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.

News, Views Etc . . . Herald Toys & Models Press

An update from Barney yesterday was sent to the Spam folder by an overzealous Hotmail bot and I've only just found it so apologies if you missed anything which has already sold, but you can sign-up to the eMail updates yourself, rather than waiting for me to pull my finger out!

" . . . this week we are pleased to offer for sale the Thetford collection of plastic toy soldiers, chiefly Britains and Herald, but also Timpo solids, comprising a good section of American Civil War figures and Swoppet 15th Century Knights. We also have for sale a good collection of 2nd Series Swoppet Wild West models (some with our superb limited edition reproduction boxes) and our usual selection of farm and riding models. We are also pleased to announce the milestone of 2,000 items in our archive, which we hope you will find a useful reference tool."

 Barney; as always, can be found here.

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!

H is for How They Come In - Cheap Deals

This post deals with stuff I picked-up while out and about last April-May, or at least that's when I shot the photographs, sometimes things get shot same the day sometimes they don't, nor do they always get photographed in the order they came in, so March may be the start-date of this little lot, but it hardly matters!

This must have been a previous (2020) Christmas range, on clearance, from the same Hobbycraft decoration line we've looked at here recently from the year just gone (2021), which are themselves now on clearance! Not the best sculpt, it seems to be channeling at least two species, but what do I know, the cake-decoration deer have their own box (there's so many of them) and he'll add to that 'archive'!

Erasersaurs, we may have seen them before as another iteration; I haven't checked, but, even if we have, they may be new colours. There is a post on Dinorasers in the long-queue, but these aren't in it?!! Asda supermarkets, and close-enough to the now ended Walmart ownership for them to possibly be findable over the pond in that establishment, but probably not now?

This was 20p in Paperchase! They had a table with tons of stuff, most of it one-offs, some of it quite dusty and had obviously had a serious five- or ten-year stock take and cleared out the forgotten corners, and 'behind the shelves' areas of the storeroom? You can see from the chunky pen that it's a largish beast and had a lovely metallic decoration. 'Bronty' the Biro!

This was in the same Paperchase pile, and also the only one, missing it's cap and not something I would normally give house room to, but A) it's cats! B) I had, only a few days earlier, split the cats, dogs and elephants into their own tubs, and C) 20p!! Soft-foam calico cats with a Biro up their arses!

Flying Tiger gave up this for a quid, the same day I think? It was my first trip to Basingrad since before lockdown (a year or so?) and is just for the archive, to ID in the future, to box-tick the brand and items, fun, silicon 'rubber jigglers' in the old-school style.

These were on clearance at TKMaxx, and you know by know I really like these, the . . . start again; We are about to look at three of these sets of Nano-Metal's from Jada, two of which (probably these two) were on clearance at TKMaxx, the other - I think - came in a few days later, either from eBay or Asda stores? But . . . it may have been a donation and because the amount of stuff which has joined the long-queue in the last 14-odd months is vast, I'm not 100% sure on the history of these now! So I'll thank the two obvious candidates - Brian Berke or Peter Evans - for everything they do for the Blog, and carry on as if they were three similar retail/clearance purchases a few days apart, nearly a year ago!

The first set (above) was a straight tie-in with the Incredibles movie, or at least Incredibles 2 which I haven't seen, but I thought the first one was fun and they have that lovely metallic paint which makes this range so lush, while there is a duplicate pose in the second set which is a sort of Disney 'starter' set with figures ancient ('classics') and modern (Pixar joint-productions).

I don't know who Baymax is (actually I've just Goggled him! Big Hero 6, which had totally escaped me?), but there are characters here from seven franchises, with pairs from Monsters Inc., and The Muppets.

The one I'm not so sure about, I think it was reduced in Asda, but . . . which definitely came in a week or two after the other two sets and, again, another 'starter' set to get you wanting more Disney "100% diecast" Nano Metal's, with a lovely pair from Alice in Wonderland, two Scrooge McDuck characters and little Lilo.

R es para Romanos A Caballo

Literally translates as Romans on Horseback, means Roman cavalry! More box-ticking and we have seen one of them before here, as a late-Reamsa/re-issue moulding in unpainted silver, who commands my definitely Co-Ma, not RP (. . . or Basa!) squad of ring-hand Romans.

Having failed to get the frames square on the images in the infantry post, I got these dead square without thinking about it and didn't even think of scanning them! Also they did have the clear plastic sheet (but no film), so have stayed in their box for now.

Five mounted cavalry on two horse sculpts, there are two officer types - if you measure such things by plume size/type - but with such an eclectic set of shields and an un-armed 'trooper' doing a Caesar impersonation, in gold armour, I think they are too toy-like to get excited about on that level and are best called 'auxiliary' cavalry, late Empire!

The two horse designs are a bit chunky, and are reverse poses of each other - apart from the tails! That's it another couple of boxes-ticked, Reamsa-Gormasa Romans from the Soldis-Históricos 'big box' line.

H es para Históricos!

And so to Spain, not actually, but by way of subject matter for another box-ticker! Looking at a set of vintage Reamsa moulds which have seen some mileage now and I think these - by Gormasa - are the last major issue?

How mine came, the cellophane was ripped beyond repair but I managed to get it to behave for the scanner, which did quite a good job, possibly because of the pale backgrounds? If I try to scan say, a kit runner, flush against the black pad, all I get is fuzzy, but these did quite well?

However I needn't have bothered as there was a better, commercial image on the back of the box, alongside the cavalry set! I don't know if these had a 'Soldis' iteration, I suspect Históricos were the older (by era) version of the same Soldis line; the boxes are certainly the same?

I tried to be clever with the photography, but it's impossible to get the frame perfectly square with a hand-held pocket-camera, so it is what it is - a collage of lop-sided frames! But the figures are lovely and it's nice to have them in the stash.

The tool is unchanged from original owner and the painting on these is good enough to conjure-up the originals if not pass for them after a bit of playwear! But the material is a bit of a giveaway; the Reamsa figures were polyethylene, these are a substitute-PVC with the same rubbery qualities of other elastomers.

My sample's box was missing the ridged, clear plastic sheet which should tuck into the corners of the window, so with the wrap gone as well it was going to be a nightmare to keep it all together, thus, it went the way of all flesh, but not before I'd scanned all the useful bits for the archive! the troops have got a [clean] takeaway-tub in the main Romans box!

Tiger Hobbies is for Supreme Toys!

Box-ticking some modern production Romans today, with the slightly floppy PVC-substitute Roman toy soldiers from Supreme / SP Toys, they are rather good, for what they are - rack toys - but toward the larger size in the 54mm bracket, not so much in height but 'chunky-monkey'ness'!

As they are found, supplied in the UK by Tiger Hobbies, who informed the hobby they were carrying Supreme which is why - despite the past witterings of Erwin on TJF's site - we know Supreme are an entity!

Elsewhere they would have been carried by other sellers, possibly Simba in Europe (I don't know for sure), possibly Schilling in the 'States, but not Sunjade who were a jobbing shipper back in Hong Kong - we've looked at all this before!

Three skirmishing spearmen with separate, plug-in piliums . . . pilii? An Asiatic mercenary/ethnic archer (thanks Airfix via blandford!) and a command group including a horn player (Cornicen), a Signifier and an officer/NCO 'Centurion' type.

The shields are glued-on in the factory, sometimes with the lower-arm as part of the sculpt, but two of mine had come lose/broken off in transit, so needed a blob of plumber's sealant to get them fit to fight again!

The teeth-arms are provided by a wobbly shield-wall of five; four legionaries and another Centurion looking-chap! The most notable thing about them is how bloody happy they all look, it's like they are on a day's training and someone just said Biggus Dickus after being told not to! In fact; several of them look like Michael Palin!

And if twelve separate posed large'ish figures weren't enough, we get four mounted soldiers, of whom one is clearly roman and carrying rank, a legate or something, there's almost too many 'officers' in this set!

His cloak however leaves a lot to be desired, having not been designed to take the high rim of his saddle into account, so he doesn't sit well - and I tried him with all four horses!

The other three seem to have been recruited from the Atlantic Trojan school of toy soldiering though! If you were to add a flowing horse-hair mane to that high, curved metalwork, they might make nice Arthurian cavalry? However they have to a certain extent had their cloak-tails designed to fit the saddles, although you do need to try them on different horses to get the best fit.

All four mounted figures (like Schleich or Papo) can fight dismounted and stand-up well, even on a furry surface. The guy in a breast-plate/cuirass is carrying a rolled scroll, not a dagger! Another 'officer'!

The horses are the 'standard' medieval hoses we have seen here at Small Scale World several times and in several sizes, the two with asymmetrical bases seeming the commoner, both from Supreme and the various pirates, than the two with oblong bases.

There was an issue in silver polymer with gold paint, from the flesh paint on the legs (lacking in the red set) there's a suggestion they were an earlier issue, but the card says both were contiguous? That's it, Supreme's Romans!

2nd April the same year - Nice to see the PSTSM were collectively following things here! 

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!