Saturday 7 July 2012

63rd de la Planta Swiss 2nd BTN




Over the next 10 days or so I will be posting pictures of six new Swiss battalions that made up
63rd de la Planta, 55th Waldner and 90th de Diesbach. This is the 2nd battalion of de la Planta.


All the uniforms were the same except for small differences like collar colour. What I really like is their colouful flags.




We are back here with Crusader figures, although the officer is by Foundry. I have deliberately used the figures with turnbacks for two reasons. First, aesthetics, as I wanted to be able to show the laced waistcoat that is invisible on the figures without turnbacks and, second, I have a view that as the war progressed it was the Swiss and German regiments in French service that started to make uniform changes well in advance of their more conservatively dressed French colleagues. Contemporary, or nearly contemporary, illustrations of grenadiers wearing bearskins are mostly of Swiss units and they always have turnbacks as well. So, in my view, the trend of modernising the antiquated cut-of-the-coat started first in foreign regiments and it started because a) it was more practical to march with the turnbacks turned up and b) the enemy looked more modern and worthy of being copied. But it is a personal view and I welcome any comments either way.

3 comments:

  1. Nice work Nigel! I do love the Swiss flags from the Lace Wars period, they're so distinctive, I may paint up one or two for my NYW project.

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  2. Hi Nigel,
    These unit looks very very nice. You did again a very good paintjob.
    What I like most concerning the French army of the SYW is that the uniforms are much more colorful than the other armies.
    Are the tassels for the flags from FrontRank?
    I will have to order some of them too for I haven't placed tassels on my French flags yet.
    Cheers
    Mike

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  3. Thanks guys. The tassels come from Eureka in Australia - I like them as they are scarves as opposed to tassels really and that is what the French used.
    Cheers
    Nigel

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