Battle of Waterloo Attack on La Haye Sainte Farm by Old Collingwood - 1/56 (28mm)

[Old Collingwood]

1 minute ago, mtaylor said:

I can understand putting it off a bit.  I would also think you'd want as many troops as possible to make sure it all fits and looks right.

Indeed  - I am hoping for over 100  possibly  close to 150   made 44  so far.

 

OC.

[Edwardkenway]

Looks good OC, your detailing is great, will the standard bearer have just the Eagle or have the colours attached?

[Kevin]

going to look fantastic when complete

 

[Canute]

Loos good, OC. Doing the French color guard, will look great.

[Old Collingwood]

7 hours ago, Edwardkenway said:

Looks good OC, your detailing is great, will the standard bearer have just the Eagle or have the colours attached?

Hi Edward,  thank you kindly,    there is  group  of Paper flags in the box with my Perry French Infantry the only thing is  there is no 54th or 55th infantry flag  - or I could go and search to see if anyone does the exact one  on the net.

 

OC.

[Old Collingwood]

6 hours ago, Kevin said:

going to look fantastic when complete

 

Thank you so much Kevin.

 

OC.

[Old Collingwood]

5 hours ago, Canute said:

Loos good, OC. Doing the French color guard, will look great.

Thank you  Ken,    hopefully  the mass of them but with some very different poses  will look quite good,

 

OC.

[Old Collingwood]

I have found and brought some  - again paper flags that fold and glue around the pole  but at least they are  54th and 55th  ligne reg.

 

OC.

[CDW]

Beautiful paint work OC. Takes a steady hand to do that.

 

Can you imagine marching out on the battlefield armed with a drum while everyone around you are shooting and being shot with rifles, cleaved with swords and bayonettes?? 

[Old Collingwood]

9 minutes ago, CDW said:

Beautiful paint work OC. Takes a steady hand to do that.

 

Can you imagine marching out on the battlefield armed with a drum while everyone around you are shooting and being shot with rifles, cleaved with swords and bayonettes?? 

Thank you kindly Craig,     indeed  also  to think a lot of them were just young boys as well.

 

OC.

[Canute]

The guys in the Color Guard were very exposed, since they had the national and unit flags. They were the rally points for their units. Life expectancy wasn't too good.

[Old Collingwood]

6 minutes ago, Canute said:

The guys in the Color Guard were very exposed, since they had the national and unit flags. They were the rally points for their units. Life expectancy wasn't too good.

Indeed Ken, at LHS  I know  there was Two whole divisions  sent against the KGL  something like 2000 French  and about 700  Cuirassier's   and of course they kept re grouping  and trying again  till they over powered  the KGL  who had run short of ammo.

 

OC.

[Roger Pellett]

I recently read an excellent account of the American Revolutionary War battle of Monmouth Court House.  This was a complicated battle fought over difficult terrain with overall command the responsibility of two Generals; first Charles Lee and later George Washington. 

 

The author does an excellent job of illustrating the difficulty that the generals had delivering orders to unit commanders as aides could often not find them.  Unit flags could be used to mark the location of the Unit Commanders.  By the Civil War, the Union Army had a system of unit commander flags specifically used to mark his location.

 

In modern jargon these flags were early command and control devices.

 

Roger

[allanyed]

I lived about 4 miles from the battle grounds for over 30 years and the terrain is really not bad compared to Pennsylvania and New York as there are only small hills and valleys so this seems unusual unless this was a habitual problem at that time regardless of the terrain.  Then again, the roads meander with no straight lines even today so it was probably worse back then getting around with whatever roads and paths that existed.  There are a few streams but no rivers and such to use as land marks which could have added to the difficulty.  Could you direct us to where we can find this account?  Right next to the battle grounds is what is now called the Molly Pitcher creek, the nickname for Mary Ludwig Hays who reputedly brought water to the colonial soldiers, including her husband. 

Allan 

Edited June 9, 2021 by allanyed

[Roger Pellett]

Allen,

 

The Book is Fatal Sunday by Mark Lender and Garry Stone.  

 

There are are plenty of other battles where  “someone didn’t get the word.  I also recently read an account of the Battle of Blenheim.  At one point in the battle the English commander John Churchill was badly pressed by the French and requested help from a neighboring Imperial unit.  It’s Commander refused because he had no orders from Prince Eugene, the commander of his wing.  Valuable time was wasted trying to find the Prince who was leading an attack over broken ground on the other side of the battlefield.

 

Roger

[Old Collingwood]

Thank you Roger and Allan, some  good info there  that shows on a busy noisy battlefeild  - flags  were an important  visual  to left  people whow what and were they are.

 

OC.

[Baker]

Nice to follow.

And great paintwork on the the figures 

[Egilman]

6 hours ago, allanyed said:

I lived about 4 miles from the battle grounds for over 30 years and the terrain is really not bad compared to Pennsylvania and New York as there are only small hills and valleys so this seems unusual unless this was a habitual problem at that time regardless of the terrain.  Then again, the roads meander with no straight lines even today so it was probably worse back then getting around with whatever roads and paths that existed.  There are a few streams but no rivers and such to use as land marks which could have added to the difficulty. 

Know your terrain, it's drilled into you from the first day of TAC school....  One of ideals they hammered into your brain, trust your maps, learn to use them, all else fails and you don't have a map, scout the terrain..... (or plan on living under it) But then the next ideal they drill into you, follow the plan, with one caveat, when the balloon goes up, (first shots are exchanged) throw the op plan in the trash, it can change in a micro second, prepare to adapt to change.... (that's when ideal #1 becomes most important)

 

Order of priority, your men, your mission, you never forget the two, you never want the troops to gain permanent knowledge of the terrain.... Preserve the first to gain the second....

 

With the comms used today, the live training they undergo, it's all designed to reduce the confusion on the battlefield......

 

I don't think there is anyone today who can truly understand maneuver warfare of the early 19th century, most troops today would consider it suicide...

[Roger Pellett]

There were a number of battles in American History that began as Meeting Engagements where one or both sides did not have time to scope out the terrain; Braddock at the Monongahela, Lee and Washington at Monmouth, Grant in the Wilderness, Lee at Gettysburg.  In many of these cases a lack of maps and difficulty of American wilderness terrain was a contributing factor.

 

Contrast with European experience.  During the Blenheim Campaign, military engineers on both sides were assigned the task of surveying the terrain to decide where battles could be fought to advantage.

 

Roger

[Old Collingwood]

9 hours ago, Backer said:

Nice to follow.

And great paintwork on the the figures 

Thank you Patrick,  welcome to my little world.

 

OC.

[Egilman]

6 hours ago, Roger Pellett said:

There were a number of battles in American History that began as Meeting Engagements where one or both sides did not have time to scope out the terrain; Braddock at the Monongahela, Lee and Washington at Monmouth, Grant in the Wilderness, Lee at Gettysburg.  In many of these cases a lack of maps and difficulty of American wilderness terrain was a contributing factor.

 

Contrast with European experience.  During the Blenheim Campaign, military engineers on both sides were assigned the task of surveying the terrain to decide where battles could be fought to advantage.

 

Roger

Lee at Gettysburg is a lot like Nappy at Waterloo, Lee became so enamored at all his successes he lost track of the risks he had to take to achieve those victories, and the third day was a complete waste of very fine troops.... Napoleon at Waterloo did essentially the same thing, he took a huge gamble and lost....

 

Both wars were lost right there, but unlike Waterloo, Gettysburg wasn't the final battle, but it was the battle that lost the war for the south.....

 

AS far as European scraps of dirt being fought over by armies, I swear there is a military monograph written about every single mound, hillock and valley, and how to either attack or defend it.... Not just the engineers devising plans for a battle, the military historians documenting it afterwards as well.... That's why all the great military schools were located in either France, England or Germany prior to WWI..... I don't believe there is a square inch of European soil that hasn't been fought over by armies at one point in time or another and then analyzed to death a couple of dozen times over.....

Edited June 9, 2021 by Egilman

[mtaylor]

Both Lee and Napoleon were not at the top of their game, so speak.  Both were having physical issues.  If they hadn't had those issues, it's possible things would have turned out differently.   

 

For example, Lee was waiting for Longstreet (if I recall correctly) to show up as he wanted him to take and hold the Round Tops instead of the generals he had with him.  He waited and lost any advantage as the Union was able to occupy them first. 

[Egilman]

12 hours ago, mtaylor said:

Lee was waiting for Longstreet (if I recall correctly) to show up as he wanted him to take and hold the Round Tops instead of the generals he had with him.  He waited and lost any advantage as the Union was able to occupy them first. 

Lee didn't wait, it was Longstreet who waited for the rest of his Corps to arrive after receiving the orders from Lee at about 10:00am, his attack started at 4:00 pm and by that time the Round Tops had been reinforced.... If Longstreet had attacked with half his Corps when Lee had ordered it, the hills would have easily been taken.... And with Longstreet's heavy artillery on them and his infantry fortifying the hills against any counterattack, they would have decimated the Union lines on the ridge.... Even after the wait to get organized, Longstreet almost pulled it off except for Chamberlain's last ditch orders for a wheeling bayonet charge down the hill into Longstreet's flank with the last of his reserves.... Setup a crossfire on the confederates that no army could withstand.... Lee was so angry with Longstreet that he left him out of the battle after that.... The next evening, instead of flanking the round tops he ordered his last reserves, Picketts division, to execute an exposed frontal assault in the morning against the now heavily fortified ridge, and Burnsides troops cut them to ribbons....

 

It was Lee's fault that he didn't impress the need for immediate action at speed on Longstreet.... And his angry arrogance caused him to make his biggest blunder of the war. Lee wasn't the same after that.....

Edited June 10, 2021 by Egilman

[Canute]

Pickett et al attacked the 2nd Corps of the Union army. capably led by MG Winfield S Hancock. On the third day at Gettysburg, he was hit towards the end of the attack on the Copse of Trees (Pickett's Charge) and stayed on the field until the Rebs withdrew. The wound festered and he recovered over time. A saddle nail lodged in his groin.  He never was the bold aggressive commander afterwards that he had been prior to and at Gettysburg. He held together the various detachments of the Union forces on the first day and picked the location south of the town to defend. On the second day at Gettysburg, he fed various troops into line on towards the Round Tops to prevent Longstreet's Alabamians rolling up the Union line. I'm a fan and have spent a number of days traveling all over that battlefield. Like EG said, it was the high water mark for the Confederacy. As you can see I'm a big fan.😁

 

And sorry if I co-opted your log, OC.

[Old Collingwood]

2 hours ago, Canute said:

Pickett et al attacked the 2nd Corps of the Union army. capably led by MG Winfield S Hancock. On the third day at Gettysburg, he was hit towards the end of the attack on the Copse of Trees (Pickett's Charge) and stayed on the field until the Rebs withdrew. The wound festered and he recovered over time. A saddle nail lodged in his groin.  He never was the bold aggressive commander afterwards that he had been prior to and at Gettysburg. He held together the various detachments of the Union forces on the first day and picked the location south of the town to defend. On the second day at Gettysburg, he fed various troops into line on towards the Round Tops to prevent Longstreet's Alabamians rolling up the Union line. I'm a fan and have spent a number of days traveling all over that battlefield. Like EG said, it was the high water mark for the Confederacy. As you can see I'm a big fan.😁

 

And sorry if I co-opted your log, OC.

No problem Ken,  I am not  as learned  on the  American Wars   - I did have the  Airfix figures as a kid  but that was about it.

 

OC.

[Canute]

General leaning into historical issues, living in the vicinity of some of the battle locations and taking Air War College by seminar got me deeply into the topic. My real interest is the cavalry activities of both sides in our ACW.

[Old Collingwood]

37 minutes ago, Canute said:

General leaning into historical issues, living in the vicinity of some of the battle locations and taking Air War College by seminar got me deeply into the topic. My real interest is the cavalry activities of both sides in our ACW.

Its great when  we have an interest that  Leeds us into  a build  - mine was  from  both the English Civil War  from the 1760's  (going to see a live re-enactment at a castle)   and  my Airfix Waterloo  soldiers  - definitely fuelled my interest doing this.

 

OC.

[Roger Pellett]

Ken,

 

I too am interested in Civil War Cavalry operations because my great grandfather James H. Speer served in the 7th Ohio Cavalry from September 1862 when the regiment was formed until he was discharged as disabled in January 1865. 

 

The Unit was nicknamed “The River Regiment” as the men came from the Southern Ohio counties bordering the Ohio River.  The regiment fought exclusively in the Western Theatre.  A detachment from the 7th Ohio captured Morgan and his men when they raided Southern Ohio.  Later it served in the siege of Atlanta.  In December 1864 it fought in the campaign to turn back Hood’s invasion of Western Tennessee.  Dismounted, they were part of the Union right flank assigned to turn Hood’s left, and mounted pursued Hood’s defeated columns after the battle.

 

As he was discharged with a disability approximately a month after the battle, I have wondered if he was wounded.  He died in 1893 and is buried at the Ohio Soldiers and Sailors Home in Sandusky, Ohio.

 

Roger

[Egilman]

4 hours ago, Canute said:

it was the high water mark for the Confederacy. As you can see I'm a big fan.😁

 

And sorry if I co-opted your log, OC.

And if Longstreet has succeeded, it would have ended the war, on political grounds not military grounds..... There was a lot of talk going on about a negotiated settlement.... The Confederates seemed to be winning all the major battles..... Military grounds would have taken a lot longer without the political will to fight.... Don't get me wrong, the Union was going to win that war even before it started.... The South was 100% mobilized in the fight, the North was never more than 35% mobilized.... The south needed to take long chances the north didn't, and the war was over when Lincoln found a general that understood this one fact.... Shelby Foote said it well, the North fought that war with one arm behind it's back, when they finally decided to take the other arm out the war was over in less than a year.... At the end of the Civil War the US Army was the largest, most battle hardened, well equipped army on the planet.....

 

And every one on the planet that was paying attention knew it....

 

And yes I'm sorry as well OC for the de-rail.... The ACW is a subject with many, many facets..... The first truly modern war, at least in it's strategic considerations and how they drove the tactics.... 

 

A hard subject not to talk about....

[Old Collingwood]

1 hour ago, Egilman said:

And if Longstreet has succeeded, it would have ended the war, on political grounds not military grounds..... There was a lot of talk going on about a negotiated settlement.... The Confederates seemed to be winning all the major battles..... Military grounds would have taken a lot longer without the political will to fight.... Don't get me wrong, the Union was going to win that war even before it started.... The South was 100% mobilized in the fight, the North was never more than 35% mobilized.... The south needed to take long chances the north didn't, and the war was over when Lincoln found a general that understood this one fact.... Shelby Foote said it well, the North fought that war with one arm behind it's back, when they finally decided to take the other arm out the war was over in less than a year.... At the end of the Civil War the US Army was the largest, most battle hardened, well equipped army on the planet.....

 

And every one on the planet that was paying attention knew it....

 

And yes I'm sorry as well OC for the de-rail.... The ACW is a subject with many, many facets..... The first truly modern war, at least in it's strategic considerations and how they drove the tactics.... 

 

A hard subject not to talk about....

No problem at all brother  its just a subject I can't  comment  much on as I do not have  very much knowledge  of the ACW, I know there was a film/series on TV  "North and South"   not sure how realistic that was.

 

OC.