How many flags in an 1809 Austrian Infantry Regiment

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Hi all,
Man this one is a can of worms...
How many standard bearers should I have in an Austro-Hungarian Infantry unit of 45 figures?
I know the unit is real life had 6, what do you reckon for aesthetics, 1 or 2?
Ta

[hammurabi70]

How many do you want?

[1] National flag
[2] Unit flag
[3] Anything else?

One of each; two of each?

[Last Hussar]

Its one per battalion - 1 Lieb, the rest are Ordinaire.

I have 2 per 6 bases - each base 2 rows of 7, with 2 men at back - so 96 men total, 2 rows of 42.  That's a lot of men to lose a flag in. They also represent Regiments. If I use them as battalions I can either drop a base or just go 'sod it'.

My WSS PENDRAKEN troops are 6 x 6 (2 rows of 3) with 2 flags as a Battalion, and they seem fine.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Each set of 45 figures will be a regiment. I suspect 2, but it's pure aesthetics

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

No help - but what looks right

[Westmarcher]

As Last Hussar indicates, the word is that each battalion reverted to only one flag in 1809.

A regiment had three battalions and so the first battalion carried the Leibfahne with the other two carrying Ordinarfahne.

Here's a link to the Warflag website:
https://www.warflag.com/napflags/flaghtml/austria.htm

[Zippee]

Austrian standards:
1792 through to the Mack reforms of 1805 - 2 standards per battalion, 1st btn one leibfahne and 1 ordinarfahne, the other two btns carried a pair of ordinarfahnes.

This changed under the reforms of Mack in 1805, where the btns were reduced to 4 companies and the grenadiers amalgamated into the new 1st leib btn. The decree of 22 June reduced the standards to one per btn. The 1st leib (grenadier) btn carried the leibfahne, the other four btns a single ordinarfahne.

With the failure of the Mack reforms (to what extent they were actually carried out) the situation reverted in 1806-07 to that of 1792-05 (or possibly never really changed)

The reforms of 1808 reduced the standards carried to 1 leibfahne in the 1st (leib) btn and 1 ordinarfahne in the other two btns.

That remained the situation through to the end of the wars.

Grenadier btns (those formed of amalgamated companies from different regiments) only ever carried a single ordinarfahne when they formed once war was declared - this standard usually came from the depot of the senior of the 2 or 3 regiments providing the grenadier contingents. Only in 1805 under the Mack reforms did grenadiers carry a leibfahne.

Jagers never carried flags.

Landwehr either had their own unique and largely unknown provincial flags or more correctly a single ordinarfahne per btn.

Grenzer followed the system of the infantry regiments, initially 2 per btn and then 1. The only difference appears to be that they reduced to 1 standard in 1807 prior to the 1808 reforms.

For our purposes therefore we have:
1792-1801 = 2 flags per btn
1805 = 1 flag per reformed btn (if you believe the reforms were carried out)
1809 - 1815 = 1 flag per btn

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

I'm gonna need a lot more standard bearers! 

[Zippee]

How come?

It can't really be much less than 1 per btn ...

Maybe the real question is what unit does your "45 fig Austro-Hungarian infantry unit" represent? Battalion or Regiment? Even so for 1809 I'd keep it to 1 flag ... unless you have the base set out with three distinct battalions of 15 to look like a deployed regiment, in which case the answer would be 3 I guess 

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

3 x 15s, but as a regiment, so to annoy everyone, I'm your two flags, in the wrong places.

[Zippee]

Thought it might be something along those lines.

You could probably get away with a 'regimental command cluster' a couple of flags and a mtd CO with drummer

[Last Hussar]

Lets get this straight...

You didn't plan

You rushed into it

And now want someone else to solve the problem you caused...

Are you Boris Johnson by any chance?

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Rushed, no, I'm sorry, this is beyond rushed, it's a complete butterfly project!
I don't even own the appropriate Osprey for these figures yet!

[fred.]

Sounds even more like Boris...

[John Cook]

You asked "How many standard bearers should I have in an Austro-Hungarian Infantry unit of 45 figures?"  None at all.  Infantry do not have standards, only cavalry have standards.

An Austrian regiment on war footing had three battalions in 1809, one of which was the depot battalion, and a grenadier division comprising two companies which was detached in war to form combined grenadier battalions with grenadier divisions from other regiments.  In 1808 the number of colours, drapeaux or fahnen, if you speak German or French (never refer to a British regiment's colours as flags though), was reduced to one per battalion.