"Firing into the Brown" #10 - mitre porn, Eugene, "old school", and stuff..

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update...

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First off, more tricorn porn - or a specific sub-genre of it..  mitre porn (and if that doesn't get me a few search-bot clicks I don't know what will! 😀)

Way back in 2007 I was browsing Will McNally's (excellent) AWI blog and I happened to notice he had a link to a forum called the "The Gentleman's Wargames Parlour [clicky]". 

The Parlour is divided up into sub-groups based on period so I beetled over to the AWI section and therein I saw these:

Painted as the Prussian Regiment von Donop, they were, and hopefully still are, absolutely bloody mouthwatering.... the guy who painted them had even gone to the trouble of building up the cartridge boxes with green-stuff to make them bigger, as the ones moulded were too small (!)

There are extra pictures at the forum, (which I recommend) in the AWI section under the "Hessian Grenadiers" strand... top marks to the painter (a gentlemen with the handle "Maxim"). The figures by the way are 28mm Perry's, but as I happened to have some Minifigs Grenadiers waiting a touch up of paint it was almost like serendipity.... !

..very typically Minifigs 25mm's... but to me they have a very special charm, I especially like their faces, and I like the overall proportion of the figures.... quite difficult to paint with the style of painting I like to use (lots of washes and dry brushing) but they are just made for the wargaming table, whereas the Perry's are gorgeous but made for the display cabinet...

As is my wont, I also had a good look round to see if there was any information on the regiment and came across a superb web site run by a re-enactment group in the US [clicky - NB. Facebook link]. 

Lots and lots information here on the various "Hessian" regiments (which actually came from several states - but over time have become grouped under the title Hessian). 

It's unlikely that the entire regiment would have worn the brass mitre - my reading would indicate probably only one in four - but hey, it's my wargame table, I know that they are slightly unrealistic, but I don't care.... 

In summary, the regimental history was as follows:

• regiment was raised in 1687 at the beginning of the War of the Grand Alliance (1688-1697) as the “Prinz Carl von Hessen Regiment of Foot” with subsidies of the Republic of Venice to fight against the Turks. It initially consisted of 10 companies in two battalions.. 
• The regiment went on to serve during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714 - one of the Battalions was at the Schellenberg and Blenheim so there's a project cross over), the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748) and were among the 7,000 Hessian's sent to England and Scotland in 1746 in the wake the Highland uprising of 1745 (I didn't know that we had hired Hessian's for the '45, by the way..!)
• During the Seven Year's War (1756-1763), the regiment served in the Allied Army of Observation in Western Germany.
• When the American War of Independence broke out in 1775, the regiment was part of the 12,000 Hessian troops hired by treaty to England. The Regiment arrived off Staten Island on August 12th, 1776 - it:
• was present at the Battle of Long Island, sending out patrols that captured 80 Americans.
• was present at the storming of Fort Washington, providing 50 men for part the "Forlorn Hope" that preceded the main assault.
• was on the expedition to Philadelphia, participating in the Battles of the Brandywine and Germantown.
• the Grenadiers were present as part of the Grenadier Battalion Lengerke at the failed storming of Ft. Mercer.
• the regiment was part of General Knyphausen's division that was present but did not see action at the battle of Monmouth.
• was part of General Knyphausen's expedition to New Jersey, and formed the rearguard along with the British 22nd regiment.
• saw action near Elizabeth, NJ (in which the regimental commander, Colonel von Gose, had his cane knocked from his hand by a 3 pound cannon-ball!)
• For the next two years they were in garrison until the regiment sailed for Europe in November 1783.

This is the regimental flag.. (from the excellent Warflag site). German regiments carried two standards, but I'm using just the first one.. the Warflag flag is excellent but the graphics are little blocky, I would really really like to give these guys a better flag - anyone got any sources for either standard?

More stuff:

• https://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=Prinz_Ysenburg_Infantry
  

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Old School musings..  prompted by a comment on one of the blogs about the commonality of 30 quid wargame rules... 😨

Featherstone/Young/Grant or nothing.... a number of wargamers came to the hobby via the seminal works of these august gentlemen - I count myself among them - but that doesn't necessarily make them old school... they could be, but it's not a foregone conclusion, because the key lesson one learns from these classics is a mode of thinking not a mode of doing. If the only thing you get from the books is that the rules and ideas outlined in them are the only way to do it, a given, then the crux has been missed - because the original giants who helped shaped our hobby were all about guiding their reader to their own path, be it scale/period/choice of terrain/choice of paint/choice of rules etc. not telling us that theirs was the only way.. enough rambling ...  Old School wargamers are original thinkers.... I still write my own rules to his day, and I can't even imagine spending 30 quid on a set of rules..  LOL!

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Bit excited about this one - the release date is late next month, and it's published by Pen and Sword.

Falkner is one of my 'go to' authors for this period - he has a very pleasing and easy reading style and his books on Blenheim and Ramilles were brilliant.  

You get a fiver off if you order in advance direct from Pen and Sword (which more than covers the postage) - more details here [clicky], and suffice to say my copy is on order..!

He and Marlborough were a dream team, and from my reading trusted each other implicitly on campaign and on the battlefield - looking forward to finding out more about the man and the general.. 

I still have an itch to scratch in this period with regards to the campaigns against the Turks so I am looking forward to reading more on that as well..

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Laters, as the young people are want to say...