American artillery (8)

This should really be "American artillery (7)", but then that wouldn't include my Rhode Island artillery sets, which were the last American artillery bits I painted, back in 2017. The figures here are from Brigade Games' AWI range. When I placed an order a few months back I bought some Continental and militia packs, which I'm slowly working through, and decided to add one of the artillery packs. As seems to be the fashion these days, each pack comes with 6 crew figures and no gun, which you have to buy separately. The gun is a Brigade Games "6 pounder", although it's a bit on the large side when compared to the Perry/Foundry 6 pounders. As my AWI artillery crews each have four figures, I put two on pennies to have them floating around the rear or standing next to ammunition carts.  

This set takes my tally of American artillery crews to 20, which is pretty ridiculous.  Even for a large battle like Brandywine you only need twelve guns on the American side.  But these are nice figures, even if the faces are a little "rat-like" (as David Bickley describes them!), and I'm pleased to add them to my collection.  Only one of the figures is wearing a uniform coat, and even then it doesn't have lapels or cuffs.  I painted the cuffs on, because I wanted to have at least someone wearing a semblance of a proper coat, and then I tried to put the others mainly in white/beige/off-white clothes to suggest they are in uniform and have just taken off their coats.  But I quite like the irregular look.  In this respect, the Brigade Games artillery figures are similar to the Eureka Miniatures ones, which are also in shirtsleeves and coat-free (although by the look of it, the other "loading" Brigade Games pack does have a couple of figures in uniform coats).    

Apologies for the lack of posts - I simply ran out of photos and have been too busy until today to take any more!

6 figures.  Painted September 2024. 

Colonel Heinrich Julius von Kospoth

Heinrich Julius von Kospoth (1724-1801) began the AWI as colonel of the Wutgenau Regiment (renamed Landgraf in 1777). In late 1777 he was given command of a brigade comprising three of the four combined grenadier regiments, replacing Colonel von Donop who had been killed at the battle of Red Bank/Fort Mercer. In February 1779 von Kospoth was promoted to Major-General, but appears to have remained as commander of the grenadier brigade. He served with General Clinton at the siege of Charleston in March to May 1780, and then took his brigade to New York where it remained for the rest of the war. Von Kospoth headed the court martial that the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel ordered into the Trenton affair.  His only daughter married the son of Lieutenant-General von Lossberg. 

In the Caliver/"British Grenadier!" scenario books, von Kospoth appears as a brigade commander at Monmouth, in command of the Hessian grenadier brigade. I painted him in the uniform of the Wutgenau Regiment for lack of any alternative. This is another Brigade Games figure.  The lapels on the coat weren't that pronounced, so this is a good figure for an officer whose uniform doesn't have lapels; which is quite a few of them!

My next post will be on Colonel Carl von Donop, and I'll then do a round-up of modelling Hessian commanders for AWI wargaming. This has been a real blast, to be honest. Getting into the personalities of the AWI was always one of the things I enjoyed most about the period.

1 figure, painted September 2024. 

Major Friedrich von Dechow

Major Friedrich von Dechow was the commander of the von Knyphausen Regiment at the battle of Trenton.  He had been wounded, twice, at the battle of Fort Washington in November 1776, but took command of the regiment because his superior, Colonel Borck, had an even worse wound and was convalescing in New York.  Von Dechow was wounded again in the battle of Trenton, dying of his wounds a couple of days later. When he was unable to carry on during the battle von Dechow handed over command of his regiment to Captain Bernard von Biesenrodt and told him to surrender in other to prevent any further casualties.  However, von Biesenrodt had other ideas and he and a handful of others attempted to flee from Trenton across Assunpink Creek.  Some 50 soldiers from von Knyphausen's Regiment managed to escape.  Before the battle, von Dechow had expressed concern about the Trenton garrison's exposed position.  He suggested to Colonel Rall that defence works be built outside the town, but Rall (as noted earlier) insisted any attack would be met by the bayonet and didn't want his ability to deploy compromised by earthworks.  Von Dechow also wrote (with the von Lossberg Regiment's commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Scheffer) to von Heister on 17th December 1776 to warn of the state of the garrison, which was reduced by sickness, was tired and also suffering from the cold.  None of this prevented the subsequent court martial enquiry from placing blame for the disaster on von Dechow (and, of course, Rall). It seems von Dechow was perceived as having been too slow to get his regiment into action and, despite being in a position to secure the bridge over the Assunpink Creek, which the garrison could have used for a retreat, failed to do so.  One senses a brave, competent officer who, like Rall, found himself judged (posthumously) by his performance in his final, difficult battle.      

The figure here is shown in the uniform of an officer of von Knyphausen's Regiment.  It is a lovely sculpt - it looks as if the figure was modelled on the painting of Knyphausen himself in the Osprey MAA on German troops.  This figure shows just how well Paul Hicks sculpts faces.  Unfortunately the horse seems to be a bit of a mis-cast, as its right ear and part of it's back right leg are missing, and the right side of the head was lacking in definition.  The next time I have some greenstuff out I'll try to add the missing ear. One nice touch of detail is that the figure is wearing the "Pour la vertu militaire" award just benath the gorget - hence the light blue ribbon near his neck.

1 figure.  Painted September 2024.