Continuing with the latest additions to my mid war Spanish collection, here is a short post on two units of cazadores in the British supplied light infantry uniform (commonly referred to as 'The English Uniform') which started to arrive in Spain from January 1812. Note that some sources say similar uniforms started to arrive earlier: I have a plate (modern) of an officer of the Cazadores de Barbastro in what looks like an English Uniform dated to 1811.
Haythornthwaite says that this uniform "was like that of the line....with similar company distinctions, but entirely light blue (some sources say dark blue)". I've gone along with that for one of my units but, the plate I have for the Cazadores de Barbastro shows red collar and cuffs so I've gone with that for them: I've recently read that Spanish regimental tailors frequently altered British supplied uniforms and this may be a case in point.
The plate in Haythornthwaite's book Uniforms of the Peninsular Wars 1807 - 1814 shows a cazadore in the all light blue uniform, piped white, with white accoutrements and gaiters. I quite liked this look, especially the gaiters, so I've followed it. However, it is probably worth noting that British supplied accoutrements were sometimes black, and some light blue uniforms came with light blue gaiters.
Pictured figures are all Front Rank (straight out of the box). Flags are by Adolfo Ramos.
Note: Flags for most units are best guess / as close as I could find. If I get picked up on the wrong use of a flag I'll only sigh and shrug my shoulders (because of the limited number of flags commercially available).
The only uniform information I have for this particular unit is dated to 1808 and by 1812 that uniform would have worn out. The Spanish expected uniforms to last three years so this unit may have been resupplied with the English Uniform: With no better information to go on, this is the name I have given to this particular unit.
Note: Information on mid war Spanish units can be sketchy. Where I have been able, I have done 'pucker' units in the correct uniforms (as far as I can paint and convert them). However, there have been plenty of guesses and fudges. Where these guesses and fudges have been made, be assured, I will tell you what they are. I'm also open to any new information you might have - please, put it in the comments for everyone to share.
My cazadore units will have three stands of skirmishers each. This is the same as for my French light infantry units, but the Spanish will get a down 1 modifier in the combat tables.
I do like the white gaiters with this light blue uniform.
Next up, two battalions of the Regimiento de Toledo (which required the conversion of nearly 50 figures).
4 comments:
I like the way the lack of known details allows one freedom to use anything that is plausible for Spanish, it makes the whole converison piece much easier.
Surely the '-1' is because they're less trained / experienced rather just for being Spanish? Their poor performance mainly come from being poorly trained, equipped, fed and particularly badly led rather than anything else. Representing being badly led is always a problem for wargames where the gamer usually leads with god-like vision and 20-20 hindsight so the failings get assigned to the troops.
Every set of rules I've ever read downgrades the ability of Spanish troops to skirmish. Obviously, this isn't because all Spaniards are genetically short sighted but because of poor training, etc. The French certainly out performed them on almost every occasion in this regard so it makes sense to have a 'blanket rule'.
Having said that, I don't think all Spanish troops should be downgraded for skirmishing. Wellington seems to have been happy with the performance of Carlos de Espagna's and Morrillo's divisions. I have a special bead to mark certain units for upgrading, or I can say the rule is completely disregarded in this game (Carlos de Espagna's division at Salamanca didn't get it in my recent game - although this was a quite light infantry heavy formation and I was using only line infantry for it).
The thing is, my rules work skirmish performance by the number of skirmish stands fielded rather than the quality of the unit (for ease of play in big games). Line get 2 stands, light get 3, British light get 4, British divisions with cacadore battalions get 3 (cacadores not fielded as a unit). What I didn't want to do was to field units that were bad at skirmishing with 1 stand (because it looks rubbish) and would rather have 2 stands minus 1 factor, if you get my drift.
Hope that helps explain my thoughts.
Makes a lot of sense. Aesthetics are really important, if they weren't we'd be playing on hex maps with cardboard counters.
Fine looking Cazadores. At least in the ore 1808 army, most of such units were drawn from the. Basque provinces, if I recall correctly.
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