28mm SYW Austrian Grenadiers

Here are the grenadiers for the four regiments I recently painted.

28mm SYW Austrians: IR 19 Leopold Pálffy

This Hungarian regiment was raised in 1733 and, in both the WAS and SYW, was in the thick of it. It was present at the battles of Chotusitz, Prague, Moy, Breslau, Hochkirch, Kunersdorf and Liegnitz. It seems to have had a colour change from light blue to middle blue and then back to light blue but pinning these dates down is tricky.

The bottom illustration is of Leopold Count Pálffy who founded the regiment and remained it's Inhaber until 1773.

28mm SYW Austrians: IR42 Gaisruck

This is one of the few Austrian regiments (two in total, I think) that may well have had purple or violet facings. I say 'may have' because we cannot be absolutely sure due to colour die issues in the 18^th century. Add red to blue and you get purple and this may have been accidental.

This regiment was present at Kolin, Leuthen, Hochkirch and Torgau – so basically all the big battles of the SYW.

28mm SYW Austrians: IR48 Luzzara

The regiment was originally a Spanish Habsburg unit raised at Zaragoza in 1705, during the War of the Spanish Succession, and placed under the command of Colonel Pertús. After his death, the regiment "Ciudad de Zaragoza" (Town of Zaragoza) was placed under the command of Don Antonio Ãlvarez de Toledo. 1713, the regiment was operating in Lombardy.

In 1721, troops from 3 other Spanish regiments (Ahumada, Faber and Marulli) were incorporated into the regiment which became part of the Austrian army. The Count Alcaudete died at Prague in September 1734 and was succeeded by Juan Jacinto Vazquez y Vargas (aka Jacob Count Vasquez de Binas) at the head of the regiment.

From 1737 to 1739, the regiment fought against the Turks in Bosnia, Serbia, Banal and Transylvania.

In 1740, the regiment was stationed in Lombardy.

On December 23 1755, Count Vasquez de Binas died and was succeeded by Juan Manuel Luzán (aka Emanuel Count de Luzzara). The regiment incorporated recruits from the Duchy of Mantua.. One should say that by now the ranks would have been filled with Italians. It does not appear to have done much in the SYW although it was present in Bohemia most of the time.

I like the apple green facings!

28mm SYW Austrians: IR36 Browne (formerly Liechtenstein)

Founded in 1683 this regiment participated in every major Austrian campaign. It fought the Turks in the Great Turkish War of the 1680s and, according to Kronoskaf, “During the War of the Spanish Succession, in 1701, two battalions of the regiment (1,000 men) were sent to Northern Italy to reinforce the army of Prince Eugène de Savoie. On November 20, they arrived on the Mincio River and were sent to blockade Mantua. They took their winter-quarters at Concordia on the Po. In January 1702, 600 men of the regiment were at Spinosa as part of the Imperial forces encircling Mantua. At the beginning of March, the Vienna War Council decided to send the two other battalions to Northern Italy. In March, 400 men of the regiment defended the Castle del Dosso which was stormed by a French party. In April, the third battalion arrived in Northern Italy. In May, three battalions of the regiment took part in the blockade of Mantua. On August 1, IV./Liechtenstein Infantry (1 bn and 1 grenadier coy) finally arrived at Ostiglia from the Hereditary Lands. On 15 August, two battalions and one grenadier company of the regiment (7 officers and 579 men only) took part in the Battle of Luzzara. On January 11 1704, the regimental proprietor, Duke Liechtenstein, was killed in a skirmish on the Bormida River. In 1706, half of the regiment garrisoned Turin, the other part was at Calcinato (the entire regiment counted only 1,057 men). On September 7, the regiment took part in the Battle of Turin.

Then back again in the Austro-Turkish War of 1737–1739.

In the WAS on April 10, it took part in the Battle of Mollwitz where it lost 20 men killed, 9 officers and 65 men wounded and 146 men missing. One battalion then garrisoned Brieg and, after surrender of the fortress, marched to Prague. On June 4 1745, the regiment fought in the battles of Hohenfriedberg where it lost 7 men killed, 5 wounded and 37 missing. On September 30, in the Battle of Soor, the regiment was on the left wing, in Meligny's Brigade and lost 14 men killed, 82 wounded and 78 taken as prisoners of war.

Then in the SYW it again lost it's inhaber. On May 6 1757, two battalions of the regiment (a total of 1,676 men) took part in the Battle of Prague where they were deployed in Count d’Ursel's Brigade, in the first line of the right wing of infantry under Count Königsegg. During this battle, its chef,Filed-Marshal Ulysses Count Browne de Camus, was mortally wounded.

Given this splendid war record, I would rate this line regiment as elite. Figures are Front Rank.

40mm WAS/SYW IR22 Roth 1st Battalion

In my previous post I said I was going to be painting an unusual Austrian Regiment and here it is.

This is taken from Kronoskaf: “For the moment we have very few information on the uniform in 1756, at the outbreak of the war. Most of our references describe the uniform in 1762. However, Muhsfeldt and Schirmer mention that, in 1756-57, the coat was white lined red (therefore red turn-backs), the distinctive colour was red and the waistcoat and breeches were blue.N.B.: in his work, Gustav Ritter Hubka, mentions that, from 1714 till 1767, the uniform of this regiment had ponceau red lapels and cuffs, and yellow buttons. Furthermore, from 1757 to 1767, he mentions a blue waistcoat and blue turn-backs with white breeches. Even though, this description seems very surprising, it must be pointed out that Hubka has been Oberlieutenant and Regiments-Adjutant in this regiment, so he might have had access to privileged sources.”

I am going with the colour scheme of Gustav Ritter Hubka so white coat, blue waistcoat and turnbacks. White trousers. Red cuffs and lapels.

As for the flags, they were probably not used by this regiment which spent most of the WAS in Italy and was not present at Hohenfriedberg. But I think the red-white stripes perfectly match this regiment. One of the problems of painting the Austrians for the WAS is not the number of strange and unusual designs (which I rather like actually) but rather attributing them with any certainty to any particular regiment.

The second battalion and grenadiers will follow later this year. Figures are from Sash & Sabre.

SYW Austrian Kaiser Hussars

Kaiser Hussars with a rather drab uniform, well by Austrian standards anyway, which is, perhaps, why not too many people paint it. 2017 will be  a year in which I paint an enormous SYW Russian army.

Austrian Artillery Park

The last time I painted Austrian artillery was back in September 2012 so here is the final 7 batteries to complete the park.
Battery one is four 3pdrs for the Advance Guard - the guns are from Front Rank.

All the remaining guns are from Fife & Drum and they are beautiful castings - flash free, crisp and easy to assemble. A great price too so well worth the buy.

Battery 2 and 3 are each 4 howitzers. (My scale is one gun model and two crew = two guns)
Battery 4,5, and 6 are each 6 x 6pdrs
Battery 7 is 10 x 12pdrs.

Batteries were often 6 guns but not always so. In OOBs of the period you can see sometimes batteries of 10 and 12 guns.

That concludes the Austrian army except for one tiny mishap. I appear to have painted Hussar regiment Hadik twice so later on next year I will have to resolve this problem.

Austrian SYW: Grenz hussars

There were four Grenz Hussar regiments and here we show one squadron from each regiment. The figures are mostly Crusader although the musician is Front Rank. You will find that you have to do this quite a bit with Crusader as they have messed up some of the musician figures.

That concludes the Austrian cavalry - phhhhew!!

This week we will paint 20 batteries of artillery and that will be the Austrians finished.

Austrian Hadik Hussars

This is the penultimate Austrian cavalry unit in this project and the project itself will end a week later with all the artillery. And there is a lot of artillery!

Here we have Hadik Hussars with Crusader figures. They are on the new ebob horses and they are not a very good fit although the horses per se are quite decent sculpts.

45+ squadrons of Austrian SYW Cavalry thundering into attack....

Four regimens of Cuirassiers take the first line (20 squ). The second line has three Dragoon regiments or another 15 squadrons. Bringing up the rear is a further two regiments of Dragoons flanked by 5 companies of Horse Grenadiers and two companies of Carabiniers.

These are all 25/28mm SYW figures, mostly from Crusader but with some Front Rank as well. I have never photographed quite so many cavalry.

Austrian SYW Cavalry: Hessen-Darmstadt Dragoons

The last regiment of heavy Austrian cavalry for this project (hurrah, hurrah)!
I have now completed 9 regiments of Cuirassiers and Dragoons. Just a couple of small hussar units to do and a few guns and, hey presto, this vast Austrian army is finished. Before the end of the year we will revert to Prussians.