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.