Tuesday 6 February 2018

Cuirassiers!

This week’s addition to the French 1812 collection is the 5e Régiment de Cuirassiers that forms the 1st Brigade, 4th Cuirassier Division. The  organisation of the cuirassier divisions in the Grande Armée is somewhat strange in that each brigade only contained a single cuirassier regiment and had rather top heavy command structure with a regimental colonel and a brigadier.




This regiment is the second of what will be four cuirassier regiments in my collection.




Now lining up on the production line is a battalion of legere infantry.

16 comments:

  1. Nice! I sure like your cavalry bases in threes.

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    1. I agree about the threes. They just look meatier...just what is needed for heavy cavalry. The per figure frontage is the same as the two per base stands that most of our armies are based to so the units can face off against each other with out a problem.

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    2. I am so tempted to do the same with my 28mm Napoleonics but that would require painting additional figures and rebasing. I wonder if I could fit three on a two inch base to maintain the same base size as my current two per stand basing? Perhaps begin with heavies first?

      So, so tempting...

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    3. I need to rebase a unit of Prussian uhlans to match the rest of the Prussian cavalry. Fortunately I do not need to buy any more figures fir the unit. I am considering rebasing the infantry from the 4 figure bases to six figure bases...

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  2. These look great and I like the back drop! The 3 per base does make the unit look thick / dense; perfect for charging! 😀

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    1. Thanks Stew. There is an irony with that backdrop: it is a simple screen capture from Google Street View south east of Froeschwiller, in eastern France, where in 1870 four regiments of cuirassiers charged to their destruction.

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  3. Great work, and definitely three to a base for me. It is rather strange with the one regiment per brigade, and I had never noticed that before.

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    1. Yes all four heavy cavalry divisions in the 1st and 2nd Cavalry Corps were thus formrd (http://www.napolun.com/mirror/napoleonistyka.atspace.com/French_Russian_order_of_battle_Borodino.htm) there was a squadron of lancers attached to the third brigade of each, presumably for recon work.

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  4. 3 per base is just wonderful, as the painting and basing...Splendid!

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    1. Thanks Phil. Working on the 2em Carabiniers now which are my favorite French cavalry... although I must admit I prefer them in the later cornflower blue uniform

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  5. Looks sensational Mark. These particular sculpts are some of the best that Perry have made in my opinion.

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    1. Thanks Carlo. I particularly like that you can have the sabre in the reverse grip, as it should be held when charging.

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  6. Wow, these are great, now I want to start assembling my box that is knocking around somewhere, lovely work!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain. The next regiment, the 2nd Carabiniers, will be finished tonight and they look equally impressive.

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  7. Great job Mark, going to be lots of French heavy cavalry in our future games by the look of things! Interestingly the British in the peninsula also had some single regiment cavalry brigades Eg Campbell brigade at Vitoria comprised the 6th Portuguese cavalry.

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    1. And there is more cavalry to come. There is another regiment of carabiniers having it bases complted mow and a regiment if dragoons in progress.

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