Indian Mutiny / First Indian War of Independence Project

Started by paulr, 05 July 2022, 01:01:31 AM

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paulr

As some of you will have worked out from my recent questions on the forum and the title of this thread my next project is the Indian Mutiny / First Indian War of Independence.

Leon has priced up my order and I even managed to order two codes as standard packs out of 36 different 'codes'.

I will be using a wing scale variant of Volley & Bayonet with most battalions being two stands of 12 figures each in reasonably open order on 3"x1.5" bases.

I've focused on July - September 1857 and the lead up to the first relief of Lucknow. This gives me a dozen historic battles to refight.

The Company forces are based around Brig-Gen. Henry Havelock's Allahabad Moveable Column and later Oude Field Force. I've also added the cavalry brigade from the second relief of Lucknow. The 109 Allahabad Volunteer Cavalry and 59 mostly Sikhs from the 12th Bengal Irregular Cavalry didn't really provide much of a cavalry arm.

The Indian forces are based on the units said to have been reviewed by Nana Sahib, Peshwa of the Maratha empire, at Cawnpore on 28 June 1857. Bengal Native Infantry, Light Cavalry and Irregular Cavalry, Oudh Irregular Infantry and Cavalry, 'Nowabie regiments', levies, and a great mob of zemindars and badmash.

Lord Lensman of Wellington
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Antioch

What a great period...   Looking forward to seeing your work.

Bob

Steve J

Really looking forward to seeing your work on this Paul :) .

FierceKitty

Quote from: Steve J on 05 July 2022, 06:52:24 AMReally looking forward to seeing your work on this Paul :) .

How many Pauls are there?
I don't drink coffee to wake up. I wake up to drink coffee.

mmcv


Ithoriel


QuoteHow many Pauls are there?

Worldwide? No idea. In New Zealand? Again, no idea.

However, in Sweden ....

6 082 persons have Paul as a first name normally used

First name
6 080 men have Paul as a first name normally used
A total of 18 657 men have Paul as a first name

2 women have Paul as a first name normally used
A total of 20 women have Paul as a first name

Last name
288 persons have Paul as last name

Did you know that the average age for the name Paul is 52.9 years amongst men
There are 100 types of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who can work from incomplete data

FierceKitty

Let us hope this Paul shakes off the load of averages.
I don't drink coffee to wake up. I wake up to drink coffee.

Nick the Lemming

Nice! I don;t suppose you'd be kind enough to post which figures you're using for which units etc?

paulr

HM & Company Commanders
MUB21    Mounted officers (5)
MUB22    Sir Colin Campbell
MUB23    Sir Henry Havelock
MUB7    Lancers Officer
MUB9    Cavalry in tunic and pugree Officer
MUB11    Punjabi cavalry Officer

HM & Company Cavalry
Allahabad Volunteer Cavalry. Capt. Lousada. Barrow, 5th Madras Light Cavalry. (109).
MUB12    Gentleman Horse   
MUB8    Cavalry in shirt and cap
MUB9    Cavalry in tunic and pugree

12th Bengal Irregular Cavalry. A/Capt. Wm. Johnson, 6th BNI. Mostly Sikhs. (59).
MUT12    Bengal irregular cavalry   

HM 9th Lancers. Maj. Henry Ouvry. 2 x sqns. (200, estimate).
MUB7    Lancers

2nd Bn. Military Train. Maj. James Robertson. 2 x sqns. (200).
MUB8    Cavalry in shirt and cap
MUB9    Cavalry in tunic and pugree

1st Punjaub Cavalry. Lt. John Watson. 1 x sqn.
2nd Punjaub Cavalry. Lt. Dighton Probyn. 1 x sqn.
5th Punjaub Cavalry. Lt. George Younghusband, 13th BNI. 1 x sqn.
Hodson's Horse. Lt. Hugh Gough. (160).
MUB11    Punjabi cavalry   

HM & Company Infantry
HM 5th Regiment (Northumberland Fusiliers). Maj. James Simmons. Nos 1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 9, & 10 Coys. (420).
HM 64th (2nd Staffordshire) Regiment.  Maj. Thomas Stirling. (435).
HM 84th (York & Lancaster) Regiment. (With 2 x coys HM 64th under command). Capt. Frederic Willis. [190+227]
1st Madras Fusiliers ('Neill's Bluecaps'). Maj. John Stephenson. [376]
HM 78th Highlanders (Ross-shire Buffs). Lt-Col. Henry Stisted. (26 & 523).
HM 90th (Perthshire Volunteers) (Light Infantry). 7 x coys. Col. Robert Campbell CB. (28 & 646).
MUB2    Infantry in Campaign dress

The 78th Highlanders are sometimes depicted in kilts etc but first-hand accounts contradict this

Ferozepore Regiment (Brasyer's Sikhs). Capt. Jeremiah Brasyer. (341).
MUB3    Sikh Infantry

HM & Company Artillery
Maude's Battery, No. 3 Coy/8th Bn., RA. Capt. Francis Maude. Bullock-drawn field battery. 5 x 9-pdrs, 1 x 24-pdr howitzer.
Olpherts' Battery, No. 2 Coy/3rd Bn., with No. 12 Light Field Battery, Bengal Artillery. Capt Wm.
MUB14    9pdr guns with crew (3)

Eyre's Battery, No. 3 Heavy Field Battery, (No. 1 Coy/5th Bn.), Bengal Artillery. Maj. Vincent
MUB17    24pdr field guns with crew (3)

Indian Leaders
MUT9    Bengal light cavalry, Company dress Officer
MUT10    Bengal light cavalry, civilian dress Officer
MUT12    Bengal irregular cavalry Officer
MUT19    Mounted leader (5)
MUT20    Lakshmibal
MUT21    Tantia Tope

Nowabie, Badmash leaders
MUT8    Feudal command (15)

Indian Cavalry
2nd Bengal Light Cavalry (BLC) complete with elements of 1st BLC and 2 x tps 7th BLC
7th Bengal Light Cavalry (1 x sqn)
MUT9    Bengal light cavalry, Company dress
MUT10    Bengal light cavalry, civilian dress (some)

13th Bengal Irregular Cavalry (BIC), from Azimghur.
14th Bengal Irregular Cavalry (1 x sqn), from Nowong.
MUT12    Bengal irregular cavalry

1st Oudh Irregular Cavalry (OIC), of Lucknow
2nd Oudh Irregular Cavalry (OIC), of Lucknow
MUT12    Bengal irregular cavalry

Nowabie Horse
MUT10    Bengal light cavalry, civilian dress

Indian Infantry
1st Bengal Native Infantry (BNI), of Cawnpore
53rd Bengal Native Infantry (BNI), of Cawnpore
56th Bengal Native Infantry (BNI), of Cawnpore
17th Bengal Native Infantry (BNI), from Azimghur.   
12th Bengal Native Infantry (BNI) (wing), from Nowong.
Elements of 10th BNI from Futteghar. Elements of 6th BNI from Allahabad. Elms 48th BNI (2 x coys).
MUT1    Sepoys in Company dress [some spread across units]
MUT2    Sepoys in civilian dress
MUT4    Ex-Company command in civilian dress (15)

2nd Oude Irregular Infantry   
5th Oude Irregular Infantry   
MUT1    Sepoys in Company dress
MUT3    Ex-Company command in Company dress (15)
   
Three 'Nowabie regiments' from Cawnpore
MUT7    Barkandaze feudal matchlockmen
MUT8    Feudal command (15)

Two half-regiments of newly raised levies from Cawnpore
MUT5    Civilian insurgents / Badmash

Badmash -great mob of zemindars, &c, of neighboring districts, who came well-armed to assist the Nana.'
MUT5    Civilian insurgents / Badmash
MUT6    Ghazi Muslim fighters
MUT7    Barkandaze feudal matchlockmen
MUT8    Feudal command (15)

Indian Artillery
No 1. Field Bty, Oude Irregular Artillery (horse-drawn, 9-pdr equipped)
MUT14    9pdr guns with crew (3)

No. 18 Light Field Battery from Nowong.  (probably horse-drawn, 9-pdr equipped)
MUT15    12pdr Howitzers with crew (3)

Remaining guns: 2 x 6-pdrs, 1 x 12-pdr, 1 x 24-pdr heavy gun, 1 x 10-in mortar, 1 x 5.5 in. brass mortar
MUT17    24pdr field guns with crew (3)

Civilians
MUB20    Bullock carts (2)
MUT24    Indian civilians
MUB25    British Civilians

Lord Lensman of Wellington
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paulr

While I wait patiently for my order to get to the casting dwarfs and make its way to this side of the world I've got a three things to keep me busy on this project

  • Collating my uniform research
  • Further researching the dozen or so battles between Allahabad & Lucknow between July & September 1857 and developing scenarios for them
  • Working on terrain

I've decide to reuse my existing middle-eastern buildings for now rather than source entirely new buildings.

They are currently based on 3" squares for Spearhead and If the Lord Spares Us. This works well for Volley & Bayonet as 'towns' need a 3" square area for units to occupy on a 6"x4" town area. So I've built some 6"x4" sabots with slightly larger than 3" square holes.

I also need some 'villages' which are 3"x2" with an at least 1.5" square area that detachments can occupy. For these I've scratch built some simple buildings out of 2mm cardboard that are very similar to my smallest existing buildings. I've mounted these on one end of the 3"x2" 'village' base.

I've roughly textured them with some spare moulding paste and undercoated them black.
Lord Lensman of Wellington
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Chris Pringle

Nice project, Paul. Best of luck with it, and I look forward to seeing your armies in action!

I know you're happy with V&B, so this reply isn't aimed so much at you as at other potentially interested persons reading this thread (though there might be useful stuff in it for you too):

I hope forum members have enjoyed the occasional reports I've posted of BBB games set in India. If so, and if you fancy trying them yourself, I have good news for you – the scenarios are now available as part of a collection of sixteen covering the 2nd Maratha War, Sikh Wars and Indian Mutiny. See details on the BBBBlog here:
https://bloodybigbattles.blogspot.com/2022/07/newly-published-bloody-big-battles-in.html

paulr

Thanks Chris, I'll have a look

As I've said before our group has reached 'peak rules', we use about a dozen different sets and so adding another set would be very difficult. One of the reasons I went with this project is that we can use the wing scale variant of Volley & Bayonet which we use for AWI with some weapons added

What I have read of BBB is very positive and if we had come across it decades ago when we were looking for a set of large scale Napoleonic rules we may have settled on them rather than V&B
Lord Lensman of Wellington
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Chris Pringle

Similar story with us at OWS, I suppose, Paul - we're so invested in BBB (in terms of everyone knowing the rules, as much as of having all the armies and scenarios geared to it) that if a better set came along tomorrow it would still be hard to change. There's a lot to be said for just having a common workable ruleset that everyone is broadly happy with and familiar enough with that the rules don't get in the way of playing the game. And the nineteenth century offers such variety of wars and weapons that you can be using the same ruleset every week, yet playing very different games.

paulr

I've done a couple of heavy dry brushes on the simple buildings and painted in some wooden door jambs :)

I've also done a couple of coats of base colour on the underside of bases to hopefully limit warping :-SS

I will need a lot of walls (about 20' :o) and have some left over ice block sticks from my ECW hedges. I'll cut these down into a mixture of 3" and 4" lengths as bases. I'll use 2mm cardboard to make the walls and texture them with moulding paste.

I'm not sure how I'm going to handle the corners :-\

Most commercially cast walls I've seen use L shapes for the corners with each leg of the wall being reasonably long. I suspect trying to do this with ice block sticks and cardboard walls will not be strong enough.

The other three options I've thought of are:
  • make small square corner pieces which will be very flexible but at only 10mm square will be fiddly and may be unstable
  • add returns to the end of a number of the wall lengths, this is probably the least flexible (enough of the right length and right direction) but simple and stable
  • cut the ends of the ice block stick bases at 45 degrees on both sides so they can be butted up at 90 degrees at the corners, I'm not sure how this will look when there are several straight sections

Thoughts and suggestions welcome
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