Napoleonic Russian staff officer.

Next we have General Bataille of the 2nd Division. This figure started as a one-armed ACW general. I used elements from the plastic infantry set to get his arm and kepi. In his portrait Bataille has rather floppy hair, which I've sculpted with green stuff. The aide de camp is no-one in particular -I just wanted to get an officer of Spahis onto the wargames table, because of the replendent uniform: scarlet, sky blue, black and gold: what's not to like? The figure's position is more of a conversion than it may at first seem. I did him standing in the stirrups of his dappled horse, craning his neck to see whatever the general is waving his hat at.

And this one's the 1st Division commander, General Verge. He looks a little bit caricatured, but most wargames figures are more or less that way. Again a former ACW general figure. I'm quite pleased with how the map he's holding came out. The assistant here is  from a lancer regiment in the 1868 uniform. Curiously, junior officers wore bigger epaulettes than more senior ones.  The figure started as a Prussian officer from North Star and is mounted on an Empress horse. 

On to a couple of cavalry generals now. I couldn't find a portrait of this corps' actual cavalry commander, but here we have General Bonnemains, who commanded the sacrifical cuirassier division at the Battle of Worth. He looks pretty standard in his photo, other than wearing rather baggy trousers, which the figure I've used reflects. It is a one-piece casting of a general from the Paraguyuan War a few years earlier. Bonnemains is accompanied by a cuirassier trumpeter, converted from a plastic Napoleonic trumpeter. 

Last but very much not least is General Legrand who commanded the cavalry division of 4th Corps. He is wearing a dolman in the portrait drawing, but wore the standard plain black frock coat at the Battle of Rezonville, where he led the largest cavalry charge of the war. We know what he was wearing because it's been preserved in the battlefield museum, ever since he fell in action, killed by a Prussian sword-stroke. Mort au champ d'honneur! The figure started as a general of the Carlist war. His assistant is an officer of the staff corps, for which I used a figure from the chasseurs d'afrique command pack. The staff corps had cuffs and kepis of amaranthe, a pinkish red in practice.

To wrap up, here's some of the generals grouped together against the background of a Lorraine village.