Saturday 16 June 2018

French Line Artillery

Having added to the Guard artillery I decided I should add another battery to the French Line foot artillery to even things out. This gives me a total of three Line batteries and at some point I’ll do a fourth.


All my artillery batteries have one gun and four foot figures. The new additions are:

FN/34 Gunner (positioned for manning gun)
FN/35 Gunner (ammunition carrier, running)
FN/33 Gunner (ramming home)
FN/31 Gunner (firing the gun)


The two artillery pieces left and centre are I believe Hinchliffe ones (I’ve had them a while but I'm not completely sure of their pedigree). The gun on the right is by Newline Designs.

15 comments:

Vintage Wargaming said...

Ian

If the guns fit the carriage with round bulges on the inside fitting into dimples on the gun tubes then they are Hinchliffe 20mm Range.

I think they and the Newline guns are the best match for Hinton Hunt artillery crews. Newline are a little small but that was the look of the HH guns, which are a bit crude. I think the Hinchliffe and Newline are preferable. But always bearing mind we are talking about the vintage Hinchliffe 20mm equipment range and not the later and current 25mm artillery pieces

Rob said...

They’re Great! As Tony would say. The plain dark blue with red piping looks really smart and the faces reallly top them off nicely.
I still reckon the guns could do with raising up as the figures on their bases can make guns look quite small. Despite this I’m sure they will still prove prettty lethal.

WSTKS-FM Worldwide said...

Nothing quite like massed French guns!

Best Regards,

Stokes

Captain Nolan said...

Fancy that; we both posted a French line battery on our blogs on the same day!

Excellent job on the crew and gun.

I have been thinking about artillery in Muskets and Marshals: If you mount the gun on a 30mm wide base, and then mount the gunners on 15mm square bases, you can place one gunner adjacent to each corner of the gun, and create a battery that maintains a 60mm wide frontage. That would eliminate the "problem" of the extra height of the gunners (compared to the gun) and since the gun is removed when down to two gunners, you would always maintain the 60mm wide frontage if you 'remove' the two front gunners last.

KEV. Robertson. said...

Ian- You have done a fabulous job of the French Line Artillery - splendid. Well done! Cheers. KEV. p.s, I've near completed three Artillery for my 'Sannisfeld' Army today...block painted - I'm happy with the results.

'Lee. said...

Very nice indeed Ian.... as usual :) I always liked the French foot artillery uniforms ever since a schoolmate bought in a painted Airfix battery to show to the class. Just to be clear on the Hinchliffe guns, are they 25mm scale or 20mm scale as I had not realised that Hinchliffe made 20mm? whatever, they are very nice.

Stryker said...

Thanks for the comments!

Lee - Hinchliffe did produce 20mm guns. I replaced the barrels in these with Newline ones as the originals were missing but would have fitted as Clive describes in his comment.

Vintage Wargaming said...

If this works the link below should take you to the list of Hinchliffe 20mm equipment range from the Wayback Machine of Vintage 20mil web site - scroll down the list to find them.

http://web.archive.org/web/20110719132124/http:/www.intonet.co.uk/~rblack/

If I have time later/remember I will scan in the list from a Hinchliffe catalogue and post it up on Vintage Wargaming

Vintage Wargaming said...

Post with illustrations and lists now up on Vintage Wargaming:

https://vintagewargaming.blogspot.com/2018/06/hinchliffe-20mm-equipment-range.html

Independentwargamesgroup said...

Lovely looking figures, well done.

Wellington Man said...

Your French gun line is becoming truly formidable, Ian - as well as drop-dead gorgeous! What's the ratio of guns to infantry you're aiming for?
Best regards
WM

Anonymous said...

A typical historical ratio would have been 1 battery to 3 infantry battalions or 3 guns per 1000 men.

Stryker said...

WM - interestingly I agree with Anon and I'm going for 1 battery for every 3 infantry/cavalry units. This would mean an 'army' of 8 foot and 4 cavalry would have 4 batteries. In M&M best not to have too many guns - remember La Rothiere!!!

Captain Nolan said...

If a battalion is 792 men (33 * 24) and a battery is 6 guns, then 3 battalions = 2,376 men divided by 6 guns = 1 gun per 396 men. That is 3 guns per 1,188 men (pretty close to 3 guns per 1,000).

At Waterloo, Napoleon had 350 guns and 115,000 men ( per Charles Grant, Waterloo). That is 1 gun per 330 men, or 3 guns per 990 men. (Also pretty close to 3 guns per 1,000).

Wellington Man said...

I think La Rothiere scarred a lot of us, Ian. LG didn't allow more than two guns to concentrate on a single target because of that!