Artillery Equipment Sculpting Complete

Chris has now pretty much completed sculpting the artillery, and has used his computer wizardry to produce some graphics to show what the models and figures will look like.

Austrian 6pdr Gun

The original idea was to produce an accurate as possible Austrian 6pdr, and below is the almost finished article. (The only issue I know of is that the elevating wedge  (which will be a separate part) is too wide, so I have asked for it to be changed).

In order for the master figure to be robust enough to withstand repeated pressing in the mould making process,  there have had to be some compromises, such as leaving out the lighter cross pieces in the carriage trail, and locating the lifting handles of the barrel too close together. It is (in my opinion) a great improvement over the guns in the Karoliner and Rossbach ranges, and a welcome addition to the range.

And here it is with crew in waistcoats.

Austrian 7pdr Howitzer

The Liechtenstein system used the same wheels for all guns, so there is clearly some scope for reusing the wheels. Also the carriage of the 7pdr howitzer is reasonably close to that of the 6pdr, (it should be a bit deeper and heavier, and the support for the elevating wedge is in the wrong place). However I did not think we should miss the opportunity to add a howitzer to the range, so I asked Chris to produce a howitzer barrel - here it is on the 6pdr carriage.

 As discussed above, the elevating wedge is not in the right place. If it looks too far out when cast and made up, then a little work will be needed to cut out and move the wedge support forward and down - I don't have access to any castings, so cannot say how difficult it will be!

Barrels for other Nations

As the sculpting work progressed it became apparent that the gun would need to be split over two moulds, but the second would be half empty. This gave the opportunity to try and provide some reasonably representative artillery for other nations. There was no space for more wheels or carriages, but a couple of extra barrels could be squeezed in.

I carried out a review of all the information I had to hand and decided that a reasonable representation of some artillery could be provided on the Austrian carriage (purists turn away now)..........

Prussian light 12pdr

The closest I could find for the Prussians was the 12pdr M17/38, as this was a conic chambered piece it did not use such a large charge as a 'proper' 12pdr, so could sit on a smaller carriage. Here are details of the gun.............

....and here is the extra barrel on the Austrian carriage.

(Interestingly, if you look at the drawing, the Prussian barrel is identical size to the Austrian 12pdr, which also had the same wheel, but unfortunately the Austrian 12pdr carriage is 15% longer - worth a try at lengthening the cast carriage?)

And then for the Russians......

Russian 12pdr Unicorn

As far as I can figure out the 12pdr unicorn had the closest carriage size - drawings..

..and model

French Guns

As far as I can see they were all way bigger than these pieces (unless you know better)?

Interestingly the French Vallier 8pdr and famous Prussian 12pdr 'Brummer' looked very similar - so they would make a nice addition. Prince August currently have no plans to make these, so if you want them a good case will need to be made.

If you have stuck it out this far your then please take the time to comment?

06/04/17

Another view of the crew better showing the wheel height.