Wip FPW Dragoons - Inspiration to realisation

[Leman]

Whilst reading The Somme 1870-71 I came across an illustration of dismounted French dragoons in the Army of the North and decided to have a go at making some:




Looking through web based catalogues I came across Cracker Line 10mm ACW figures, supplied by Timecast, which had two codes of Union infantry firing line in greatcoat and Union infantry command in greatcoat. I had a look at these and decided they were close enough, owing to the greatcoat having a cape. I was more interested in doing a representation of dismounted winter dragoons rather than going for complette accuracy, with an unbelted and undone greatcoat. Consequently I cut the heads off 8 figures and attached dragoon heads. Some of the removed heads, wearing kepis, have been attached to the headless dragoons to produce a small number of mounted gendarmes. Greenstuff was used to complete the horsehair plumes once the dragoon heads were attached to the infantry bodies. Good quality Loctite superglue was used, as well as additional bonding from the Greenstuff. the rifles were also cut down to carbines, especially as most of them had bayonets. some of the kepi wearing infantry were kept as the were:




Finally the standard bearer from the command pack was used as a horseholder with some of the Pendraken generic standing horses. The standard bearer figure comes without a standard pole. He seemed quite small compared to the horses, so when complete I shall mount him on a separate small base before basing with the horses.:

[Steve J]

Looking good so far .

[Chris Pringle]

Very creative! Nice job!

And as well as at St Quentin, you could also use them if you ever fight Bazaine's abortive attempted breakout from Metz at Noisseville. My notes say this battle "saw a rare instance of French cavalry dismounting to fight as infantry, when Clérembault's dragoon division attacked first Colombey, then Coincy".

Hope you'll post some pics of them when they're ready for action in due course.

Chris

[Leman]

Thanks for the extra bit of info Chris. Working on them at the moment, whilst the tiny buildings in the background are bering worked on for Spicheren in 6mm. Next week at the club Shiloh to try out BBB.

[Subedai]

They are really good and I can't wait to see them finished. I reckon any historical inaccuracy with be offset by the conversions and paintjob. 

[getagrip]

Really subtle and effective piece of sculpting; nice job

[Leman]

The inaccuracy mainly comes from the pouches and water bottles, but scraping them off seemed to be too onerous and could have spoiled the figures, epecially as sculpting is not something I have a lot of experience in.

[Techno]

Good job, Bob !!
Cheers - Phil

[Maenoferren]

Looking good.
The ACW horses are huge. I had some in my Sudan army and to be honest I did the same as you. Mounted an infantryman on a cut up 2mm base to make him fit in a bit better. Not got a problem with tall horses, I have ridden 17.2's.

[Leman]

A couple of shots of the completed mounted dragoons for Amiens.

[getagrip]

Nice job Leman; great to see a start to finish project 

[Leman]

Yes, very true. The dismounted versions should be done over the next few days.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Superbly nice

[paulr]

 

[Techno]

You should be very proud of those, Bob !
Great job ! 
Cheers - Phil