25/28mm Napoleonic Artillery Models: Side by side Comparisons

    When I finished my Old Glory Prussian Artillery crew (on time for Historicon in July), I didn't have enough artillery pieces in my arsenal to equip all the batteries with guns. About that time, Wargames Foundry was having their sale, and the artillery pieces looked like an especially attractive deal. As I already had a mix of Calpe, Old Glory, and Sash and Saber ordinance in my Prussian 1813 army (scraping together what I could get my hands on at the time, like the real 1813 Prussians!), I figured there wouldn't be any big issue if I added yet another manufacturer!

I just finished painting six of the WF Prussian guns, four 6 lbers and 2 Howitzers. Here are a few shots of them with the Old Glory crew figures:

Prussian 6lber Guns by Wargames Foundry with Old Glory crew.

Another view of the WF pieces. They are perhaps a bit on the smaller side, but certainly look perfectly acceptable with the crew figures.

Here are a pair of Wargames Foundry Prussian howitzers, once again with Old Glory crew figures.

Another view of the Wargames Foundry howitzers.

One interesting thing about the Wargames Foundry Prussian gun packs is that the 6 lber packs also have a howitzer barrel in them, so you make either one from the same pack. This also results in some left over gun barrels, as seen above. One of the howitzer barrels is missing, because I mounted it on an old Minifigs carriage which had somehow lost it's tube some years ago. I was happy to find that it fit the carriage OK (the  WF 6 lber tube just didn't look quite right on the same old Minifigs carriage). Anyway, these barrels might be appearing soon, mounted on fortress carriages, in a defensive works near you!

    OK, so on to some comparison shots of guns from different 25/28mm manufacturers side by side.... 

Left to Right:  Wargames Foundry Prussian 6 lber, Sash and Saber French 6 lber, Old Glory Prussian (?) 6 lber, Old Minifigs French 6 lber carriage (with spare WF Howitzer tube - see above). The Old Glory pieces might even be OG TWELVE pounders, as the Old Glory Napoleonic artillery pieces tend to be seriously undersized!

Near to far 6lbers: Minifigs (w/ howitzer tube - see above), Old Glory, Sash and Saber, Wargames Foundry.

Left to Right: Wargames Foundry, Sash and Saber, Old Glory, Minifigs. The top down view shoes that the Minifigs carriage is easily the smallest, and the Sash and Saber the biggest. The OG piece has a very wide axle length, not seen on any of the other models. Again, I think this may actually be the OG 12 lber model, not their 6 lber!  Czar Barry used some Old Glory Russian 12 pounder models as 6 pounder guns, and they worked just fine as that!

This shows a Calpe Prussian 12 lber left, Sash and Saber French 12 lber right. Note the thickness of the wheels and carriage on the Calpe piece... as well as the relatively long axle dimension of the Calpe gun.

Sash and Saber 12 lber front, Calpe rear. Despite the heavy construction of the Calpe piece, the height of the Sash and Saber 12 lber to the top of the wheel is actually slightly greater. 

Calpe 12 lber left, Sash and Saber right.  The top down view highlights the thickness of the wheels and carriage, and the slightly thicker barrel on the Calpe 12 lber gun; this may in part account for why the Calpe pieces are so much more expensive!

Sash and Saber French Howitzer left, Wargames Foundry Prussian Howitzer right. The wheels can sometimes be a bit difficult to affix straight onto the Sash and Saber models, in part because the wheels often have to be drilled out to fit onto the axle. I use super glue followed by epoxy. This the only criticism I would make of Sash and Saber guns, which remain my favorites (I have some pictures Perry 6 lber guns along with some Sash and Saber artillery  in this post on my French Guard Artillery)

Sash and Saber Howitzer top, Foundry Howitzer bottom.

Foundry Howitzer left, Sash and Saber Right; quite close in size and appearance.

Sash and Saber Howitzer left, Foundry right. The top down view again shows the Sash and Saber piece to be slightly larger. 

    I hope some of you find these comparison shots to be helpful when considering the various 25/28 mm Artillery product offerings  available to us. I have seen many side by side comparisons of infantry figures from various manufacturers, but none of the Artillery. Obviously, the manufacturers mentioned are not the only ones available; particularly notably absent are plastics (which I personally don't happen to care for in general). We are certainly spoiled for choices!

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    Speaking of "Czar" Barry, my wife and I enjoyed the hospitality of Barry and his wife twice in the past month... including their food and wine! Barry's home sits right on Main Street of our small town (population circa 1500 people; four or five decades ago, probably many more cows than that!). The Sunday before Labor Day (the first Monday in September, which is a holiday in the US) sees the annual Bridgewater Tractor parade. This largely unpublicized,  quirky event started as all farm tractors, which still make up the majority of the participants. Over the years, though, the tractors began to pull various "floats", often incorporating patriotic themes and/or commentary on politics, both very local and National. Some of these have become amazingly elaborate and clever, especially for a 30 minute event seen by a few hundred people at most!

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Here is one example. Walter (fiddling away here as Nero) is a local artist with a taste for the macabre and supernatural, and always goes all out for the parade. Yep, that is smoke issuing forth from the broken Roman columns! I am not sure if he intended the float to be allegorical or not!

A home grown Godzilla wannabe belches forth real flames. Watch out for that tree there, Lizard Breath!

    The third weekend in August every year sees the great Bridgewater, Connecticut Country Fair, run by and for the benefit of our local Volunteer Fire Department... with help from the majority of the population of the town - attendance over the three days of the fair can top 30,000 people! The highlight of the Fair for us locals is the Fireman's Parade on Friday evening. Most of the Volunteer Fire departments from our part of the state send trucks and firemen to march, along with two or three pipe bands (one was playing "Minstrel Boy", which I recognized as the tune to which Sean Connery and Michael Caine sing "The Son of God Goes Forth to War" in the movie, The Man Who Would Be King (based upon the story by Rudyard Kipling).. There are also Brass bands and Fife and drum corps, and usually a public official or two as well... but we try to ignore them. Barry's home has a perfect view of the Parade from his front yard (and porch, in case of rain, which has happened more often that we'd like the past few years). 

This year, as every year, the Sandy Hook company from nearby Newtown participated in the Parade. Many of these guys were first responders to the elementary school shooting scene last year. I am sure more than a few of them have PTSD as a result. Not surprisingly, they got the loudest applause this year, and quite a few moist eyes among the crowd... mine included.

Peter

Prussian Artillery, 1813

    In the wake of the drastic reduction in the strength of the Pussian Army resulting form the treaty of Tilsit in 1807, the Prussian army's artillery was reorganized into three "brigades", each to have a strength of 12 Foot and 3 Horse batteries. In terms of uniforms, the brigades were distinguished by the color of the shoulder straps - Prussian Brigade - white, Brandenburg Brigade - red, and Silesian Brigade - yellow. The Guard 6# Foot and Horse batteries both belonged to the Brandenburg brigade. In 1814, these distinctions were discontinued, and all batteries had red shoulder straps thereafter... at least on paper!

    Thus, the army maintained a fairly high Artillery contingent compared with the Infantry and Cava;ry establishments. Doubtless that was in part due to the technical nature of the Artillery service. By August 1813, there were six 12 lber batteries, one Howitzer battery, one 3 pounder Foot battery, twelve 6 lber Horse batteries, and thirty 6 lber Foot batteries. Of these eight were Landwehr batteries, all 6lber foot batteries except one 6 lber horse battery. Prussian batteries ordinarily consisted of six guns and two howitzers.

A pair of Prussian 12 lber batteries; one Calpe (with Calpe guns), and the other Old Glory (with Sash and Saber guns).

The Calpe unit is ti the front here; it was painted 10 years ago, while the Old Glory battery was just finished last night!

In this shot, the Old Glory Battery is to the left of the picture. 

This is a pair of Old Glory 6lber foot batteries, with Old Glory guns, once again painted about 10 years ago. 

The Old Glory guns run rather small , although these Prussian pieces are better than some of the others. I use the excellent Sash and Saber guns whenever possible now. 

Left overs from Old Glory Prussian Dragoon packs painted as mounted horse artillery...

equipped with Old Glory guns once again.

The dark "Prussian blue" sharaques are in evidence; the fellow on the grey is painted as a Trumpeter (note the "wings", for all artillery musicians, these should actually be black with white lace (yellow lace for the Guard units).

Here is a newly painted Prussian 6lber foot battery with Old Glory crew and Sash and Saber guns. The belts and other leather equipment were black for all Foot batteries. 

The foot artillery jackets had black collars and cuffs, piped in red, 

The turnbacks were solid red for the Foot artillery. Grey pants with black gaiters complete the uniform.

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This is a Guard 6lber Horse Artillery battery. If the shakos were uncovered, they would have a yellow band on the top (in place of the white of the line batteries), a Guard star on the front of the shako, and for Parade use, a white"Busch" plume.

Alas, no one I know of makes such a figure, so the only clues as to this unit's Guard status are the yellow litzen on the collars and cuffs...

and the Guard star on the cartridge boxes.

These distinctions being rather subtle, I took a little liberty and pained the woodwork on their tools a light blue color to match the carriage color to make the Guard units stand out a bit more.

Here is a pair of Prussian Horse Artillery batteries with all the gunners dismounted for action, once again using Old Gory crew and Sash and Saber guns. 

In contrast to the Foot Artillery, Horse Artillery had white belts in stead of black, 

The turnbacks on the jacket (when worn instead of the Litewka coat, which was authorized as an option for Horse Artillery starting in 1809) were dark blue with a border of black velevet piped in red. 

The horse artillery also wore Cavalry overalls, with red [piping and brass buttons on the outer seams. 

This 6lber Foot battery is painted as a Guard unit. Once again, the covered shako obscures most of the Guard distinctions, which were the same as for the Guard Horse Battery.

The yellow litzen is barely visible. 

Once again I have painted the wood of the artillery tools light blue to help the Guard unit to be more readily identifiable; once again, in parade dress, a black Busch plume would also be worn.  the saddle blankets of Guard officers had silver Guard star emblems in the corners. 

A couple of spare OG artillery officers were used to make an Artillery Commander stand .

The cocked hat was an option for Artillery officers; when worn it had a black plume for Foot Artillery, and mixed black and white for Horse Artillery officers. Like all Prussian officers, a mixed silver and black sash was also worn.

Artillery NCO's had gold lace edging to their collars and cuffs (not shown).

This brings the total for the Prussian artillery arm of my forces top ten batteries (although I am short six 6# tubes still, which I may pick up from Sash and Saber at Historicon).

Peter