Bavarian Artillery Master Model

Hello again guys. I'm back with my latest effort after a five-month absence. It's the sixth and last Franco-Prussian War gun master for Perry Miniatures. After doing the Prussian light and heavy guns, and the same for the French plus a mitrailleuse, it was high time for the Bavarian artillery to get a look-in. I've recounted the story and organisation of Bavarian artillery in the middle third of the nineteenth century in an earlier post: Hand-Built History: The Bavarian Guns 1836 to 1873 -A Historical Article . The upshot for the South German state was that they had three types of artillery piece in the FPW, but all mounted on the same "C/1866" carriage. So there was only one carriage to build but three different barrels, even though two of them are just the existing Krupp pieces with new trunnions to fit this carriage.

This master model will be in the post later today to Michael Perry, who's been waiting to sculpt a Bavarian guncrew, or he reckons two, to man this model. You may get a choice of all three barrels in each final pack, or there may be two packs with different crew and different barrels. I don't know when these packs will be available -in a few months time I suppose.

When you do get them assembled and ready to paint, the woodwork wants to be a light-to-medium grey in colour. That's a neutral grey, neither a warm tone nor a blue grey. All the metalwork was painted black, including the two Krupp-built barrels, in contrast with the Prussian practice of chemically browning them. The Bavarian bronze barrel was unpainted.

Here is the model in assembled form, the barrel here being the Bavarian bronze 6-pdr rifled breechloader. A rifled breechloader is a bit of an unusual thing to find cast in bronze rather than steel; it was a transitional technology on account of bronze being easier to cast than steel. Apparently it worked well enough, and the Austrian artillery went the same way for a time after 1866. But it did call for a thicker barrel compared to the Krupp guns, in order to withstand the discharge. 

Some points of detail now. When putting the parts together to photograph, I have somehow managed to assemble the twin trail spikes a bit out of alignment. They are supposed to be splayed apart, but will fit more symetrically when you superglue the finished product together. The drag brake piece is attached to the side of the trail here with "White-tac". Note that the T-shaped fitting on the wheel hub is shown the right way up here: the bar of the "T" is meant to be at the top and horizontal.

I only made one correct wheel for this model, ie the one with the white styrene tyre. This was to save a little bit of time. When the master model is moulded and cast obviously you will get two correct wheels. At least the Bavarians had conventional, dished, 12-spoked wheels, so I was able to start with one from an existing model rather than building up the wheel from scratch this time.

Here are the parts laid out. When you make a master like this it's a bit harder than just building a model of the original, because it has to consist of parts that will work with the processes of moulding and casting. Each piece needs to be essentially "flat" or two-dimensional. This can slightly increase the number of parts: I would have liked to incorporate the elevating gear with either the carriage or as part of each barrel, but it just wouldn't work for casting. There also has to be a very positive system of locating pegs and holes for each part. It should be obvious where each goes, and only one place it can actually fit. I've got better over the years at organising the pieces to work with these requirements. 

Incidentally the twin cylinders at the front corner of the carriage are containers for emergency cannister rounds. The trail box only contained tools on this version of gun carriage.

Here's the model with the Krupp-manufactured 6-pdr barrel. All the 6-pdrs in the 1st Bavarian Corps were of this model, and all those of the 2nd Bavarian Corps were the bronze type.

A Change of Wargames Period

Most wargamers work on different armies/ historical periods, or flit between them like butterflies. Each to their own of course but I have always really focussed on one period at a time, for years at a go, building armies and terrain, researching and writing rules. I just like to do things thoroughly. After engaging with the Franco-Prussian War in this way for maybe six years now, it's high time for a change.

My next project will be for a very different historical period. I hope to have a first unit of figures painted quite soon and then you'll find out what the plan is!