News trickling out from the Towers

Calpe Pack P22: march-attack Prussian musketeers.

Calpe Pack P23: march-attack Prussian musketeers, head variants.

After a hiatus almost as long as mine, the 2014 Calpe Towers release juggernaut is ready to roll. Peter F. has had to content with some rubber-related troubles over the last couple of months (sorry, I couldn’t resist that little double entendre opportunity) because his long standing supplier is no more. After trialling a variety of replacements, you can now expect new packs to start becoming available on the website very soon. Are they French, Prussian or Saxon? The answer is: all three!

The immediate focus will be completion of the French march-attack infantry set with packs for voltigeurs and grenadiers with their coats down followed by various command packs. Then there are some Prussian infantry march attack packs and a selection of Saxon infantry packs. Peter’s complete predicted order of priority for work is as follows:

• Finish, the French march-attack set.
• Finish the Prussian march-attack set.
• Finish the Saxon advancing set.
• Finish work on the French gunners.
• Finish work on the Saxon gunners.

Calpe Pack S1: advancing Saxon musketeers with covered shakos.

Calpe Pack S2: advancing Saxon musketeers with calfskin shako covers.

Calpe Pack S3: advancing Saxon musketeers with uncovered shakos.

I think you should see some packs on the website later this week or early next week because Peter has been frantically taking pictures, photoshopping them and writing the blurb to go with the packs. Indeed, some of them already appear to be there! If I’ve got my sums right, there are three Saxon musketeer advancing packs (S1, S2 and S3 – not to be confused with the “old” Saxon packs) and a couple of Prussian musketeer march-attack packs (P22 and P23) already mustered for duty.

Osprey book vote

Over at Osprey Publishing, there’s one of their periodic book votes where people are invited to express their preference for which book they’d like to see published. One of the current candidates is a new Men-at-Arms book entitled “The Army of the Kingdom of Saxony 1810–13”. Let’s just say that it would make me and some friends of mine very happy if this particular suggestion were to get your support. Especially since it’s lagging behind in fourth place at the time of writing 😦

A couple of recommendations

Just a couple of disparate but potentially interesting things I’ve come across over the last week or so.

Firstly, for TV viewers in the UK, BBC4 offered a rare Prussian history treat this week with a documentary about Frederick the Great. Obviously the time period is slightly earlier than the one in which I’m mainly interested but you can’t really understand the Prussia of the Napoleonic period without some background about how it was shaped by Alte Fritz. This programme was a real eye-opener for me and I thoroughly recommend it. If you missed it, you can still catch it on BBC iPlayer until 10th December 2010.

The other tasty morsel is the latest (second) issue of Digby Smith’s and Stephen Summerfield’s Smoothbore Ordnance Journal. There’s a lot of fascinating articles for artillery fans in this issue but the highlight for me is this article entitled Saxon Horse Artillery 1810-15.

Another batch of Saxon resources

Trumpeter of the Prinz Clemenz uhlan regiment

I’m gradually getting there with the slow process of making my Saxon Army Resources available. The latest additions are 18 illustrations from the extensive German cigarette card collection of German uniforms created by Herbert Knötel and Martin Lezius. There are a couple of unusual and interesting ones in this set that cover troops I’ve not seen illustrated elsewhere. These include a drum-amjor of the Konig regiment, a trumpeter of the Prinz Clemenz uhlans wearing a Polish-style czapska, a standard bearer of the von Polenz chevaulegers and an artillery train soldier.

Plenty to enjoy!