Napoleonic French Combined Grenadier Battalion and Medieval Russians for Giggles

The French Commander, Junot, for the battle of Vimeiro in the fall of 1808, combined the Grenadier companies of his various battalions to form a reserve.  General  Francois Kellermann commanded the reserve and was to go on to be a famed cavalry commander at the battle of Waterloo.  Junot eventually threw his reserve at the British regiments defending Vimeiro in a desperate last ditch attempt, without success.

The battalion is made from Garrison Grenadiers with a Lamming drummer (cast with the drum upside down!) and a Hinton Hunt Colonel of Grenadiers.  Many thanks to Wellington Man for the gift of the Garrison and Lamming figures!

The company fanion was a little custom addition just to add something unique to the unit.  The Grenadiers were my addition to the collection, while the Colonel was originally painted by Dick Tennant.

Have to love all of those moustaches!

To the left!

Drilling out the musket barrel to house the company fanion was a challenge.  Fortunately I had some uber tiny drill bits left over from my model railroading days.

I was worried the Garrison bases were going to be too big for my movement stands, but they fit beautifully.  The stands themselves are a bit thinner than usual to help disguise the increased height of the Garrison figures.  Of course, the Grenadier companies were made from the tallest men, so they are supposed to be bigger!

For something completely different, and painted in a different style, I was finally able to finish the painting of  some Smolensk Cavalry for the battle of Grunwald.  They are dirty grimy medieval Russians charging into battle against what will be even dirtier Teutonic Knights for use with DBA or its variants, Triumph and L'Art de la Guerre.

These are lovely Testudo figures which are unfortunately no longer produced by their amazing sculptor.

This unit will play as medium cavalry horse archers.

The heavy cavalry horse archers

I just love the style of Russian armor that changed very little in the early to late medieval period.

The bases will get textured once the army is done for the sake of consistency, as it may take years at the pace I am moving.

Next up on the painting desk: Bavarian Jagers and the Polish Vistula Lancers

1/72 French Artillery Model Comparison

Thanks to one of our readers I have some measurements to complement the British artillery description posted earlier on this blog:  https://miniatureminions.blogspot.com/2021/02/updated-172-british-artillery-model.html - The diagram below (click to expand) shows how the measurements are taken and a description of how they are designated A-F.  Thanks to some techno-wizardry in Excel, for which I am not responsible, the cells highlighted in yellow show measurements that are within an accepted tolerance (10%) of the prototype, scaled down to 1/72.  The big surprise for me was the DK 12 pounders which are not far off the mark.

Many thanks to Goya who took the time to put this together!  Measuring these little buggers is a bear, so there may be some variability in the measurements presented.  If you have any additional models with associated measurements from other manufacturers, or note anything egregious as an error, let me know and I will correct/add.