Little Bighorn 1876 in 20mm (part 8) - More dismounted troopers (companies D,E,F and G)

 

Four more companies of dismounted troopers of the US 7th Cavalry. Again they are a mixture of re-scaled Airfix; Revell and some new Esci conversions. 

The Esci figure (left) is the standing Confederate with kepi. The usual treatment followed: trimmed trousers for it to look like boots; new pinned head and shortened rifle in order to look like Springfield carbines. A mixture of shirts, shell jackets and sack coats can be seen. 

Several of the figures had the ugly blue shirt with a plastron which made them look like Country music singers. The whole group is without gloves which is more appropriate for dismounted fight. 

The fanion holder is the cowboy firing the pistol with the left hand pressing frenetically the hammer spur. The left arm was changed in order to hold the fanion. 

Next: The Little Bighorn river

Little Bighorn 1876 in 20mm (part 7) - The Indian Teepees

 

There were a bit over 1000 Teepees at the Little Bighorn divided among 11 tribal groups. With these 31 Teepees I reached the 34 mark (with the three plastic ones of part 5) which seems Ok to represent the huge Indian camp, probably, the biggest ever to be seen in that part of America. 

Everything started not on this piece of BlueBoard but on Chinese shops of my city. I remember in the past lots of small and big plastic bags filled with Indians and Cowboys (with a few Teepees inside) in those shops but somehow I couldn´t find any after entering a few of them.  Having quit buying Teepees I resorted to my trusted 4cm thick blueboard. This small board of around 35cmX35cm  was enough to make over 30 of them. 

Each was cut into a triangular shaped piece not exactly the same size and around 7cm height and 5cm at the base. The Teepees are round based structures but these became egg-shaped as the 4cm thick block doesn´t allow for more and I was lazy to use a thicker one. The Indian camps are mostly for decorative effects, excluding actions like the Washita massacre, and a "2d" representation is enough for me (the problem is if the cavalry wins and enters the village... well, highly unlikely). 

Each Teepee was slightly rounded with an X-acto and then sanded. On the tip five plastic broom stick pieces were stuck and then glued with hot glue simulating the long poles that hold the Teepee and cross each other at the top. 

The larger type made is the circular one with five Teepees each. Teepees were always facing the rising sun and the disposition of the bigger and smaller bases had to have this fact into consideration. 

The doors are simply painted black oval holes without the flapped doors. Maybe one day I´ll add them with a piece of Milliput. 

The top of the teepees were blackened as smoke was always coming from the central fire place. 

Next: more LBH or a return to Bir Hakeim. 

Little Bighorn 1876 in 20mm (part 6) - Custer, Benteen, and Reno´s stands and dismounted troopers (companies A,B and C)

This one had to come. General Custer, Captain Benteen and Major Reno are made together with three companies of dismounted troopers. Some dead horses, useful for markers, were added and from now on only numbers are necessary as most of the different types of stands are made. 

Once again the big contributor for this one are the rescaled 1/32nd Airfix figures from the cowboys set together with a few Italeri dismounted cavalrymen and Revell cowboys. 

General Custer´s figure is the Revell Confederate cavalry officer. He got some extra GreenStuff hair and pistol holster, many cuts of the uniform and a side bent hat. 

All officer´s saddles got a shortened rifle for it to look like the Springfield carbines. The flag is the Headquarter´s flag of the 7th cavalry made by Custer´s wife. 

Major Benteen had long hair in 1876 and he is looking a bit like Louis XIV but also close to the real one. On his shoulders there is no hair but the distinctive shoulder straps. The same Italeri figure was used for the more fragile Major Reno with a different painted straw hat and moustache. 

The dismounted figures got many new hats for variety but also to replace hatless heads. The rescaled cowboys become great troopers after trimming the boots and cutting the second pistol and holster. Also you can get some troopers in sack coats by using the Revell firing cowboys. 

The ranks are a bit ragged with some troopers without their Springfield carbines which tended to jam after a few rounds. Like this Reno´s and Benteen´s actions can be portrayed together with Custer´s last stand as all of this had some degree of chaos. 

The dead Airfix and Italeri dead horses got hit by arrows mostly and two drilled holes and a piece of plastic squashed at the top plays the part. 

Next: numbers for LBH or a return to another campaign. 

Little Bighorn 1876 in 20mm (part 5) - Indian Teepees, wagons and horse holders

 

This post had to be done now because it was occupying too much space on the modelling table due to its big bases. I was also eager to see how these markers would look after painting. 

The horse holders have four horses each which has always been a problem for the dismounted cavalry who looses 1/4 of his fire power. At Little Bighorn they were also a prime target for the Indians who knew that the US skirmish line would not only loose their mounts but also half of its Springfield cartridges, as 50 of them were carried by the horse´s saddle pockets. 

The horses are a mixture of Napoleonic Esci and ACW Italeri with the aim of having only horses at rest. The horse holders are 1/32 resized Airfix cowboys that I will also use in the next post about dismounted cavalry. 

Each stand was painted according to the first three company horse colors. 

This is the type of unit that Custer asked Benteen to come to his aid with the final sentence "PS: bring packs" as they had extra ammunition for the regiment. This is a box from Imex with ACW wagons and they suit reasonably the wagon train guarded by the 130 strong 12th company (the pack train with its mules is still missing). 

This is nowadays my biggest problem as I´m around Chinese shops trying to find more Teepees. The Sioux/Cheyenne camp at Little Bighorn was one of the biggest in Indian history and Custer when attacking its center  was deceived by the teees covering its true size as he thought he was attacking its left flank. 

These Teepees were cheap toys bought decades ago and could be found in many Euro and Chinese shops. But, as it happens quite often, now that I want more I can´t find them anywhere. If I find bigger Teepees I plan to cut them at the bottom so they become the size of these ones. I also had Atlantic Teepees but they simply vanished into many pieces while cleaning them. 

Next: 7th US Cavalry skirmish lines

Little Bighorn 1876 in 20mm (part 4) - The first three companies - A,B and C - of the 7th Cavalry (Italeri based)

 

The cavalry arrives in time to save the day! In fact not really as  the 7th cavalry, around 600+, had almost 50% casualties on the 26th june 1876 at Little Bighorn with five of its companies completely destroyed. 

I´ve been trying to portray the Custer´s 7th cavalry for ages but its not an easy task. When looking at PSR for the possibilities you become a bit disheartened as the available brands always shows these troopers with plenty of deficiencies: Strelets, has them accuratly portrayed but ugly modelled; Lucky Toys  even worse; Waterloo 1815 has nice figures but they are gigantic... 

With this panorama I resourced to what I had available in the stash, Atlantic/Nexus, Airfix and Revell/Italeri ACW with a few GIANT cowboys mixed in. For now I only have seven of the twelve companies necessary. Like this I can portray Custer´s Last Stand (five companies) or Benteen´s or Reno´s actions (three companies each) but not the entire regiment's actions for Little Bighorn. 

This first group of three companies is made almost intirely of bodies and horses from Italeri two boxes of ACW cavalry. The main job is to cut swords and scabbards (left at Fort Abraham Lincoln) and placing slouch hats instead of kepis (with little usage in that corner of North America). The 7th Cavalry was a well equipped unit but tended to relax in equipment and uniform as the campaigns progressed, with Custer itself as the main example. So in 25/26 June many troppers left aside their shell jackets and sack coats and were in grey and blue shirt order. For the regiment to look like a cohesive force I´m pretending them to be with shell jackets and/or blue shirts even if the shell jacket had little usage. The grey shirt was quite common but would break the unit´s colors and for that I only changed the color and type of hats, many of civilian origin.  In this picture the officer´s sword was cut off and he is now ordering its troopers forward. The slouch hats in this one are from ACW Italeri, Revell and Esci. 

Again the same but with an WW2 Australian bush hat for the officer and a Giant cowboy one to the cornet. 

Some troopers were also cut from the waist and turned to the front as too many Italeri figures are firing to the left side for easier cast. 

All troopers not firing their Spingfields trap-door carbines had a plastic one glued to the side of the horse. These were cut-down infantry rifles taken from whatever useless figures I could find. A good thing about Italeri is that many of them already had one modelled into the figure. 

Custer had the horses divided by colors among the companies which adds interest to this already famous unit. 

 

Still a bit to do ... 

Next: more Little Bighorn

Little Bighorn 1876 in 20mm (part 3) - The Sioux/Cheyenne foot warriors and some extras

 

The Indian camp close to the Little Bighorn river was so big - one of the biggest in Plains Indian history- that many warriors were most probably far from the horses at the begginning of the battle and thus went after the 7th Cavalry on foot. 

This group is made of Airfix re-scaled copies and Atlantic already painted for decades with some new Revell and Airfix re-scaled copies (white primed). My old style of block painting is not upgraded here to the shade painting I now use due to the old figures presence in big numbers. In fact in the warrior stands (10 stands with 6 figures each) only 19 figures are new with 41 old ones already painted. 

The mix of brands assures that the stands become quite "irregular". The Plains Indians had no formal military group training but hunting the bison (and later the white man) gave them an individual ability in warfare that helped group cohesion. 

Excluding three Atlantic figures all others are Hong Kong re-scaled Airfix copies from the original 1/32. In good time they did it as the original Indians in HO scale from Airfix were showing its age and the re-scaled figures didn´t loose much from the extraordinary 1/32 original figures. 

These smoke- makers Atlantic figures are not working for the communications enterprises of those days as may be thought but instead they are burning the dried grass in order to provoke smoke that will scare the US cavalry horses (that will flee with most of the ammunition ...) and will allow for small groups of Indians to aproach the cavalrymen unnoticed. 

These cheap casualty markers are simple figures with broken weapons or parts of the body. The trick for them to become reasonably dead is to mount them in big blobs of glue from a hot glue gun. This will adapt the body parts to the terrain for extra realism. 

With some blood added they make the part. The grass can be carefully applied disguising broken feet or limbs. 

Finally some horses were added to the collection and these will be markers for disrupted or retreating groups of mounted warriors. 

Next: The mounted 7th US Cavalry. 

Little Bighorn 1876 in 20mm (part 2) - Second batch of Sioux/Cheyenne mounted warriors (and this one is GIANT)

 

This second batch of mounted warriors is the last for now as I´ve run out of figures for this group. Most of the figures and horses are very old GIANT figures. Even if these figures are not up to nowadays standards they can be painted in a colorful way and look nice on the table or on the shelves. Also one Atlantic stand was added and can be seen at the back but that was covered in part 1 of this series. 

In this stand the GIANT horses can be seen with their legs shortened and their bellies filled with hot glue. The figure firing a rifle is Revell. Even if with only 3 poses of the Sioux and Cheyenne and one pose of horse the stands can be quite colorful and diverse with the introduction of a different figure and some sort of individul painting to each model. Another thing that helps diversity is the fact that the Plains Indians horses had many colors. 

The horses both to the left and right are Atlantic from the Greek cavalry. These are ideal models for the Plains Indians as they have no harness or cloth on the back. 

The War Bonnets (AKA Eagle Feather Headdresses) are the trademark of highly respected Indians, not only chiefs, but also warriors that accomplished great deeds. Their usage in combat was obviously rare but even so they look great as miniature models. 

Next: foot Indian warriors

Little Bighorn 1876 in 20mm (part 1) - first batch of Sioux/Cheyenne mounted warriors

This is another project kept inside boxes for decades. Since childhood Errol Flynn and more recently Gary Cole, Rodney Grant  (Rosanna Arquette also, even if with too much clothes on) made me wish to replicate in miniature the events of the war of 1876 and surrounding events. Reading on the Plains Wars is fascinating and simultaneously sad, firstly on its own as it speaks of a culture´s destruction and secondly brings to mind the old idea that some feel entitled to a promised land just because it comes on an book. Funnily enough is also the atempt to portray the Indians as nations of savages that were always fighting with each other and thus the white people were more than entitled to do the same with them and steal their lands. What they forget is that the Europeans were doing the same in a scale never seen before and also dying constantly for independence. Also forgotten many times is that the internal Indian wars (Crow Vs Sioux, for instance) were provoked by the shrinkage of Indian lands by the white man´s expansion to the West and the constant lack of treaty breaking due the finding of gold and simple greadiness. 

For this period you can find an enormous amount of information on the Web as the Americans tend to treasure every button found due to their short story. In order to see beautiful models of this war go to Matakishi's Tea House for instance. 

This group is made of old Atlantic Indians some painted decades ago and others just now taken from the storage boxes. Also some GIANT copies were mixed in. The basing is according to Battles for Empire II set of rules by the great Chris Leach. 

This Giant figure copy is maybe older than me. More on this later for it to become more "HO". 

The Atlantic Sioux are very Hollywoodesque miniatures but in group they are lively and colorful as you tend to forget the wrong details like boots instead of moccasins. 

In this first group I used a group of GIANT figures but they had to go for a number of changes. The first three figures are clearly Mohawk due to the hair style and some extra long hair was lazily placed with the same hot glue that was gluing them to the bases. Not the best solution but passable. 

The second change is on the horse´s size as the one to the right had its legs cut in order to go along the smaller ones of Revell, Airfix and Atlantic. This simple change made me gain a few more dozen Indian horses which are not easily found in quantity in the other plastic brands with Plains Indians. 

The third change is to deal with the hollowness of GIANT horses by filling it with a hot glue gun. 

Next: More Little Big Horn or Bir Hakeim