Wednesday 29 May 2019

Best guns for FPW period

Still going strong! Not being able to acquire genuine S range artillery I have been looking at the various models available with which to arm my Prussians in particular.

I have looked at what is available on the UK market.  I do know that their are  some good models available in the US but when I have tried to purchase these, they either aren't posted to the UK or the postage is really high and makes them prohibitively expensive.

So this is a look at the guns that are easily available over here.  I have had to rule out what look like some excellent looking field pieces on the Northstar 28mm 1866 range as they come with gunners and the guns are not sold separately.  Call me mean but I don't want to spend £12 and throw away 4 gunners. I also ruled out the 20mm B&B FPW artillery as having bought some I considered them too small.  They are shown as unpainted guns in the pictures below.

Basically, this left me with 28mm Foundry and Old Glory.


Franco Prussian War Artillery - Prussian
Make
Type
Length (inc Barrel)
Wheel Diameter
Width
Barrel length
Old Glory
GSG-002
Krupp Gun
57mm
25mm
30mm
37mm
Foundry FPPG001
Prussian Field Gun
52mm
22mm
25mm
30mm
Foundry FPPG002
Prussian 90mm Krupp Field Gun
65mm
20mm
38mm
37mm

These are the Krupp Guns available (L to R  25mm Old Glory, 28mm Foundry 90mm Field Gun and for scale a 20mm B&B Prussian Artillery piece.  The Foundry guns can be bought separately and after adding VAT (tax) run in at a little over £6 each plus P&P  for the Prussian Field Gun whilst the 90mm Krupp gun is  £8 plus VAT and P&P.  whilst the Old Glory are around £12 for 2 guns plus P&P.  The 20mm guns are the cheapest.  They could be 'light field' guns given the size, but the seats make them look a bit odd.






The only gun capable of seating my 'Minifigs/S range conversion' is the 28mm Foundry Gun.  The Old Glory gun would probably sit a 20mm gunner.  


As you can see the wheels on the Old Gory wheels are much larger than their Foundry counterpart.






Just to prove a point 20mm and Old Glory 25mm side by side.

 My original artillery from my Crimean War S range army.  This piece is from the S range era, although I don't know whether it is actually an S range piece. Oddly it has a rammer moulded onto the underside of the gun carriage.  The guns were painted way back when by the original owner and I have left them in the same painted condition.





So these are the guns I settled on 2 Foundry guns and the Old Glory Krupp guns.



The real surprise is that the Foundry Prussian Field Gun has a longer gun carriage that the 90mm Krupp gun by comparison. I haven't bought the Prussian 21cm Foundry Krupp Mortar at £8 plus VAT and postage or the 15cm Krupp Siege Gun again at £8 plus VAT (although oddly this looks the closest to the style of the original S range flied piece.

I hope this is of some help.

13 comments:

  1. I have no idea whether any would fit your range, but I recall Irregular Miniatures doing a whole range of what they call 'really useful guns', perhaps there is something there that would work.

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    Replies
    1. Hi Norm
      Yes I have used Irregular's guns in the past, my biggest problem is sometimes working out how they go together and more often than not super gluing my fingers to the castings as some of the location pins can be small!!

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  2. I hate painting limbers and teams - BUT nothing looks better on the tabletop .

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    Replies
    1. Couldn't agree more I have limited myself to one home made conversion for each army. Well two in case of the Russian Crimean and British to represent different Horse and Foot artillery. They do add something, although can often get left behind! The horses are S range and the riders conversions, with the limber being an ACW from Warrior good value and goes together nicely.

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  3. I love the shade of blue/grey that you have used for the Prussian carriages...

    All the best. Aly

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    Replies
    1. It is straight from the bottle and one of the off the shelf craft paints. Makes them stand out on the table.

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  4. When I worked at the Royal Artillery Museum we didn't have any mid-nineteenth century Prussian field pieces, but we did have the very similar export version which Krupp flogged to the Egyptians in the 1870s (ours was a trophy captured in the 1880s). The Foundry gun looks like the most convincing model to me.

    Best regards
    WM

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    Replies
    1. Yes the Old Glory ones are the Krupps Sudan range and listed for the British army.

      I agree about the Foundry gun went a bit made and order two more the Prussian artillery park out guns everyone now!!!

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  5. Sorry this is late - I tried to comment several times from my phone, which is where I tend to read blogs, but there is some problem there logging on as google user - the comment never appears

    I found this really useful and I have bought a couple of the Foundry siege guns as a result - didn't know about these before.

    I see Steve Barber does a Krupp gun in 28mm, its hidden away under Saxon artillery on his web site under Saxon artillery, you can buy them without crew. Ans also I have some RAFM Krupp guns I bought new in packets, from EBay I think, but the moulds were clearly shot - some of the bracing struts were missing sections.

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  6. Hi Glad you found this useful. Although listed as 28mm I think the Foundry Guns work well with the S range figures. That's a useful tip about the Steve Barber gun under Saxon artillery. I have been looking for guns for 1866 Saxons as I can't find anything to say what they were using so if the Krupp Gun is slightly different I might give them ago.

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  7. I've got a copy on order of the SMOOTHBORE ORDNANCE JOURNAL ISSUE 9: FRANCO-PRUSSIAN AND KRUPP ARTILLERY from Ken Trotman. It's edited by Stephen Summerfield so should be good - when it arrives if there's anything particularly interesting I'll let you know.

    Of course the Foundry FPW range was billed as 25mm when it came out so without seeing one for real it's difficult to know whether the Steve Barber one will seem too big or not.

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  8. Hi Found the Steve Barber guns look interesting decided I would buy one to see and when I added the postage to the £7 cost of the gun they wanted £5 making the gun £12. So I decided not to go with it and bought the Foundry Siege Gun for the Prussians and a Prussian Field Gun for the Saxons instead.

    That would be great if there is any information on Saxon/Bavarian artillery.

    Many thanks

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  9. Hi the Smoothbore Ordnance Journal #9 has arrived and while it is a useful and interesting book it didn't quite have the information I was looking for. However, re Saxon artillery, it does say about Krupp C/64 4-pdr (8cm) field gun:

    "Prussia had been generous and permitted all the German States unites in the German Union to copy the design of the C/61"

    The Osprey German Armies 1870-71 (2) Prussia's Allies says Field Regiment 12 was equipped with Krupp guns and had two horse batteries, with eight heavy and six light foot batteries. The structure of the first two foot units was as the Prussian Army - two light and two heavy batteries: the 3rd Foot Unit had one light and two heavy batteries; the 4th one horse, one light and two heavy batteries. Gun carriages, limbers and caissons were painted grey; gun barrels were blackened and burnished.

    The Osprey says for Bavaria that the outbreak of the FPW caught their artillery (equipped with the Zoller system) at a transitional stage. Batteries had six guns each. Gun carriages, limbers, and caissons were painted mid-grey, all fittings black, and the gun barrels were brass. 1st and 4th Regiments each had 4 4-pdr foot batteries and 4 6-pdr foot batteries; 2nd and 3rd Regiments each had 6 6-pdr foot and 2 4-pdr horse batteries.

    In Sept 1870 the 1st Regt was reinforced with a battery of machine weapons (kartatschgeschutze) which Germania do in 1/72 - they also do a C4 gun and limber - the 2nd Regiment received a 12-pdr battery

    Apologies if you know all this already but I hope some of it might be useful.

    Germania are at http://germania-figuren.com/gx2/

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