Wednesday 6 October 2021

New - 1866 Hanoverians

Why not? Easy really. Hanover was out on a limb and quickly overrun by the Prussians but still gave them a bloody nose at Langenseltza before being forced to surrender as they were surrounded and out of ammunition and supplies. These figures are by 1866 Miniatures, from Company D, and are chunky but very nice. My only quibble is that the infantry should I believe be wearing short brown leather leggings. Not a problem. The range includes infantry, jäger, artillery, cuirassiers (in parade dress) and dragoons either wearing helmet or field cap. The latter variant are great as they are straight out of The Prisoner of Zelda (now there’s a thought….). The Dragoons in helmets will also do for the cuirassiers in campaign dress as they wisely ditched the white coats, be-plumed picklehaubes and cuirasses for a more sensible attire.

Four battalions of Hanoverian infantry screened by a jäger battalion.  With the addition of a regiment of Hussars or Dragoons and a battery of guns this makes up a brigade as per the 1866 order of battle.

Hanoverians artillery - two batteries of breach loading 4pdr Krupp rifled guns and one of 12pdr smoothbores. Behind them are the Gardes du Corps cuirassier regiment in all their finery.

The entire force, so far.

My favourite unit are these Jäger

I have a command stand or two to start, including the blind King George, a regiment of Dragoons to finish and two battalions of infantry to base up, and I might paint up some spare Prussian Hussars as one of the Hanoverian regiments. Too much cavalry perhaps but  my toys and my fantasy. All my 1866 and 1870 armies are a little bit cavalry heavy, but not by much. The flags are cobbled together from search results on the web. The figures shown were painted by mate Barry and based up by me.

The war was a sad end to the Hanoverian state, which was dismantled and absorbed along with army into the Kingdom of Prussia. The ‘new’ Prussian regiments were allowed to keep their old Hanoverian traditions, which goes to explain why in WW1 there were ‘Prussian’ regiments with ‘Gibraltar’ badges on their cuffs.


9 comments:

  1. I like the oval stands for the skirmishing jaegers- a unique apporach.

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  2. I too had the complaint on leggings. I ended up taking my Dremel tool, a file and some greenstuff and modifying what is my guard infantry unit. I also added a few beards. They came out looking nice and weren't to difficult to do in the sense of time and effort.

    Now I need to find suitable hussars. Maybe Perry Invervention FOrce minis I'm guessing

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    1. I’m afraid that I couldn’t face filing down 120+ infantry just for their leggings. I’d not thought about the Perry intervention Hussars. Good tip.

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  3. Always a treat to find figures from a period or army you're unaware
    ?!

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  4. A splendid force there Colin! Mind, you must stop thrashing Dobbie before the RSPCHE hear of it!

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  5. A beautiful looking force, and great bases too 👍

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  6. Brilliant looking figures Colin. You don't see these on many people's painting table.

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  7. A fine looking force, nice to see the smaller states being represented.

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  8. The smaller European state's armies in the 1850s to 1870s are fascinating subjects. These are lovely figures. Well done.

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