A Battalion in line..........and column

In the last post I said I was interested to see what a battalion in line looked like. Well tonight, after watching Bastarden I set out the recently acquired troops in a three rank line.

18 bases each with 30 musketeers (or grenadiers in the case of the bases at the two ends), plus an officer and NCO per two bases, a mounted chef der battailon, 5 company ensigns in the centre, plus corps of drummers (4 in the centre and 2 at each end). I didn't put out enough NCOs and officers - should be roughly double - or drummers. 

A Prussian battalion at full strength in 1756 should have 560 privates, 18 officers, 36 NCOs and 20 musicians. I had 480 privates, s 1/7 down. However, the bases were a bit too wide for 30 men, so the overall frontage (108cm or 42 inches) was about right. There were only about 1/2 the number of grenadiers there should be for a Prussian battalion. On campaign the grenadiers would be detached to form composite grenadier battalions.

The 18 bases would work though as 18 British platoons of the WSS. Ignoring the two grenadier bases, this would also work as 8 Prussian pelotons.

You can't see much can you! To get the whole line in I had to zoom out. For context the table is 8ft by 4 ft. Sorry, I forgot to angle the overhead lights on to the line.

The mounted officer is invisible!

As I said, it's dark and you can't make out much, but at least you get a sense of how wide these formations where. And that is just one battalion. Imagine a brigade of 4-6 of these in line, let alone an army.

Battalion in column of platoons. The intervals allow enough space for the platoons to wheel into line.

In the afternoon we took a trip to Ikea to get the Youngest-of-the-Youngest the stuff she needed for uni. She's going into self-catering accommodation in halls. Whilst there, I splashed out on a new storage container as I'm running a bit low on Ferrero-Rocher boxes, and they stopped selling them in the shape of boxes I use. Should the need arise, these boxes are stackable.

The internal dimensions of most of the compartments are in multiples of 3cm, so good for my bases. The box, at c 5 cm, is very deep for 6mm figures, so I might decant some 10mm figures into it (not that they need higher boxes than I have). But at least that will keep things uniform.

I enjoyed the film by the way. I got annoyed at a couple of silly translations/bad scripting. The hero, Mikkelsen's character, was supposed to have been a captain promoted from the ranks with 25 years service. Now the film was set in Denmark roughly around the time of the SYW, and the hero had served in Mecklenburg. But the translation was given as he had "served in the German army". WTF!! In the offending section I heard them say "Mecklenburg" in so why they translated it as "German" God only knows. And later on they referred in a couple of scenes to people "serving in THE army" - to a bunch of German settlers. WHICH army? Oh, and the German settlers looked a bit well fed. Having said that, these were minor irritants and I would recommend the film (if you don't mind misery!).

Oh, nearly forgot. The title in English may have lost something in translation too. "Bastarden" became "The Promised Land".