This is the first of the two Napoleonic Dutch-Belgian cavalry regiments I have to paint for the Waterloo demo game at Salute. This regiment was brigaded with the Dutch 6th Hussars in van Merlen's 2nd Light Brigade. The brigade was engaged at Quatre Bras, where it charged at a vital moment to cover the withdrawal of Dutch-Belgian infantry and buy the Allies some time, suffering considerable losses in the process. The brigade fought again at Waterloo, where van Merlen himself was killed. According to the Osprey "Wellington's Dutch Allies 1815", the 5th Dragoons lost 36 per cent of their strength during the Hundred Days' campaign.
I painted the tunics with the Foundry "Bottle Green" palette, sticking to just the "A" and "B" colours and then using as a third layer the "B" colour mixed with "Bright Green A". This is the same combination I have been using for the Guard Chasseurs of Napoleon's escort, and given the Belgians' yellow facings and shako shape I can see how they could easily have been mistaken for French chasseurs on a smokey battlefield. I decided to mix the horse colours up a bit. For the 6th Hussars I am giving each squadron its own horse colour.
18 figures. Painted January-February 2007.
2 comments:
Love them. I am starting on painting some Perry Jagers as my first Napoleonic unit since.. 1974 (they were Airfix highlanders!0
I stumbled upon your blog while looking for images of Gemioncourt and Quatre Bras. I notice that your Dutch-Belgian officers are in green but the period references I've read indicated that they wore dark blue. Naturally, I'm concerned that I've got it wrong and suspect that you've spent much more time researching this than I have. May I ask you to help a poor novelist out with a good reference for Belgian uniforms of the period?
Many thanks.
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