Austrian 1809

The Napoleonic wars

The 1809 campaign in Germany using Adler Miniatures.


In 1809, the Austrians invaded Bavaria, a close ally of Napoleon,  What followed was for me, the most interesting campaign of the Napoleonic wars.  I won't go into any detail here but, for those interested, have a look here -LINK

Rules and scale?

Only 1 scale for me when considering Napoleonics, and that's 6mm!

I have looked at a few rulesets over the last year or so, namely Lasalle, General de Brigade and Black powder. With the imminent arrival of Blucher the subject of basing once again rears its head....What to do?

Here's a link to my planned army and how it is organised - Austrian Army - Dropbox.
Here's a link to some unit stats etc for use with Black Powder - Austrian Army Unit Stats Dropbox

The Austrian Army

Commanders


The army commanders generally wore white uniforms, with their ADC's wearing green.



Line Infantry


Hungarian Infantry Regiments


Hungarian line infantry Regiments were divided into 2 line Battalions and a reserve or Depot battalion, during times of war the 3rd Bn would also be mobilized and the regiment at full strength would have all 3 Bns. The Bns were divided into 6 line companies of 160 men each, with a further 2 companies of Grenadiers from the regiment who would be detached to form converged Grenadier Bns, that normally formed the Army reserve. As such, the Hungarian regiments were larger than the "German" counterparts.


 Infantry regiment 2.

I have 3 battalions for this unit.  It was a large Hungarian regiment, the uniform is shown to the left.  Although the unit probably wore the Shako in 1809.

The Hungarians typically had larger Bns, and were distinguished by their blue trousers.

The collars and cuffs were Yellow.


 Infantry regiment 33

Another large Hungarian regiment, with 3 Bns.

Collars and cuffs, dark blue.


Infantry Regiment 51 Splenyi



A large Hungarian regiment, this time ive only got 2 Bns, the 3rd being detached somewhere..

Collar and cuffs, violet.












German Infantry Regiments

German line infantry Regiments were divided into 2 line Battalions and a reserve or depot battalion, during times of war the 3rd Bn would also be mobilized. The Bns were divided into 6 line companies of 120 men each, with a further 2 companies of Grenadiers from the regiment who would be detached to form converged Grenadier Bns, that normally formed the Army reserve. 

 Infantry Regiment 44

These are a german regiment, slightly smaller establishment than the Hungarians, but still with 3 Bns.

All the German regiments wore white trousers.

Collars and cuffs, red.


 Infantry regiment 46

A German regiment, again 3 Bns.

Collars and cuffs, dark blue



Infantry regiment 3

Another German regiment, this time only 2 Bns

Cuffs and collars were sky blue.



 Infantry regiment 8

Another german unit, again only 2 Bns.

The unit started with dark red facings, but later changed to green...probably to confuse wargamers in later centuries...



Light Infantry

The 1st Tyrol Jager regiment


True skirmish capable troops, quite a rarity in the earlier Austrian forces.  These were armed with rifles and carbines, well trained and were a match for most other light troops of the period, although generally let down by their actual use by higher command.

I have done 2 Bns of these, deployed in mixed order. 3 bases formed and 3 bases in skirmish order.





 Grenz Regiment No 8 Nova Gradiska

Good quality skirmishers, recruited from the border region known as the Grenz, these troops have years of experience fighting the Ottoman Empire. They were used as skirmishers, but when forced to use conventional tactics and operate as a regular line infantry regiment they performed poorly.

My Grenz are based as skirmishers.




Grenz Regimet 13 Wallachisch-Illyrisches

Another unit of Irregular infantrymen.


FreiKorps and Landwehr

The Austrian army was reformed in 1808/9, and many landwehr (militia) units were formed, as well as independant Freikorps units, these units are interesting because of the different uniforms, but less useful on the battlefield!


Carneville FreiKorps




The Carneville Freikorps were the smallest unit in the Austrian army, numbering about 330 men in total. 2 squadrons of Hussars and 2 companies of Jagers. The term Jager is used quite loosely as they were not as well trained as the regular Jager units.

I have painted them up in the earlier uniforms, but suspect their uniforms had probably changed by 1809, but never mind, they are a welcome splash of colour in an otherwise white coated army.

The Infantry were very unfortunate in 1809, having made it to the Essling battlefield, they were attacked by French light cavalry on the eve of the battle, and ceased to exist as a unit, with about 60 survivors.... the hussars formed part of GM Stutterheim's command, operating east of the village of Essling throughout the battle.






Prague City Landwehr








Vienna Volunteers



Artillery

The artillery was divided into two branches, the foot artillery and the cavalry artillery.  The cavalry batteries were not however true horse artillery. Due to a lack of horses, most of the gunners either walked or rode on the guns. they were therefore slower than other armies.  The gunners wore red piping's and facings, but the foot artillery employed helpers, that wore blue facings, these men were unskilled, and did all the manual work.


Position batteries (8 Pounder's)(coming soon!)




Heavy Position battery (12 pounder's)




Cavalry battery (6 pounder's)

Cavalry

The Cavalry were divided into the light cavalry and the heavy cavalry.

Light Cavalry


The light cavalry were divided into "divisions", so a typical unit of 8 squadrons would be divided into 2 separate units and used in different formations and brigades during a campaign.



6th Rosenberg Chevaux Legers


The Rosenberg chevauleger had dark red facings. A fairly small unit, split into 2 separate divisions, of 4 small squadrons per unit.





3rd Erzherzog Ferdinand Hussars 

I've have painted up 6 squadrons of this large Hussar unit, each squadron consisting of 120 cavalrymen, double the size of the Chevaux Legers. 


The unit is split up into 2 "divisions".






10th Stipsics Hussars

Coming soon!














2nd Schwarzenburg Uhlans

The only "lancer" regiment available in the Danube campaign in 1809, a large unit consisting of 970 men (on Paper at least).

I Have painted up 6 squadrons, and split the unit into 2 separate Divisions










More updates as i get stuff painted!

20 comments:

  1. These are outstanding! I love the limbers deployed behind the batteries - looks excellent. I flirt with 6mm but never take the plunge, these are tempting though!
    Be great to see these in action...
    Be good
    JJ

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks very much, I held off from collecting Napoleonics for years because of the intricate uniforms, but with 6mm, I feel I can get away with the odd bit of artistic licence.......

      And of course is a damn sight cheaper than the larger scales!

      Steve

      Delete
  2. Wow! Great work! Impressive sight.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great job! I am working on 1806 Prussians and French, but I love the 1809 campaign. Where did you get those guidons for the cavarly? Those units look so nice!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have them stored on my computer, drop me a line with your email address and ill send you a copy mate. (I wont publish your email)

      Steve

      Delete
  4. Brilliant stuff! what size basing do you use and how many elements to a unit? And how do you play the game in terms of adjusting measurements (use cm instead of inches?)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi Aiden,

    The infantry are bases on 25mm by 15mm bases, and the cavalry on 25mm by 20mm bases. the artillery are on 25mm by 30mm bases.

    Line infantry are 6 bases per unit, the same with standard sized cavalry, smaller cavalry such as the chevauxlegers are 4 bases per unit. Larger units such as the Hungarian infantry bns are based slightly differently, with 8 models per base instead of the normal 6. with a frontage of 30mm per base.

    i plan on using cm instead of inches, but havent had a game yet as i still have a French/allied army to collect and paint.... Not to mention all the rest of the Austrians i still have....

    Steve

    ReplyDelete
  6. very nice will have to pick your brain latter on some of the things you did for your guys and this post.
    1 question now though. Why so many bases for the infantry regiments?

    ReplyDelete
  7. The reason for the amount of bases is because a typical austrian Infantry Bn consisted of 6 companies, so ive done each company = 1 base. Also ill be able to deploy the bns in various formations, ie squares and marching columns as well as attack columns and line.

    I was considering basing more figures on larger bases and using counters to represent what formation they are in, but for me it wouldnt be right, not for Napoleonic anyway....

    Steve

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For a bit more information on my thoughts on basing etc, have a look here - http://stevenkelly1.blogspot.com/2014/03/march-is-napoleonic-6mm-month.html

      Steve

      Delete
  8. I do 6mm ACW but am looking into 6mm NAPs. I'm inspire by this. Very nice!

    Adam

    ReplyDelete
  9. Amazing work! Congrats for these beautiful units, great presentation too, and very nice limbers!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Yorkie,

    Your blog has inspired me to start my Leval German Division for Spain. I am in the basing part of the first battalion of 2nd Nassau and I was wondering what you do for basing. I like the look of it and wanted to know if you had any tips

    Thanks
    Michael

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry for the late reply, Do you mean the base sizes or how to decorate them?

      Delete
    2. Yorkie,

      How to decorate them. What materials do you use?

      Thank You

      Delete
    3. Ok, sorry, all I do is PVA glue with samd. allow to dry. Paint dark brown, then drybrush a lighter shade.
      Then apply normal static grass, then in the gaps it is fine foliage stuff, im sorry I cant remember who make it, its kind of like woodland scenics clump foilage but much smaller and finer....

      Paint base edges brown. Thats it.

      Steve

      Delete
  11. Very nice work indeed. I really like the limbers and the cavalry. Those are Alder figures, aren't they? Charging cavalry looks a bit more right than Baccus standing in good order. Nice variation and depth.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, Adler figures, though I am a huge fan of the Baccus figures too. The Adler stuff I think is just a bit easier to paint and the Cavalry especially is great.

      Steve

      Delete
  12. Hi,first of all awesome blogs :) ,I'm just starting in 6mm and doing Austrians with Adler minis,I can't seem to open the Dropbox black powder list.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Tony, thanks for pointing that out, for some reason dropbox disabled all my links, god knows why, but it should be working now.

      Have fun with the Adler Austrians!
      Steve

      Delete

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