The Full Russian Artillery Pix

Minden SYW Russian artillery battery complete with limbers and munitions wagons.
Please click or double click on all pictures to enlarge.

I have been working my tail off trying to get my Russian army painted and ready for this year's Seven Years War Association convention on April 5 and 6, 2018.

This week I finished four limber teams and a stand of artillery fusiliers for each of the four cannon models that the Russians will use in my Zorndorf game. I will let the picture captions tell most of the story.

I like to take the time to assemble and paint limber teams of four horses, the limber and the artillery train driver (the "driver" rides on a horse, not on the limber or wagon). I then add a stand of two figures representing the laborers or the trained artillery fusiliers, as the case may be. I used Russian artillery crewmen and placed muskets in some of their hands. Others hold ropes to drag the cannon back into position and several hold wood poles to use for who knows what - I just like the way that they look.

I also like to add a munitions wagon to the artillery battery. In this case, Ed Phillips hand built these colorful Russian wagons and I have eagerly added them to my artillery contingent. When you put all of the elements together, you can see that there is a lot of extra equipment located behind the cannons which would make it a bit of a problem to move through the battery.

Front view of the battery: two 12-pounders (left) and two Shuvulov Howitzers (right).

I also needed a new General Fermor command stand and so I painted and terrained Fermor and his staff over the past couple of days.

"Petr, look at the flowers, look at the flowers!"
General Willim Fermor (mounted, pointing) and two staff members.
I have no idea  what it is that they find so interesting.

Close up view of the battery depicts the stand of 2 artillery fusiliers standing behind the cannon, the munitions wagons for each of the two gun sections, and limber teams (4 horses and one driver). The battery commander is in the upper left hand corner of the picture.

A close up view of the Fife & Drum limbers and artillery train drivers. I used the Austrian driver as a Russian. The colorful munitions wagons were scratch-built by the talented Ed Phillips, to which I have added a pair of limber horses and a train driver.

Side view of the Russian battery. Sorry about the first cannon being a little bit out of focus. The Minden civlian laborers set No. 2 have been drafted into the Russian artillery corps. They are carrying a heavy box that is probably full of things that go BOOM!

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