17th-18th century field fortification

[robartes]

I'm planning on doing a game on the battle of Holowczyn in my gaming group soonish. One of the main features of that battle, apart from the insane opposed river crossing into a marsh by the Swedish, were the fortifications thrown up by the Russian infantry. So I decided I needed some of those and started building.

Fortifications in the early 18th Century (Holowczyn was fought in 1708) - and much of the 'Black Powder' era at that - probably consisted of gabions, lenghts of plashing and whatever woody bits were at hand. Well, that or what I happened to have at hand, which was:



The gabions are from TAG, the plashing is (I think) from Hovels and the random woody bits are just that, cut to size with a jewellers' saw. Everything is hot glued to appropriately sized stands (multiples of 60mm, the base size for my Great Northern War units). The reddish paste around the bottom of the stands is kids' modelling clay (don't tell them   ).

After that last had dried, I slathered on some white glue and dunked the lot in a tub of shell sand (the stuff you normally put on the bottom of birds' cages - it smells of anise so it's a bit like pastis in sand form):



Next step, after that has dried, is building a latex mold of the lot so I can make many plaster copies. I need to cover the frontage of 6 or so units, so I need at least three times what's shown here so far.

[General Roos]

Very nice.  I´m gaming the same era. The gambions looks very nice. But I would have added vertical branches in the lower part of the gambions. The russians built them that way to interlace the separate parts of the defense earthworksduring the Great Northern War. Looking forward to see more pics soon. 




 

[robartes]

Very nice.   I´m gaming the same era. The gambions looks very nice. But I would have added vertical branches in the lower part of the gambions. The russians built them that way to interlace the separate parts of the defense earthworksduring the Great Northern War. Looking forward to see more pics soon.  

You mean that they actually wove the various gabions together? I did not know that - it does make sense though: that would make the entire fortification that much stronger.

I'm under a bit of time pressure here (the game is in just over two weeks) so it won't be for these ones, but I'll keep this in mind for the next lot. Thanks!

Oh, and if you're into the Great Northern War, have a look at our Poltava game in this blog post.

[General Roos]

You mean that they actually wove the various gabions together? I did not know that - it does make sense though: that would make the entire fortification that much stronger.
this blog post.

Yes. As described by diary keeping Swedes in the Västerbotten Regiment during the russian campaign 1707-09. And since the battle of Holowczyn took place during this time, it is possible that this was the standard procedure in the russian army.

Oh, and if you're into the Great Northern War, have a look at our Poltava game in this blog post.

I sure will. Check out this link:

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=19100.0

[robartes]

And the first coat of latex is on:


Update: There used to be a gory image of the latex here, but I've removed it. For the reason: see below

After that has dried to touch, another few coats will need to go on. Pfew ... I always forget that this stuff stinks to high heaven when not dry ...

[Christian]

Now that's something I've never seen before. I'll be following this with keen interest.

[Silent Invader]

Interesting project and thanks for sharing the latex casting technique, though my personal opinion is that it is wrong to recast the TAG and Hovels items if that is what you are doing.

[YPU]

Interesting project and thanks for sharing the latex casting technique, though my personal opinion is that it is wrong to recast the TAG and Hovels items if that is what you are doing.

I have had that discussion before and apparently one is allowed to re cast models for personal use. In my case I was warning somebody that making a youtube video of re casting a GW model might not be a good idea, but a lot of people kept insisting it was legal.

I will be following this with interest. I have a few litres of latex around as well so if one can indeed make a good cast from it I am rather interested.

The stuff does smell doesn't it? Its because of the ammonia which is used to keep the latex liquid. The ammonia vaporizes during the drying process, spreading a lovely smell.

[robartes]

I have had that discussion before and apparently one is allowed to re cast models for personal use. In my case I was warning somebody that making a youtube video of re casting a GW model might not be a good idea, but a lot of people kept insisting it was legal.

Hmm... I had not thought of the recasting angle. The reason I'm making plaster copies of these fortifications is to build a decent length of them with the limited number of gabions I had available. They are meant for personal use only so it did not even occur to me that could be a problem. Running the risk of having this thread hijacked - is there someone around with experience in this sort of thing?

[YPU]

Yes, please DO NOT take my word for it, as the whole "legal for personal use" thing was being thrown at my by youtube commenters, who are not a source to be trusted.

[Aaron]

It varies from country to country I believe, but I know here in the states the whole "personal use" thing is not valid. You see it thrown about a lot from recasters though. One person I know in the inductry basically told me that it is illegal, but hard to detect and pointless to even try to stop unless the recaster is trying to sell them.

[robartes]

OK - even a hint of illegality is too much, so I'm going to call discretion the better part of valour here and not make copies of these fortifications.

I'll have a rummage through my bits box tonight and see what I can come up with to make extra fortifications instead of copies of questionable legality (not to speak of questionable morality).

Sorry for those of you waiting to see how plaster casts of something like this would work. I have made latex and plaster casts of (scratch built ) comparable items before and they work reasonably well, but I have no photos of those :/

[robartes]

So I went and rummaged a bit ... and found a final pack of five gabions . As for the rest, the bits box came up with this:



In the foreground are the three earlier pieces, having suffered somewhat from the demolding (they've lost some of the shell sand). In the background are the extra pieces I came up with. The idea is that the further along the fortifications, the more hurried they become. So first there's gabions, then wood logs and branches stacked between stakes, then just logs stacked. The Russian army at Holowczyn was of course much more prepared and dug in than that, but sometimes historical reality has to bow to the rigors of time and bits availability .

I tried General Roos' idea of linking the gabions together but couldn't get it to work satisfactory. I think it would work if one built the gabions from scratch (six cocktail sticks, lots of wire) and wove them together during construction, much as would have been done in reality.

[Silent Invader]

I'm going to call discretion the better part of valour here and not make copies of these fortifications.

I applaud your integrity. 

The last image isn't working for me, just blank at the mo.  I have some SYW fortifications to make and am following your project with interest. 

[Captain Blood]

Not sure I agree with Silent Invader on this one...

I'll have a rummage through my bits box tonight and see what I can come up with to make extra fortifications instead of copies of questionable legality (not to speak of questionable morality).

Fair enough, and I can see the point that it's strictly speaking a bit dubious. But honestly, I'm afraid it wouldn't bother me. It's not like you are making copies of a distinctive figure and then trying to sell them. Gabions are pretty generic. You've bought a fair few, and put them together with other materials to make some pieces of scenery. You're then going to make some copies of those pieces of scenery to save you having to make more from scratch. You're not copying the component. You've used the component to make something original - which presumably is what these components are intended for - and you're then going to copy the original thing you've made. Technically I'm not sure if that's illegal or not - I'm pretty sure you could argue it either way. But morally wrong? Harsh. I'm not sure anyone would really have grounds for serious complaint on that basis...
However, advertising the fact here is perhaps not quite such a good idea...