Friday 16 January 2015

The Big Brothers I

Every year I set myself a (generally overly) large project. As regular followers of my scribblings will know, this year sees a French Heavy Cavalry Division of two Cuirassier Brigades. Of course, the sensible start would have been the Perry plastic box set, but I do have a soft spot for their metals.

First up is six figures representing the first squadron of 2nd Cuirassiers c.1812.


2e Regiment de Cuirassiers
Created in 1635 from an Ordnance company of Cardinal Richelieu and named Cardinal-Duc, in 1643 they were renamed the Royale-Cavalerie and in 1791 the 2eme Regiment de Cavalerie. Their name changed once again in 1802 when the Regiment became the 2eme Regiment de Cavalerie-Cuirassiers and finally in 1803 they were renamed the 2eme Regiment de Cuirassiers.

In 1812 their colours carried battle honours for Austerlitz, Jéna, Eylau, Friedland, Eckmühl, and Wagram, and for the invasion of Russia they served under GdB Bessières as part of Saint. Germain's 1st Heavy Cavalry Division.



Sergeant-Major Thirion described the cuirassiers participating in the Invasion of Russia, ‘Never had more beautiful cavalry been seen! Never had the regiments [of cuirassiers] reached such high effectives’. In 1812, the mounts of the Cuirassiers and Carabiniers were set at between 155 and 160cms to the withers. Although originally mounted solely on black horses, many of the mounts purchased in Germany were Bay. So my cuirassiers ride a spread of black, bay, and copper bays with cornets on their traditional grey mounts.


The moustached French cuirassiers of the Napoleonic wars wore dark blue coat, faced in regimental colours, had a flaming grenade on their coat tails and saddlecloth, wore red epaulettes, and had a red plume attached to their headwear. The cuirassiers wore heavy cloth surculottes over their white breeches for field service. The over-breeches were buttoned down the sides and tucked into boots. These were made of wool or linen and were off-white, brown, brown-grey, light grey or dark grey. The tall black boots were considered necessary to protect the legs when the files of cavalry were pressed together. Before a campaign every cuirassier also received a white sheepskin to the regulation shabraque.


The Cuirassier helmet was made of steel with brass comb, a black horse mane (for trumpeters a red or, in this case, white mane), a black cow-hide turban, black visor edged with brass, a tall red plume on the left side, and brass chin scales, but the plume was often left off whilst on campaign.. The cuirass had front and back plates made of steel. It had leather straps with brass scales, and the red lining was edged with white in all regiments.

20 comments:

  1. nice work! a very nice project I will be following with a lot of interest! I myself started working on a cuirassier division (1815) - using metal Perry miniatures also.

    see http://nsa33.casimages.com/img/2015/01/16/150116122009989176.png for the first two squadrons of the 1st regiment.

    A couple of questions for you: what frontage do you use? what did you use to replace the flag pole provided by the Perrys? did you also have a lot of work to 'fix' the horses before painting?

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    1. Mine are on 45 x 50 wooden bases to match the rest of collection, but I'd probably go for 50 x 50 if I were to start from scratch. I drilled out the eagle and glued it to some brass rod as I'm not a fan of soft metal poles, spears etc - they are too fragile. The horses didn't require too much work, i.e. not many mold lines, but I had to look very carefully for the odd thin stick of metal that is common with Perry sculpted minis, including their Lord of the Rings stuff. I love your work, by the way :-)

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  2. I also use 25mm frontage, but use deeper bases. Most horses came with very 'twisted' legs. I'll follow your advice for the flag pole - just have to find some brass rod!

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    1. What a pain! I also had the odd twisted one, now you mention it, but nothing too serious. I used a cut down brass pike, the other half has gone to equip a lancer :-)

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  3. Great work Steve.
    I squeezed mine onto 40mm frontages, it was quite difficult but I do like the knee-to-knee look for heavy cavalry.

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  4. Wow, a great post with beautiful cuirassiers!

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  5. Cuirassiers are looking very nice Stephen!

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  6. Whatttya have to show me these for?

    I've got a box of plastics and some metals to put together and paint up myself- you may just have gone and done it!! :>)

    Darrell.

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    1. You'll knock these out in half the time at twice the quality though :-)

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  7. They are wonderful, Stephen. Metals do have that heft that plastics lack. That said, I went the plastic route for the cost.

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    1. Perry plastics are top notch, and you can always mount them on steel bases to help give them some umph!

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  8. Smashing!!!

    I don't quite understand how you find the time. Bravo!

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