Age Of Eagles (AoE) - 1810 Battle of Bussaco in 20mm (part 3) - The French: Soult's Cavalry Brigade

Held in reserve, the cavalry brigade of General Soult didn't see action on the 27th of September but it can in a What-if scenario.

This post concludes Reynier 2e Armée. Massena's  Artillery will be single  post with all three corps artillery.

The 8e Dragons figures are Esci Cuirassiers with trimmed breastplates.

The 1e Hussards is a group of Italeri figures with no changes from the original.

Not what happens with the next two units. The 22e Chasseurs a Cheval was born in horses and torsos of the Revell British Life Guards but with shakoes from the Esci French and a proper paint job they turn nationality very easily. One aspect that helps this kind of conversions is the few recesses that most of the Revell figures have.

Its an easy and efective conversion. Nowadays you can go for the Hat box and avoid this trouble.

Same conversions for the Chasseurs Hannoveriennes.

Next: The Buildings of Bussaco

Age Of Eagles (AoE) - 1810 Battle of Bussaco in 20mm (part 2) - The French: Heudelet´s Division

In part 2 you can see Heudelet's Division (Foy's Brigade to the left and Arnoud's to the right) marching through Santo António do Cântaro to attack the Pass Road. Once again this division is a mixture of brands and conversions.

Here General Foy leads its 17th Leger up hill after having its ears heated up by Reynier only to be wounded a few minutes later. The figures are mostly Italeri 1st box of French with Foy being made from at least four different figures.

I also built and painted a large number of Voltigeurs. AoE is a brigade level game and no Voltigeurs are used but like this I can use them in other sets of rules. The ones showned here (L-R) are Zvezda with Airfix head, Hat, Zvezda and Hat again.



The 70e de Ligne is an all Hat unit from their lovely 100 figures box. As usual, with my childhood fears of having to divide parcels in the local toys shops with other costumers due to the small number of toys available, I amassed a large number of these Hat boxes. And this time I don't regret it as Hat apparently had plans to put an end to its production and replace them by a number of different boxes. L'argent oblige ...

Now to Arnould's Brigade. The 47e de Ligne is another lovely Hat unit.

The 31e Léger is a mix of Esci, Zvezda but mainly Airfix and Esci Grenadier bodies with Esci and Zvezda shakoes. The officer is from Italeri 2nd set of French Infantry.

To the left you can see the true General Heudelet. The figure is the old Airfix AWI officer with a new head from Strelets R and sash and epaulettes made out from GreenStuff. The ADC is Italeri. To the right you have agin General Merle that by mistake shows up in the big picture of Heudelet's Division. Well, at least is a new picture were you can see the extra details in GreenStuff placed in both figures. This mistake only proves the amateurish side of this fantastic blog of yours that, yes I know, looks very professional but in fact becomes very crappy once in a while... 

Finally General Reynier itself and ADC with added plumes in  GreenStuff. For the Brigade commanders AoE recommends one horse figure; for Division, one horse and one foot figure and for Corps, two horse figures.

Next: Soult's Cavalry Brigade

Age Of Eagles (AoE) - 1810 Battle of Bussaco in 20mm (part 1)- The French: Merle's Division

The battle of Bussaco (in fact it should be written Buçaco, but to make foreign spelling easier the name has been changed) was the biggest battle ever fought in Portuguese soil with over 110.000 men in action. It happened on the 27th September 1810, during the third invasion of Portugal, when Massena's Armée du Portugal, 64.000 men strong, attacked the Anglo-Portuguese  army of 52.000 men on top of a very steep mountain 14km long called Serra do Bussaco, 20km from my town, Coimbra. The attacked was made by Reynier's 2nd Corps, from the village of Santo António do Cântaro, and Ney's 6th Corps, from the village of Sula. The former should sweep the enemy from the top of the ridge and meet with the latter close to the Monastery.

Things went awfully wrong for the brave French and after over 4000 casualties and the biggest casualty rate in officers of all battles of the Napoleonic wars, the French withdraw to the valley leaving the victorious enemy on its original defensive positions for an extra day.

This will be another long series, with around 20 posts as I have all figures already made to represent the entire campaign. It will also be quick, maybe one post each two days, so hurry up writing comments (good ones) before you are out of fashion!

I used Age of Eagles rules for this campaign but instead of one stand for each 360/180 infantrymen/cavalrymen I used one stand representing 200/100 infantrymen/cavalrymen. I used also three rows of two men each per stand to simulate the French battle line.

The division showned here is Merle's 1st Division of Reynier's 2nd Corps leaving the village of Pendurada in order to join the Santo António do Cântaro attack. It had two Brigades, Sarrut's (Left on the Picture) and Graindorge's brigade (Right).

With two men on horse you have a Corps Command stand in this case the obvious General Reynier and its ADC. The other stand with one figure on foot is the Divisional command stand, General Merle. All figures comes from the Italeri French Command and Staff box, only Merle is the officer figure of Revell's Grenadiers.

The two Brigade commanders are (L) an Irregular Miniatures figure and (R) a conversion based on an Italeri torso from Esci's Scots Grey, horse and legs from Italeri and head from Strelets R.

The 2e Léger follows Sarrut. The figures are mostly conversions with some Esci and Zvezda in the flank companies.

                                   

The 2e Léger conversions are based on the bodies of Esci Grenadiers with Esci line heads.

The 36e de Ligne is an all Hat regiment with figures from its 100 figures box unfortunately out of production.

Graindorge's Brigade only had one Regiment, the 4e Léger, but very big, four battalions strong.

The Voltigeurs stands are a mix of Hat Voltigeurs and Zvezda figures with Airfix Hussar heads.

Next: Heudelet's Division 

Rapid Fire! Poland 1939 in 20mm - The first Polish infantry battalion

This RF! infantry battalion is based on the two boxes available from the Hat brand, the infantry and the artillery box, the latter providing mortar crew, telephone operator and officers. Hopefully this will be part one of a total of nine parts, as nine were the battalions in a 1939 Polish Infantry division. These battalions were particularly large, 1000 men strong, which makes companies of 14 figures.

 

The uniform was painted with Vallejo Khaki Grey. I followed mostly the colours of the Polish reconstitution groups as they look pretty accurate.

 

 The "salamander" colour for the helmet is a mix of GW green with a little silver and the canvas stowage was painted Vallejo Dark Yellow. 

 

No 81mm mortars exist in the big 96 figures box of Hat Polish infantry. That can be explained as they were relatively rare (only 20 in a entire infantry division) but Hat provides four of the cute 46mm mortar per box. I built a few 81mm mortars in Evergreen plastic card and used the figures of the artillery box as crew. They are enough for the entire division I hope to build.

 

 Here they are painted and ready to defend mother land. 

 

 The sniper was leaned against a big bush for obvious reasons. They were rare and maybe two or three will be enough for the entire division. All other will have their telescopes cut and will serve in the normal infantry companies.

The bycicle platoon have bycicles from the Airfix command post set. 

 The command group have a mix of both Hat Polish boxes. 

Next: more Polish armour and airplanes.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - French Heavy Artillery Battalion for the DLM

One more unit done with the latest builds. The only new things are one of the guns and the command stand. This post can be interesting as the new gun is made from scratch and copies one from StreletsR models I've shown you recently. I tried to order more from Hannants but the Schneider 105mm gun sold out quickly and waiting is not my favourite business.

Here is the copied gun with Hat wheels as the StreletsR that served as matrix. The Somua MCG 5 are Lancer resin models and they were also used to tow the Schneider 105mm 1913 as well as the Unic P107 that masters Colin and Richard indicates (time to bow... 1,2,3 times, done).

The command group is a mix of Hat and StreletsR figures.

Now lets see the new gun. I copied all sizes from the StreletsR model to the left. The material used was Plastic card and thick hard foam.

The gun shield was bent in hot water for its particulat shape.

What really unifies the two guns are the same wheels taken from the Hat WW2 French Artillery set. Of course not all guns can be reproduced as easily as this one but I hope this one can incentivate some of you to try the same approach.

Next: Poland 1939 again.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - The last Lafflys S20 of the DLM (part 2)

The RDP of a DLM meets at Point Trianglaire not far from all other places I keep on mentioning, in fact, always the same yard!

As I told you in the last post these are the last 14 Lafflys for a full Regiment de Dragons Portés (RDP). Everything is Minigeneral or based on the Minigeneral Laffly S20 TL. I used the Green/Sand camouflage on one of the battalions as it was the oldest type. The Green/Brown camouflage was used already after 1939 and the vehicles produced during the war apparently left the factory in these colours.

This Laffly was converted into the PC version. I added an MT trailer to give both radio and telephone capabilities to the unit to which is attached. This trailer was converted from the Hasegawa GMC trailer.

Another PC conversion with older colours.

Rear view of the same vehicle.  

The converted AT 25mm Hotchkiss portees had some foliage on the gun's shield as it can be seen in wartime pictures. In my case it was also a way to desguise the wrong shape of the shield I scratch built.

The figures are Hat from the French artillery box. As these figures are Dragons Portés don't forget to add a blue collar outlined white.

The standard version of the Laffly S20 had a FM29 LMG added and a converted firer with torso from Hat and legs from Esci Italian Alpini as the ones I showed you a few posts ago.

Lastly I converted a Lancer Resin Somua MCG 4 as a Recovery vehicle. As this one is expected to tow damaged vehicles it has the blue/yellow triangle so typical of French towing vehicles.

The crane was scratch built in plastic and drilled into the resin. The towing cable is metal from an old neckless my mother gave to me to this purpose convinced that its not silver or gold. I hope it wasn't.

Next: probably a big assault on 1939 Polish forces, but still not sure or some 1940 French artillery.

Rapid Fire! France 1940 in 20mm - The last Lafflys S20 of the DLM (part 1)

According to Masters Richard and Colin we need 18 Laffly S20 of different types for the three battalions Dragons Portés in a DLM. Four are already built and painted, three from SHQ and another from MiniGeneral.

This post is about the last 14 of them, all MiniGeneral, and two new models made out from their basic and very nice Laffly S20TL.

I wanted something different for the HQ company. The Blitzkrieg supplement mentions a standard S20 TL for it due to the need of transport, I think, of the 60mm mortar. But a few dozens of the Laffly S20TL PC were built for radio and command of the DLM's. They are a good alternative as they are quite distinctive, good looking and give some radio capability to our French miniatures. I don't know anyone who produces the PC version so I decided to convert a few of them. I also think that anyone who has the EWM, SHQ or MadBob standard versions can also use the next photos as a guide for their own conversions.

The PC version started with a careful measurement of the new roof made in wood which has to be carefully bevelled to this aproximate shape.

Using the front widscreen as a guide the back support of the roof is made out from plastic card.

Then comes the trickiest part. You need new sides for the truck. I built two in plastic card, one right and another left side, and used them as matrix for the other trucks. A long strip of plastic card for the windows are previously glued to the inside and you are almost done with the main body.

An extra Wheel is glued to the back. Around this point I noticed I bevelled the rear part of the roof and two component paste was used to remedy the situation.

Lastly the antenna set. Some lines are carved into small pieces of EverGreen tubing to look like the copper bases of French vehicle radios. These pieces sat into blobs of GreenStuff and a T part is made of thinner tubing. The more striking part is the triple the antenna parts which are made of bended broom bristles. I looked for my old surplus Matchbox Sdkfz 231 antennae  and I couldn't find them. If you have  them in stock use them as they are a good alternative after a few cuts. 

To complete the PC version I glued some sliced tubing to represent handlers and exterior radio parts.

Two other conversions are the 25mm portee version. First you need rebuild to shape a new windshield with a space for the gun to pop out. Then you have to break the middle divisor in the troop compartment for the gun to seat. Then comes a full scratch built Hotchkiss 25mm AT gun as the ones I have in stock simply don't fit. Mine were made from Plastic card and the gun tube from extra 20mm Minairons PzI's. The wheels are MiniGeneral 3d prints. There also some ammo boxes under and to the sides of the gun.

You also need a tow and some ramps. Frankly I already had a nice SHQ model of the Laffly 25mm portee and I copied most of the parts.

Next: this lot already painted and with a few additions.