Fort Ligonier Artillery Collection

 

Fort Ligonier in Pennsylvania

Click or double click on all pictures to enlarge.

On the last day of our trip to visit battlefields in the Eastern United States, Lelia and I stopped in at Fort Ligonier in western Pennsylvania.  Click on the link here for the fort web page: Fort Ligonier Site

The fort is a privately held nonprofit organization. It's website offers this short historical blurb about the history of Fort Ligonier:

As summer waned in 1758, the site of a new fortification was chosen by the British army that overlooked the Loyalhanna Creek. It was the last in a string of fortifications along the newly cut Forbes Road that would ultimately stretch from Philadelphia to the site of French Fort Duquesne, the ultimate objective of the Forbes Campaign. When Fort Duquesne fell to the British army in late November of 1758, construction of a new fort, Fort Pitt, began, and the land on which it rose was named Pittsburgh. Find out more about how Fort Ligonier made Pittsburgh possible as you explore the grounds of the finest reconstructed fortification from the French and Indian War.

The museum has an awesome collection of 18th British artillery equipment and wagons, as well as a rather nice (and surprising) collection of historical artifacts from the Seven Years War in Europe. Here is a sampling of some of the Prussian SYW military artifacts in the museum:

Prussian artifacts from the Seven Years War. The cuirassier sabretache and cuirass are of particular note.  The image also shows an officer's pontoon, a grenadier mitre, musketeer and grenadier leather cartridge boxes, among other items.

Prussian grenadier mitre.

Prussian grenadier cartridge box.

Prussian musketeer cartridge box.

Let us move along to pictures of the collection of British artillery and artillery equipment wagons.

British 6-pound cannon and limber.

A closer view of the British limber.

Did you ever wonder how an artillery wheel stayed on the axle of the gun carriage?
You pull out the pin from the axle and off slides the wheel.

A tampion placed in the mouth of the barrel keeps water and dust
out of the barrel when the gun is on the move with its limber.

A small British Howitzer

Some of the detail on the howitzer barrel.

A wall mounted swivel gun. Every fort should have one of these.

Supporting artillery equipment, from left to right:
2-wheel powder wagon, 2-wheel tumbrel, Conestoga Wagon (blue), f
ield forge wagon, and 4-wheel munitions wagon.

British artillery limbers

From left to right: light 12-pounder, mortar, small Coehorn mortar, some Olde Coote, and  a 6-pounder.

Close up view of the British 6-pounder.

The business end of the British light 12-pounder.

British light 12-pound cannon.

The royal cypher engraved on the barrel of the 12-pounder.

British 8-inch howitzer capable of firing exploding shell and canister or grape shot.

British 4.5-inch Coehorn Mortar

Here are some additional pictures of the fort's defenses:

Moat supporter by fascines, cheveau-de-frise, and other sharp pointy sticks.

Inside the fort. left to right: 8-inch howitzer, 12-pound gun, and 4.5-inch Coehorn Mortar.

Fort Ligonier is DEFINITELY worth stopping to see if you are near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is just off of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, about a 20-minute drive, and is open every day of the week from 10 AM to 5PM.

Exit the turnpike at the Donegal exit and drive north on highway 711 to Ligonier, Pennsylvania.

I like to stop in for a visit every time a pass through this part of the country, usually while driving to Historicon convention in the summer. 

Today Is Minden Day - August 1, 1759 (2019)

The Royal Horse Guards
Minden Miniatures and GMB Designs flag.

Today is the 260th anniversary of the Battle of Minden, fought on August 1, 1759. As readers of this blog will know, this week is leading up to our table top refight of the battle this coming Saturday August 3, 2019. The Minden Miniatures SYW figure range is also named after the battle, courtesy of Frank Hammond, the original owner of the figure range.

Last evening I completed a third squadron of the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues) using twelve Minden Miniatures British Horse figures. 

The Royal Horse Guards Regiment (The Blues)
Minden Miniatures

The four Horse Regiments were considered to be heavy battlefield cavalry. Next in order were the four Dragoon Guards regiments which were formerly Horse Regiments, but were downgraded in name to Dragoon Guards for economic reasons (i.e. they weren't paid as much as their Horse counterparts). Finally, there were the regular Dragoon Regiments, some of which were very good, such as the 2nd Regiment (The Greys ), while other dragoon regiments were only fit for service in the homeland.

For your reference, Minden Miniatures sells a command pack (officer, standard bearer and trumpeter) and a pack of troopers. Both packs have three figures including the horses.

BC-001 Horse Regiment Command pack.

BC-002 Horse Regiment Troopers pack

Someone asked me how the Minden figures compare to the Elite Miniatures British cavalry that I am using in our Minden game this weekend. As shown below, the Elite figures are substantially larger than the Minden figures. My Royal Horse Guards regiment has two squadrons of Elite Miniatures and one squadron of Minden Miniatures. I put the Mindens on a wood base to elevate their height to approximately the same as the Elite figures. I won't mix the two figures into a squadron, but the pictures give you an indication of how the two figure ranges compare.

I'm going Old School on the Royal Horse Guards bases for the Minden figures, using just a plain base painted green. Or maybe I will terrain and grass them now that I'm reminded that the Elite figures are tarted up with nicer looking terrained bases.

The Minden Blues will be used in my B.A.R (Battalions dans l'Ancien Regime) rules British army wherein each figure is separate and formed into squadrons of 12 figures, four per stand on three stands, and then placed on magnetized movement trays.

I like The Blues so much that I will paint another unit of them for my regular, more conventional, Minden army of British - two figures per stand on a 2-inch square base.

Basing Conundrums

British 8th (King's) Regiment

8th (King's) Regiment shown with GMB Designs Flags.

NOTE: click or double click on all pictures to enlarge the view.

Like searching for the perfect set of game rules, so too is it impossible to come up with the perfect way of basing your troops. I am sure that we all want to tinker with our basing system from time to time, and horror of horrors, once in awhile this leads to the decision to rebase a whole existing army.

I finished a 32-figure unit of British SYW figures, painted as the 8th (King's) Regiment of Foot. This has caused me to rethink how I want to base my figures going forward. I like the look of the figures packed in closer together in the proposed new basing system for 32-figure battalions, taking up a frontage of eleven inches. My existing basing system has 30-figure battalions with a frontage of twelve inches.

Please inspect the pictures below that compare the old system with the proposed new system.

My current basing system places six figures on a 60mm wide base.
The complete battalion has a frontage of about 12-inches.

A proposed basing system has a frontage of about 11-inches for 32 figures.

The proposed system (top) has 32 figures with a frontage of 11-inches, compared to the existing system that has  a 12-inch frontage. So the smaller frontage of the proposed system actually holds two more figures than the existing system.

I like the basing for the Highlander battalion and so when I decided to paint another British regiment, I went for the 32-figure arrangement. I would like to use this system for all of my infantry going forward. I like the shoulder-to-shoulder look of the 32-figure units. Perhaps my favorite thing about the new system is that there is room on the end bases to place 9 figures, rather than 8, on the base and have the ninth figure being a drummer that I can place out on the flank of the battalion, where it would have been historically.

I would take the time to rebase all of my Prussian infantry battalions (7 of them) and Austrian battalions (8 of them) but for one little problem: I used Super Glue to attach the metal bases of the figures to an MDF wooden base, and as God is my witness, I cannot remove the figures from the old base. I have tried prying the figures off with a wedge shaped Exacto blade; I have tried putting the base in the freezer to help break down the glue. This trick normally works, but not on the test figures that I used.

So rather than painting just two more new figures per regiment and rebasing, the inability to remove the figures from the old bases means that  I would have to repaint and rebase 15 battalions (30 figures per battalion) or 450 new figures. Thus I would in effect be repainting both of my core SYW armies of Prussia and Austria and probably selling off all of the old figures. I don't know about that idea.

Another solution is to keep the old units based in the old manner, but paint any new units in the new format of 32-figures. I compared the frontages of the two basing systems and found that there is only a frontage difference of one-inch in the two system. So I could keep both old and new battalions because they have near-identical figures and frontages so as to be compatible on the game table.

I would like to hear your thoughts and comments on the basing conundrum, which you can post in the Comments section below.

87th (Kieth's) Highlanders Regiment

Minden product code MB-008 Highlanders, Marching.

The Web-store Project

My retirement gives me a lot more time to work on projects that have been on the back burner for some time, and high on the list is to paint every single SKU (stock keeping unit ) in the Fife & Drum and Minden figure ranges. For example, if a product code has eight marching soldiers, then I have to paint all eight of the figures so that I can photograph them and upload them into the Fife & Drum web-store. You can view the work in progress by clicking on the links that I have provided below.

The first link below takes you to the Fife & Drum Web Store Home Page:

Fife & Drum Miniatures Web Store

The second link, below, takes you to the Minden British figures page on the Fife & Drum web store:

Minden British Product Codes & Pictures

While you are at it, scroll around the webstore site (click on the pull down menus for each country) and take a look at the progress that I have made on adding color pictures of every SKU in the ranges. It is quite an undertaking, but it is well worth the time and effort to do this.

One Thing Leads To Another

During the course of this project, I have tackled the British army figures in the Minden range and have enjoyed painting them so much that I have decided to start a new British and Hanoverian SYW army for my collection. Painting the individual product codes has given me a head start on a number of units such as Hat Men, Grenadiers, Dragoon Guards and Dragoons. However, it is the Highlanders that have really caught my eye so I decided to forge ahead and paint a 32-figure regiment of Kieth's Highlanders in the marching pose. I also plan on painting the 88th (Campbell's) Regiment of Highlanders in the firing poses.

 

Minden Product Code MB-007 Highlander Command, Marching

My Kieth's Highlanders Regiment will have 32 figures based eight per stand on four bases. An NCO or drummer will be posted on both the far lefthand and righthand bases, offset a bit to create the appearance of a third row of soldiers. The figures will be spaced closer together than in my Austrian and Prussian armies. It is easier to correct the spacing on new units than it is to rebase every infantry battalion in my SYW collection, so the new armies get the new basing style.

I have painted a few samples of the firing line poses, a couple of which are shown below:

As of today, I have 24 of the 32 figures painted for Kieth's Highlanders and hope to have the final eight finished today or tomorrow, afterwhich I can base them up. I have ordered flags for both regiments from GMB Designs, which to my mind, are every bit as good as some of the hand-painted flags that we see here and there.

British Grenadier Samples

The British Genadier pack MB-004 consists of eight marching figures. We also have MB-003 British Grenadier Command (not shown) which has three command figures:

British Grenadiers, Marching (MB-004)

We have added a new product code for Maxwell's Grenadiers MBR-001 which includes 32 foot figures and one mounted officer. This has a retail value of $70.00 but the regimental pack sells for $60.00, giving you a 14% discount over the cost of purchasing the individual packs that make up the regiment.

British Cavalry Samples

There are only four SKUs for the British cavalry: a command pack (3 figures) and a trooper pack (3 figures) for both the British Horse/Dragoon Guards regiments and for the Dragoon regiments. Here are some sample pictures of the figures that I have painted for the web store project:

MBC-002 British Dragoon Guards or Horse Regiment troopers

MBC-001 British Dragoon Guards/Horse Regt. Command

The MBC-001 and MBC-002 packs together, start to give you an idea of what a full squadron of the figures might look like.

MBC-003 British Dragoon Command

MBC-004 British Dragoon Troopers

As you can see, I have been keeping myself very busy over the past two months working on the web store pictures and, coincidentally, starting my own Minden British army. More to come.

What do you think of it so far?

Minden SYW Highlanders

Someone on TMP was asking about the Minden SYW Highlander range of figures and I realized that I had not posted these on the Minden Blog. So here they are. The Highlanders are also distributed in the UK and Europe by Crann Tara Miniatures, so if you live in Euro Land and want Highlanders, then order direct from Crann Tara and save yourself some time and import taxes.

Now that I am nearly done with all of my painting commissions (I'm retiring from painting for others ), I noticed that I have a battalion of Highlanders already primed and ready to be painted. They may well be my next Minden painting project.

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More British SYW Artillery Equipment at Fort Ligonier

British Light 12-pounder at Fort Ligonier, Pennsylvania

Here are a few more pictures that I took of the British artillery equipment park at Fort Ligonier while on my journey to Historicon. If they are not presently in the Fife & Drum artillery equipment range, they soon will be. The wheels on some of the wagons are HUGE. The wheels on the 2-wheel wagon below come up to my shoulders!

Ammo wagon at Fort Ligonier

4-wheel wagon

Conestoga Wagon

British 6-pounders with limbers at Fort Ligonier.

Barrel detail on a British 8-inch mortar at Fort Ligonier

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