von Breymann Brunswick Grenadier Battalion

 

Brunswick Grenadier Battalion von Breymann on the march.
Fife and Drum Miniatures.

I have been working on the painting of the von Breymann battalion of converged Brunswickk grenadiers that fought with the British during Burgoyne's Saratoga Campaign. The battalion was comprised of the grenadier companies of the Brunswick regiments Specht, Retz, Riedesel and Prinz Friedrich. They numbered over 500 soldiers at the start of the campaign, but with normal attrition and the losses at the Battle of Bennington, their number had been reduced to about 350 men by the time of the battles of Freeman's Farm and Bemis Heights.

My plan was to paint twelve each of the four grenadier companies for a total of 48 figures. I divided the numbers into stands of six figures, so that the Specht company would have two stands of six figures and the same set up for the rest of the grenadier companies. This allowed me to work on 12 figures at a time on the painting table, which seems to make the task go faster because you feel like you are done after finishing twelve figurs.

The von Specht Grenadiers

As of today, I have painted three of the grenadier companies: Specht, Retz and Riedesel for a total of 36 figures. I may leave it at that and have them fight at their reduced strength at Freeman's Farm, etc. I used the Fife and Drum Miniatures Hessian grenadier figures for my Brunswickers. This involved a minor bit of conversion work consisting largely of filing off the top of the gaiters and removing most of the gaiter buttons with a flat file. Since the figure pose used covered the lapels of the coat, I did not have to remove buttons on the lapels - Brunswick coats only had four buttons on the lapels.

Three grenadier companies on the march, protected by British flank company men.
Fife and Drum Miniatures.

It takes a bit of time to file down the gaiters on the Hessians in order to make them Brunswickers, but I think that the effort paid off when one looks at the results in these pictures.