B is for Berline - Historex No. 30306 Plus Various Other Pre-configured Sets

A Berlin is a type of fully-sprung 'luxury' carriage, usually enclosed (Preiser do a number of both closed and open configurations, in HO-gauge compatible 1:87th scale), originally a German design, add an 'e' and you have a French one!

I couldn't be arsed to add all the catalogue numbers to the title track, so they are in the above images, I think the 30306 is a later code? I don't know what l'Emperor's original code was?

V is for Vivandiere - Historex No's 761, 762, 763 and 744

I think the closest translation is 'provisioner' or 'provender'. and it doesn't seem that the British army had quite the same role, there were hanger's on, women and children with some connection to the soldiery helping out at camp, and following the army, but not the semi-formal, vaguely uniformed women who served the French army, a concept which was passed to the American army during the War of Independence.

There's also some 'camp' stuff in there, but we can tell from the catalogue codes they are all expected or intended to be used together. And obviously, this cart was not within the Gribeauval System, and while of a common cart design, probably differed between Vivadieres?

M is for Medical Corps - Historex No's 771, 772 (1), (1)a, (1)b, (2) & (3) , 773, 774 (1), (2) & B, and 775 (1), (2) & (3)

There was no way to separate the figures and the wagon here, or not without tons of cropping and touching-up, so they're all in a bit of a huddle and you'll have to take what you want from them if you can find it!

The Boss!

The Wagon; I assume the wagons have the Gribeauval System at the front end, but the rear seems very different, it's fully sprung for comfort, for starters!

The uniforms . . .

There seems to be a cross fertilisation between human and veterinary medicine in the Corps, however I'm no expert and haven't read the blurb, I don't really follow the period, although I may be reading-up on it in the future, but I know some horse ambulances are open, so a conversion job/potential there?

G is for Gribeauval System - Regimental Wagon - Historex No's 784(i), (ii) & (iii), 785 & 786

A real quickie as I don't have the colour sheet if there ever was one, but for completion's sake here the little I did get from the catalogues (five catalogues have come in since the original scans, but I haven't started trying to make sense of them, just take the odd page!); the Regimental Wagon, which I assume is like our General Service (GS) wagons, or filling the same niche - a standardised design for ammunition, troops, other stores, cargo or casualties?

Just a thought, but one wonders if the Gribeauval System wouldn't have produced a weak-point in these, over the more sturdy British one, by dint of having a diss- or 'de-'mountable system (the limber/bogie set up between the horses and wagon-body) meaning a natural weakness at the join over rough ground or under fire . . . nothing jingoistic, just a curious thought? My thanks to Tony, and we're looking at the sheets for the ambulance next.

G is for Gribeauval System - Field Forge & Crew - Historex No's 741 & 743

So, I started the year with every intention of getting all these done, and while about half of them have been scanned (memo to self - do the rest this weekend so they are on the system), and a good start was made with the character figures and a few of the horse-drawn transport posts, other stuff and real life put the brakes-on!

So I'll get the last five horse-drawn sets out now (they've been on the desktop since March I think?!), and make more effort next year, but they'll all stack-up under the Historex tag, with the show plunder re-branded (heat-branded!) Elastolin 40mm's which were found at the May PW Show!

 

There was also a crew of three blacksmiths or 'Artillery Artisans' available;

Because Historex was rather all about the uniforms they are relaxed upright poses, if you wanted to get them more active, you married them to bits of Airfix 54mm Collector Series 'multipose' figures and ordered extra arms!

If I had the time and the skill I'd love to do a diorama of these chaps heat-shrinking a new iron-tyre onto a wheel. And many thanks to Mr Foy of the Prometheus in Aspic Blog, who sent all these to Small Scale World many years ago.

G is for Gribeauval System - Sausage Wagon - Historex No's 676a, 676b & 30304

The 'Wurst' wagon ('chariot à saucisses', sûrement!)*. Take the caisson and add a padded roof for riding on and you can condemn your medical staff to the ride from hell! I'm guessing it was not a happy experience over more than a few hundred yards, and then only slowly!

* No, it was a 'wurst wagon' and please stop calling me Shirley!

Previously 676b (to the bare 676a kit), the vignette set with four figures and horses was re-numbered at some point, and the original black & white sketch was coloured at the same time.

The blurb in the middle image says it all; I know nothing, and I'm not even from Barcelona!

G is for Gribeauval System - Caisson - Historex No 676

Yep, it's a caisson! And it's limbered! I was - years ago - going to do a big rant on this, but someone did a far politer one on Treefrog - than I would ever have managed; and the Wikipedia page makes it all quite clear. But it would be nice if we could get the few remaining dullards to stop calling (usually) ACW (usually) limbers 'caissons'! They are the same people who put heavy towers on their war-elephants, machine-guns on shoulders and burnable stores on tank's engine louvres!

You can even have a caisson behind a British/ACW style limber, but that's half the point, it's as much about the position as the design- the limber is the pivot between the horse team/towing tractor and the towed piece.

And this was where the French kept most of their ammunition - before adapting the British system later in the century.

The Aeros SA on some of the sheets is the original company name, created in 1955 to promote model aircraft, it faltered against the likes of Revell, Airfix and - domestically - Heller, leading to the specialisation in figures and the eventual Historex brand-mark.

G is for Gribeauval System - Limber - Historex No 651

You got guns, you need limbers (NOT CAISSONS!), and Gribeauval's limber is the subject of these sheets, there will be a caisson along in a while! Obviously while British limbers carried 'ready rounds', the French didn't, but I believe the box on the guns managed the wherewithal for a few rounds while the separate ammunition caisson could be brought up and distribute more? In he end, the French discarded the Gribeauval system (after Napoleon had his Waterloo) and adopted ours with full ammunition-locker limbers, which they gave to the Americans in time for their [un]civil war.

With a full team of four horses - see final sheet below.

It should be noted that this limber was also used on the French caisson and other drawn vehicles like the field-forge (both available from Historex), spare-wheel wagons etc.

 

* **  ***   ****    *****    ****   ***  ** * 

Thought for the day

If near-side (left) and off-side (right) were correct for French and American horse teams, and we Brit's still have the near-side closest the curb (and furthest from the driver) on the left, are the rest of the world 'actually, really' driving on the wrong side? I think the evidence of vehicular nomenclature says they are!!! Go lefties!

G is for Gribeauval System - Guns - Historex No's 643, 677, 8209 & 30301

Well, I definitely started this project in a hurry, and it will make me pay! No matter, the doing of it in numerical order will pop-out of the window for this section as I'm doing all the wheeled stuff, some with uniformed soldiers (medics/vets) some without like this one, and then we'll get get back to the numbering. Also I said there were no colour plates in this section, but there will be a few.

Overall, developments vis-à-vis the paperwork means the linking page will take a while longer, but will be almost complete, and with what I've got in the last 24-hours, and what Tony and I had originally, I don't think there are many plates missing, nor many instruction-sheets or painting guides lost either. Also there being no real order to the numbering - Brit's in three placeings, more cavalry to come - it will make better sense once the linking page is up.

Numbering starts with part 1 (Hussar style dolman body/torso) and goes (as you can see above) through several basic single-figure kit and larger multiple-figure sets or 'diorama kit'  types to over 30300, but with large gaps, as each type starts again at a higher point. Some things seem to have never got a number, while a few non-Napoleonic items were in the range, Lady Godiva for instance, both medieval and unnumbered!

This post is for the gun, which came as a kit with two barrels, 12lbr or Howitzer, and two diorama sets, one with the cannon-barrels only.

12 Pounder

Battle of Friedland Diorama

This was a larger boxed set which seems to have contained one-each of the gun with 12lbr barrel and a limber, three horses, two sets of horse furniture for towing, two mounted figures, seven foot and whatever accessories were needed to finish them as illustrated, to which might have been added the runners of letters, numbers and ciphers to add unit-designators to their water bottles, saddlecloths etc?

Mont St. Barnard Diorama Set

Again, a set, with two 12lbr barrels, two log-sleds and up to seven figures, presumably with parts for depicting artillery personnel and engineers/pioneers?

Howitzer

It's only the barrel which is different (the beauty of the Gribeauval designed artillery train, was its inter-operability), but whether this meant you could (or had to) order, say, the trunion bands (covering plates/brackets) as 643-26 or 677-26 I don't know, but ordering plain '26' would have got you a human, male, left arm, posed for supporting a musket!

Y is for Young Guard - Historex No's 638 / 703

Except even I know they were no younger or older than the Old Guard or the Dutch Guard, recruiting from the same pool to replace the battle losses or bodies left frozen on the steppes of Russia. But only the pioneer gets 'the' hat!

The next post in this series (few days time) won't have a colour plate as it deals with the various vehicular elements of the artillery train, and you're probably supposed to know what colour they are from your Blandford or Almark guides!