Prussian Fusilier Regiments

IR35 Prinz Heinrich Fusilier Regiment (RSM figures) with GMB Designs flags, circa 2009. Sadly, this regiment is now in service with a different Inhaber, having been sold. Click picture twice to enlarge the view.

Prussian Fusiliers from Front Rank Figures

A question was asked on The Miniatures Page about the quality of the fusilier regiments that were in the Prussian army of Frederick the Great. Naturally, my first thought was to pull my copy of The Army of Frederic the Great by Christopher Duffy off of my book shelf and see what the Master (i.e. Duffy) had to say about the subject.

Frederick the Great's own opinion of various fusilier regiments:

VERY GOOD:

IR35 Prinz Heinrich
IR39 Jung-Braunschweig
IR41 Wied

GOOD:

IR49 Diericke

Here is an excerpt from Christopher Duffy's "The Army of Frederick the Great" about the fusilier regiments:

"The Prussian fusiliers were a lightweight infantry, fighting in mass formation like the rest of the line infantry, but drawn principally from newly-acquired provinces where the men did not have the loyalty or physical stature of people like the Pommeranians and Brandenburgers. Such at least was the oulook of Frederick. He inherited four rather good fusilier regiments, which he promptly converted into regiments of musketeers, and he designated as "fusiliers" only the sixteen or so regiments which he raised after he conquered Silesia. Taking into account their small stature, Frederick issued them with short muskets, and gave them scaled-down metal-fronted grenadier caps which made them appear more fearsome in battle. 'The headgear certainly looked impressive enough, when the sun shone on such a battalion of fusiliers and gave them the appearance of a row of fiery palisades. Even as seen from behind the caps had a lively look, thank to the colored cloth which covered the crown.' " (quote in the last sentence from Lossow, 1826)

By the way, if you are new to the SYW period, then I highly recommend buying any and all copies of books written by Christopher Duffy, especially The Army of Frederick the Great.

As for the pictures shown above, I was doing a Google search on Prussian fusilier uniforms because I wasn't certain whether or not I had any pictures of my own BAR units. If I did, I did not want to search through thousands of photos that I have stored in my computer. So the first decent picture that I found on line was of some Front Rank figures, but later, I finally found the picture of the Prinz Heinrich regiment from my own collection (RSM figures) and was able to find the same picture in my iPhotos library.

Alas, the regiment had been sold back in 2009 and now resides in a good home in Ohio. I usually don't have any regrets when I sell one of my painted battalions, but after seeing my own handiwork, I did feel a  pang of regret as I really like the way that the RSM figures turned out. The GMB flag is very pretty too.

I think that I am going to have to paint a new IR35 for myself, and soon. As with the original battalion, I plan to use the RSM fusiliers for the unit.