Forthcoming Saxon artillery book

I’ve been having an occasional correspondence with Stephen Summerfield over the last couple of months as he’s been putting the final touches to his next book. Over the weekend, I received final publication details from Stephen along with a PDF of some sample pages.

The book is entitled Saxon Artillery 1733-1827 and will be published by Partizan Press, hopefully this coming December though the run-in to Christmas might affect that date. When Stephen started on this book, it was envisaged as an 80-90 page paperback but it has grown into a 216 page hardback monster. The cover blurb reads:

The strong links of Saxony with the Polish crown caused her to become the battleground for the competing powers of Austria, Prussia and Russia for centuries. Efficient artillery was essential but in the 1740s was
neglected due to the prohibitive costs of ordnance and maintaining a standing army. This contributed by the annexation of Saxony by Frederick the Great in 1756 and the absorption of her soldiers into the Prussian Army. The remnants of the Saxon Army fought with distinction with their Austrian and French allies.

This unhappy experience of the Seven Years War (1756-63) led to the M1766 Hoyer system that was first used in the War of Bavarian Succession (1777-78). The gun carriage and elevating system of the M1766 4-pdr Schnellfeuergeschütz regimental gun probably influenced the design of the Austrian M1780 Wurst guns. The M1766 Granadstück based upon the Russian Unicorn was a long barrelled howitzer that could fire an early form of spherical case [Shrapnel].

The 1809 campaign showed the Saxon Army and its ordnance had to be transformed from that suited for 18th Century to Napoleonic warfare. The main influence on the M1810 gun tubes was the French AnXI with the carriages derived from those of the Saxon M1766 Hoyer System. These excellent guns performed well in 1812 and especially at Gross Beeren (23 August 1813) where they dismounted 9 Prussian guns.

The century of Saxon ordnance development is illustrated with 66x 1:24 scale plans, 64x 1:30 scale plans and 64 details drawn from contemporary sources. These are enhanced by 34 photographs, 38 contemporary plates and 32 uniform plates with 78 separate uniforms shown in colour. In addition there are 3 maps, 34 OOBs and 22 tables.

So you can see that the scope of this work is extensive. If the sheer scale of this book and the fact that it covers a period far greater than the Napoleonic wars puts you off purchasing, then there’s another option open to you. Stephen has been working with figure painter Ged Cronin to produce a series of colour plates/plans of Napoleonic Saxon artillery equipment. Some of ther plates are 1:60 scale and some are 1:24 scale and they come with a variety of additional notes and historical uniform plates. Contact Ged for more details.

A game of musical figures

At some point in the next day or two I’m going to remove the link to The Assault Group and replace it with one to Alban Miniatures. Why? Well, rest assured, it’s not because I’ve had a tiff with the boys at TAG. Nope, rather it’s because TAG has just sold its Richard Ansell-sculpted range of Napoleonic 1809 Austrians and Saxons to Alban, so they won’t any longer have anything of relevance to BfK in their product range.

To be honest, this change ownership doesn’t come as much of a surprise to me. Progress on new releases for the range has been painfully slow and the fact that Ansell also scuplts Napoleonic figures for Alban makes this a natural move. I wish all concerned a fruitful future.

Perry French Imperial Guard horse artillery greens

Perry French line horse artillery greens

Meanwhile, one range that seems to keep growing faster than a weed in a compost heap is the Perry Napoleonic range. The latest additions are set to be French horse artillery of both the line and Imperial Guard varieties. I do have a soft-spot for artillery, especially if the crews offer a good range of poses and all those little extras like caissions are covered. I’ve included a couple of shots of the greens for your enjoyment.

Of course, I’ll be resisting this particular temptation because Calpe Saxon artillery is on my horizon.

Calpe Saxon artillery pieces

Calpe Saxon 6-pdr cannon

I’ve finally found time and daylight enough to do some photography this weekend. So the first items I wanted to share were a couple of pictures of the forthcoming Calpe range of Saxon artillery ordnance. The history of Saxon artillery is fascinating and the pieces themselves are highly distinctive with a number of unusual design features. If you’re interested, I recommend the brief introductory section in Napoleonic Artillery by Dawson, Dawson and Summerfield. If that whets you appetite, look out for Stephen Summerfield’s new book Saxon Artillery 1737-1827 which is due to be published by Caliver Books on 1st October.

The two sample castings I have from Peter F. are examples of the M1810 Raabe System of artillery, so-called because the co-leader of the design team was one Major Raabe. This system included a 12-pounder cannon, a 6-pounder cannon and an 8-inch howitzer. The picture above illustrates the Calpe castings that make up the 6-pounder cannon. You can see that the parts include the conventional separate parts for the wheels, carriage and gun tube. In addition there’s a U-shaped piece that fits onto two recesses cast at the back end of the carriage. This piece holds the sizeable trailspike in place when the cannon is assembled.

Calpe Saxon 8-in howitzer

This second picture shows the parts for the 8-inch howitzer. Broadly speaking, it’s the same breakdown of parts with the obvious difference being the gun tube. Peter F. is thinking of writing some assembly instructions to go with these pieces because there are a couple of points to note. For example, the wheels have mudguards on them which must be positioned at the top when assembled. Although Peter F. has made the production moulds for these pieces, the impatient among you will have to wait a little while before you can buy them. Peter has yet to sculpt the crew figures and is currently finishing off the march-attack line grenadiers before switching attention to the artillery crews.

Finally, a note on colour schemes: wooden parts were painted black (or a very dark grey); metal fittings were bronze (sometimes mistakenly reported as being painted yellow).

A rainy afternoon in the shed of arcane delights

I’ve just spent several days away from home visiting my sister and her family. By happy coincidence, she lives only a 30 minute drive from Calpe Towers. So, on Saturday afternoon I met up with Peter F. for a bit of a chinwag. Peter’s writing a formal announcement about progress but ahead of that I’d like to share a few things we discussed and looked at together.

Firstly, Peter has received samples of the new GMB Saxon flags from Grahame. These flags are certainly intricate items and Grahame obviously put a lot of time into them. I’ve seen four different packs for four of the infantry regiments though the catalogue numbers indicate that all the regiments will be covered; each pack includes two flags – an “Avancierfahne” for the first battalion and a “Retirierfahne” for the second battalion. The flags are based on the pattern issued in 1811 which has the merit of being easier to research accurately but, if you’re a stickler, begs the question of what flags were carried by units in 1813. That’s because many Saxon flags were lost in Russia during 1812. I think there are three possible answers to that conundrum: a). some units may not have carried a flag ; b). some units had replicas of their 1811 flags produced and issued or c). some units reverted to use of pre-1811 flags. But which unit did what is a matter of conjecture for me at present and would require significant research to resolve.

Putting such quibbles aside, these GMB flags are beautiful pieces of work and I don’t think you’d find many people with the requisite knowledge to object if you chose to issue them to your 1813 Saxon infantry battalions.

The next Prussian release from Calpe will be a set of four mounted high command figures. I think they are supposed to represent four specific senior Prussian commanders but I ran out of time to ask Peter which ones. One looks rather like Yorck to me and you can bet your bottom dollar that one will be Peter’s favourite Prussian general Bulow but I’ve no idea about the other two. I’ll aim to post photos of my samples here later in the week so that you can make your own guesses ahead of Peter’s official release notes.

I had been hoping to inspect the full set of greens for the Saxon march attack line musketeers set but they were away from Calpe Towers for mould making. I’m not going to dwell on the details of the mould making saga here because I think that’s something best covered by Peter in his forthcoming official announcement. But what I do feel able to talk about is some of the castings I’ve seen. Previously, I’ve shown photos of three of the figures in covered shakos here on BfK. In addition to those, I’ve now seen castings of two NCOs (one enthusiastically urging colleagues forward; the other marching with a blanket roll worn bandolier style); a standard bearer, a drummer and a sapper. All five are really handsome looking fellows. I’ve also seen WIP on the sculpting for three mounted officers: one in a bicorn with his sword arm held high; a second in a covered shako with a shouldered sword and the last in an uncovered shako holding his sword across his chest. I think the latter is my current favourite.

Aside from Saxon musketeers, Peter’s done a huge amount of research on Saxon artillery pieces with the help of Dr. Stephen Summerfield (co-author of the recent treatise Napoleonic Artillery). They’ve uncovered a significant amount of source material, drawings, photographs and illustrations that supercedes all previous English-language understanding of Saxon artillery. Saxon equipment is very distinctive with several unique and surprising features while still being designed to use the same ammunition as the French artillery of the period. Using this data, Peter briefed the supplier he usually uses to construct artillery pieces to produce a howitzer, an 8-pounder 6-pounder cannon and a 12-pounder cannon. I’ve seen castings for all three – they’re very impressive indeed and I reckon they’ll cause quite stir when they get released. Meanwhile, research work is in progress for both limbers and caissions.

Finally, while we’re on the subject of artillery source material, Summerfield and Dawson have worked together again on a new book about French artillery published by DP & G Military Publishers. The book has the slightly misleading title of French Artillery of 1824 but it actually covers the Napoleonic period. It’s quite a hardback epic at 300 pages of A4 with 51 line diagrams and 14 colour plates!