Charge of the Light Brigade

     While my wife was in Maryland, I spent one night watching the 1968 movie, "Charge of the Light Brigade". The first time I watched this, I really didn't care much for it, except the actual day of Balaclava. I then read Cecil Woodham-Smiths' "The Reason Why", and found that the movie follows the true story, with some "artistic license". It is certainly better than "The Charge of the Light Brigade" with Errol Flynn.  I now find it among my favorite movies.

   After watching the movie, I did some research online and read that the Director also recreated the charge of the Heavy Brigade, but this was removed from the final cut. I have an old issue of Military Illustrated Past & Present, which had the second part of an article " The Making of the Charge" by John Mollo. John Mollo served as advisor on the uniforms in the movie.  I went on Ebay and managed to find the first part of the article. In it Mr. Mollo mentions the charge of the Heavy Brigade, stating; "Impressive as the scene was, it was probably just as well it 'ended on the cutting room floor'- since apart from the excellent brass helmets made in Rome, the Heavies were, at the Directors insistence, incorrectly uniformed in Light Dragoon blue."  In the one photograph in the magazine of the charge of the Heavy Brigade,  I believe the scene would have added much to the movie, even if the uniforms are wrong. Someone mentioned that the BFI has a 4 hour uncut version of the movie. I was wondering if anyone has seen this missing scene?

My Peter Laing Light Brigade

Peter Laing Heavy Brigade

Peter Laing Crimean Wargame

     The last couple of days I have been going through my Peter Laing figures. Among my first figures were Crimean War British Guards, which had been converted into 1700's British grenadiers. I converted them back to Crimean Guards ( whether successfully is another matter). I wanted to use them in a game. I found myself just not keen on any of my usual Peter Laing soldiers. I was about to give up when I took out some home cast Peter Laing Crimean Russian infantry in spiked helmets. I was never really happy with these casting and so never used them. I found I had painted enough for 7 units.  My attempts at casting Russian artillerymen was a failure, and what Peter Laing Russian cavalry I have are in no shape to be used. I was about to give up on the game completely, when I figured why not just a quick infantry battle. I could use the Battle of Inkerman from the Crimean War as inspiration.

I randomly set up terrain on the Heroscape board, then rolled to decide which side the forces would enter on.

The Russian are at the top, the British on the bottom. The British have 6 Guard units and one regular unit, which is on their right flank.

As the forces close, the Russian general realizes that his right flank is seriously outnumbered.

The British quickly push back the Russians right flank.

The Russian general sends 2 units to reinforce  his right flank.

The Russians hits the rightmost unit and wipes it out.

The British regulars start climbing the hill with the goal of trying to tie  up the leftmost Russian units.

The Russians, known for closing with the bayonet, closes on the Guards.

The British regulars attempt to distract the Russian left fails;one unit just marches under their guns to join the battle on the Russian right. The British attempt to form a new defensive line fails under the relentless Russian assault.

The Russians overrun two more Guards unit,and start assaulting up the hill towards the regulars.

The British regulars charge down the hill and push back the Russians. The Guard unit on the center hill manages to eliminate the Russian unit attacking them. At this point in the game the British have lost 3 units. To lose one more will spell defeat. The Russians have only lost one. By eliminating that unit, the Guards' honor has been saved.

The British general decides to save what's left of his command.

One big disadvantage of my current setup is that I see the field from one side only, which I think gives the force on that side an advantage. I want to work on my gaming table where I could see from both sides of the field.

Half a League: Peter Laing Crimean Cavalry

   Here are some shots of a collection of Peter Laing Crimean War cavalry purchased a while back. With the rules I tend to use, these figures give me a good representation of the British cavalry division that served in the Crimea.

Light Dragoons

Lancers

Hussars

Scots Greys

Dragoons

Dragoon Guards

Lord Cardigan (unfortunately not in his scarlet trousers).

Painted Homecast Crimean Grenadiers

I found myself wide awake at 3:30 this morning. With 3 hours before I had to go to work, there was time for some painting. So I decided to do a quick paint job on the newest home casts.

Homecast Crimean War Guardsman

In my last post, I showed a conversion figure using a Zinnbrigade and a Guardsman head. Under the comments, Ross MacFarlane mentioned about wanting to make a Crimean period British Guardsman with a coatee. The idea was too much to resist! I took a Zinnbrigade French infantry figure that I had casted for another project and put the grenadier head onto the body. The mold almost wasn't made; the rubber is on it's last legs and I barely got enough usable rubber.

The figure. There were more air bubbles in this mold; I'm wondering if it has to do with the fact the rubber  is at the end of it's shelf life. Luckily most are small and not too noticeable.

The conversion from an earlier post painted, except the rifle.

These are painted with Krylon enamel hobby paints. Now I have to find a source for more of the colors.

More Peter Laing Crimean War Figures

As I prepare to leave on vacation, I decided to do one more posting using Ian Dury's Crimean figures. hopefully I can make it to a used bookstore near the campground where we are going to. It has a very good collection of military history books. Last year I got two books on the Crimean War at that store.

Cardigan's "Cherrybums"