Sunday, 6 October 2024

The Dutch are coming!

....and Hessians, Brunswickers, Schaumburger-Lippers* and Reichsarmee. And a few more Piedmontese and Hanoverians. As I've more or less completed the Saxons, Piedmontese and Spanish for the WAS and SYW, I started looking around for other gaps. And there were a lot. I hadn't got all of Britain's allies from His Britannic Majesty's Army/The Army of Observation, so that meant the Hessians etc.had to be ordered. And then there was the other big participant in the Pragmatic Army, the Dutch. And I only have one 1/2 unit for the Reichsarmee (made up of odd grenadiers left over from previous recruiting drives.

* Can anyone tell me what the correct demonym is for folk from Schaumburg-Lippe is? They only made up 1 battalion of line infantry, plus a small squadron of light cavalry and small company of jägers. A fraction of game unit at my normal scale.

"More blue-coated 18th century infantry?! Why not use those Prussians over there. He's used them before in the Fontenoy games. Who can tell at this scale that they're not Dutch?" "Well Sire, he mumbled something about the flags looking different."

My first step was to trawl through, Kronoskaf for orders of battle for the various German contingents and work out how many I would need for the biggest battles. However, the Dutch only fought in the War of the Austrian Succession, which is not covered by Kronoskaf. So I looked through the 2 volume For Orange and the States. The numbers of Dutch engaged in open battle (even at the big set-pieces of Roccoux and Lauffeldt, seemed relatively small compared to their whole establishment**, so I double-checked with any orders of battle that I could find on line. These seemed to back up For Orange and the States, so I went with a relatively small contingent of 6 foot and 4 cavalry brigades. The orders of battle, and maps, can be found in this excellent resource owned by HM KCIII https://militarymaps.rct.uk/war-of-the-austrian-succession-1740-8/1747/first-section

** many troops were in the many fortresses of the Low Countries.

My astute reader would have noticed the omission of the Swedes from that list. The Swedish were part of the coalition against Old Fritz in the SYW, and also fought the Russians in the intriguingly named "Hats' War" in the 1740s. But when I looked into the battles they fought, they were mostly divisional or brigade sized actions, and therefore not the level I normally game at. So I decided not to order anything for them. Maybe another day.

After some humming and ahhing about an Ottomon army of the period, I placed an order for about 30 game units of westerners (call it an early birthday/Christmas present).

Postscript

No sooner have I ordered the Hessians etc, I painted the first unit. To be honest these were leftover from my last 'augmentation. Here they are with a base (half game unit/half brigade) of Piedmontese grenadiers. The Italian lads were also left overs. I have enough leftover infantry for 3 or 4 more bases, which might become the first contribution to the Dutch and Reichsarmee. 

The newly painted chaps haven't had their bases painted and flocked yet, just sprinkled with chinchilla dust. [No rodents were harmed in the creation of the dust.

Hessian cavalry - based on the Pruschenk regiment of horse, chosen because of the sky blue cuffs and saddlecloths. Poor attempt to paint the Hessian Lion on the squadron colour. The sqn colour was again chosen because of the sky blue, rather than the Leibstandard, which is mainly white. Slightly out of focus, are the Piedmontese grenadiers (using H&R Austrian grenadiers in fur hats).


16 comments:

  1. That’s a very useful link to military maps site. If I was planning to field Dutch, I would do the same as you and paint the figures rather than use substitutes. Not sure I would expand to include the Swedes but who knows?

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    1. It makes more sense in your case with 15/18mm figures!
      As for the Swedes, the collector/completist in me is nagging away. I’ll fob him off with ‘when I finish this lot, I’ll reconsider’, and add, ‘but not before I look at Ottomans for the period’.
      Chris

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  2. Lots of fun ahead and craft work. I look forward to following your progress…
    Alan Tradgardland
    P.S l believe Blucher fought for the Swedes against Prussia as a hussar in 1759. Interesting small scale campaign well worth coming back to…

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    1. Something to keep me busy as the nights get longer!
      You’re right about Blücher! Knew he was a Prussian hussar but didn’t realise it was because he turned coat!
      Chris

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  3. Well that’ll keep you quiet for an hour or two! Lol. Assuming you use spray cans for undercoating you’d best get em undercoated before the crappy weather arrives…oh wait.

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    1. The previous two days were lovely. Which just goes to show you should always have some toys ready to undercoat!
      Chris

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  4. I think a lot of the Dutch also wore grey from memory.
    Neil

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    1. Aye. This will take a bit of reading because the information in the books I’ve got is not comprehensive. For Orange etc uses contemporary paintings and other primary sources so it’s a bit patchy. Generally, grey was used early in the century and by the 60s/70s it was all blue, but the 40s might be transitional.
      Chris

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    2. Here you go, at bottom is link to rest of SYWA journals:
      https://stefanov.no-ip.org/MagWeb/7ywaj/83/7ytoc83.htm
      Neil

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    3. Thanks Neil. That’s a goldmine!
      Chris

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  5. Sounds fun, I like all the teeny tiny states of the Reichsarmee and the confederation of the Rhine and of course you have to have the right flags!
    Best Iain caveadsum1471

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    1. The right flags are proving a challenge, especially for the cavalry!

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  6. Fine work there Chris, but I'd be utterly lazy and go down the 'counts as' route, much to my eternal shame;)!

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    1. That just shows that you’re sane Steve. At least compared to me
      Chris

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  7. 30 more units? This has a splendid whiff of megalomania.. The first painted units look good. That website of WAS maps is very interesting!

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    1. Yep. But in my defence, I’m only megalomaniacal in a very, very, very small world.
      That RCT site is a gold mine. Because not only does it give you the information, but you also see how contemporaries presented it. We can see what an order of battle looked like in the 18th C.
      Chris

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