woensdag 12 november 2014

Siege of Willemstad 1793


The look of a French battery at the siege of Willemstad, netherlands, 1793.

Which is an interesting picture as it shows various methods to bombard a city.
On the right the big bombards/houwitzers with their caracteristic fused bombs. In the middle "normal" siege guns which are probably using heated cannonballs as on the left cannonballs are heated to cause fire in the city.
For me it was new, that this last method was used against cities. I thought they were only used for shore batteries against ships.

A sortie against a French battery by the Dutch garrison.

This depicts the sortie on Friday, 15th march 1793 when in total 58 men (3 officers, two sergeants, 2 corporals, 6 artillery men and 45 men) attacked a French battery killing almost all French and made 3 siege guns unusable.

The troops came from the garrison battalions (1st Saksen-Gotha, batallion Bosc de la Calmette).
As the grenadiers of both battalions used bearskin the grenadiers in the back with (probably) mitres are portrayed wrong.

Book about the Dutch Army 1793-1810

Already some time ago, a book appeared on the market called "Dutch troops of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars 1793-1810" by George Street and Karim van Overmeire.

Long overdue as Dutch troops fought from 1793 up to 1795 against French troops; from 1795 onwards were allied to the French (even becomming part of the French Empire in 1810) and after 1813 were fighting again against France.
Is there new material in the book? Well yes, when you haven't acces to (mostly) Dutch books of this period and for these, imho the book is a good addition to any library about this period.

For me was it a surprise that a lot of material of the earlier period (1793-1795) was taken from our "Alde Garde" website; as is is free information this is fine, a simple mail that they intend to do that I had appreciated more.

But, as I said before, get the book

dinsdag 11 november 2014

Latest 25mm additons by Trent

On the north Star site  appeared three new packs of Trent figures. A new part of the French Revolutionary range called "French Internal Range" and usable for the Vendee or Chouan rebellion and maybe for more uprisings in the aerlier period of the FR.
Possible also usable for the Irish 1798 period?


Imho, these are looking nice.
Hopefully this will lead for more figures of the earlier 1792-1795 period (hint, hint)