Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Age of the Big Battalions => Topic started by: Red Sveta on June 19, 2016, 06:09:11 PM
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I have some Front Rank French for the WSS but I think I would like to try the Great Northern War instead. Is it possible to pass the French uniform off as Russian with a good paint job? ;)
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It is yes, main difference with Russians is the pockets had a bit of a zig zga cut (sorry cant think of the right word) although standard WSS might be better as I think French have a hat cockade and Russians don't. Ideally you would add a small number of pike to each unit but soke might argue you don't need to do that either.
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Try below, look just like other European armies except pocket and no hat cockade. This was Peter trying to bring the Russian army in line with the rest of Europe.
(http://i574.photobucket.com/albums/ss181/rogercas/russian%20foot_zps6g9llc6i.jpg) (http://s574.photobucket.com/user/rogercas/media/russian%20foot_zps6g9llc6i.jpg.html)
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Scalloped pocket!! New it would come to me.
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There are noticeable differences if you care about historical accuracy.
Besides the hat cockade and scalloped pockets (the shape of the pockets actually varied from one French regiment to the next, not all of them being horizontal), accoutrements also differed. The Russians had their ammunition pouch attached to a shoulder belt and wore it on the right hip. The French used a belly box on a waistbelt which also supported the sword and bayonet scabbards - see plate below :
(http://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/59/f9/fb/59f9fbee33812c5845f397ee3bda2dc9.jpg)
You'd also need to file off the shoulder wings on the drummers as such ornaments were not used in the French army.
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I think I will go ahead with painting them as Russian as they are. It will save me some money.
I want to game the period after Poltava in the Baltic and invasion of Finland but information in English is not easy to find but my idea was there may be more smaller actions during this period to re create on the table. As far as i can tell Pikes fell out of use a bit during this time
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First a couple of links to Finnish battles which might help - http://www.wfgamers.org.uk/resources/C18/palkane.htm (http://www.wfgamers.org.uk/resources/C18/palkane.htm) and http://www.wfgamers.org.uk/resources/C18/storkyro.htm (http://www.wfgamers.org.uk/resources/C18/storkyro.htm)
On Russian pikes after 1709 it is a little more complicated. certainly most of the time they were supposed to have them (1 pike for 7 muskets) but there is evidence that they didn't always have them. There is a little on this in the first page above. In short we know that some units had them or didn't have them during the post Poltava campaigns but usually not whether they had them in the Baltic/Finland campaigns. I now, contrary to the webpage, suspect that they did when they were expecting a battle but for much of this time the Russians are just doing sieges and so might not then.
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http://www.armourbook.com/uniform/34485-the-great-northern-war-1700-1721-2swedish-allies.html
It is book help YOU!! ;)
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Thank you for the links and info. Small actions of the GNW is what I would like to collect for does any one have any experience of finding these types of scenarios. I have 10mm WSS for the really grand battles and want to try something smaller for 28mm.
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Do you have any idea of the kind of the numbers of battalions or figures you want to use? Also are you 100% committed to Russians?
I ask the second because there were other armies involved in the war and the Saxons, for example, fought the Swedes about as much as the Russians. This is important as all of the armies involved in the war, except the Russians, are fairly small compared to the usual WSS battles. So it might be that doing these actions would be better if you wan to keep the battles small. Also the Saxons and others are often identical to 'Western' armies and indeed often also fought in the WSS.
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A good point about the Saxons being more usable, this is why I am collecting them, pictures on my blog
http://gapagnw.blogspot.co.uk/
All that said if its small scale skirmish type actions, raids and foraging expeditions then it doesn't really matter which army you are going for they all sent out these small parties to live off the land. There is an interesting section in the Great Northern War compendium about this. Great book but not cheap.
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The current view seems to be that Viskovatov's illustrations are later than most of the GNW, so the serrated pocket edges and neck ties which often appear are incorrect. This article has a good summation of the differences (I only found it after I had done my GNW Russians, though I had discovered most of the info through scouring the net)
http://peter.petrobrigada.ru/unif/project3342/page23296.html
Kmhorg, I know you mean well, but I think you might have to remove that link :(
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Kmhorg, I know you mean well, but I think you might have to remove that link :(
Failing that, mods should remove it as there's a virus on that page.
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I am not commited to doing Russians I have also looked at Danes and Norwegians. Saxons? I had not given much thought too but I will have a look again at them. I was wanting to play mid size battles sort of 6-10 units per side I will be using Beneath the Lilliy Banners rules because I really like them. Having said that skirmish games too with Sharp practice and modified triumph and Tragedy.
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If its small actions you want Saxons are a good choice as mentioned above. They are simple, in the same uniform pretty much everyone else was wearing at the time, they are all in red coats faced in various colours. Flags are available from a number of sources, they fought alongside the Russians, Danes and Prussians at various times against the Swedes and fought in the WSS for the Anglo Dutch at the same time. Its the army I am collecting to fight against my Swedes.
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I think that on balance I would agree with Rogerc. Unfortunately I think that most battles that are easy to find information on are either larger than the 6 to 10 units you want. There are some in all areas but information can be very difficult to find.
Historically the Russian armies are big and usually they need to outnumber the Swedes by quite a bit. I am afraid I am not a fan of Beneath the Lily Banner but even with these rules I believe that you would need to have more of these to make a game of it.
Both the Danes and Saxons have smaller armies, although usually outnumbering the Swedes again. But not by much and the armies are smaller. While 6 to 10 units would be a relative small part of a Russian army it would be a substantial part of a Danish/Saxon army. The full Danish/Saxon army would be something like 25 to 30 units as a rough guide. So while I think you might struggle to find historical battles with 6 to 10 units in total it will be easier to find battles were 6 to 10 units are the right wing (or some other section) of a full battle. Similarly scaling down battles will be easier.
I think the Saxons would edge things because of the reasons Rogerc suggest (by the way his missed off the prospect of Polish allies for the Saxons - there are some lovely examples of Poles on his blog). I would add they were also the main opponent for the Swedes up to 1706 and were active in most of the war. The Danish participation was more sporadic and also mainly at a time when the Swedes were very much on their last legs. But they too would I think suit your purposes if you fancy doing them.
On the skirmishing idea then I would guess any of the armies would be fine with whatever 'main' army you went with.