Tiny Wars Played Indoors: Hesse-Darmstadt Infantry Regiment Gross-und Erbprinz Nr. 4

The First Battalion in the field.

The next and final unit for Leval's 2nd (German) Division is the Hesse-Darmstadt Infantry Regiment Gross-und Erbprinz Nr. 4 which composed the majority of Grandjean's brigade and was made up of two battalions. These will join the Baden, Nassau Dutch and Dutch Horse artillery units I have been working on over the last while for inclusion in the Talavera refight we are in the process of playing through in a series of scenarios.

In the interest of cleaning out the cupboard (there are actually some lovely Piano figures for these guys in 1/72nd) for this unit I decided to use the HaT 1805 French Light Infantry set, one of the first Napoleonic sets I bought years ago at a sale and had never used. At the time I found the set well sculpted but the detail a bit fine and also quickly learned that the shako and plume weren't correct for the Peninsular War. Over the years most of them lost their heads to other troops that needed shakos, so first off I needed a whole bunch of new heads to attach!

These came from various sources, mostly from some recently gifted HaT Dutch Lutzow Freikorps (thanks, Clive!) in covered shakos that I expect I will never use (famous last words - I will be scrounging heads for those in another five years!) The shakos need a bit of adjustment and a pompom added. Other heads were some Franznap heads while I think the remainder still had their original 1805 Legere heads, although the plume needed to be moved to the front.

A small WIP. If you look closely you can see the conversions mentioned below - mostly head swaps as I had cut all the heads off these guys a few years ago!

Other conversions were to put the majority of them in pants, some patched, add head scarves to protect against the Spanish sun and to create two flag bearers and two commanders, respectively from the HaT Nassau and HaT French Light Infantry command sets, with some head swaps. The usual mash up!

I was happy with the results, which I think bear up well from a distance. Close up the plumes and pompoms get a bit funky but I'm okay with that.

Although not shown in this illustration one distinctive feature for these guys was that the cartridge pouch was covered in white canvas. All wore cross belts with the bayonet and short sword frog combination.

A Bit of History

These troops came from the German state of Hesse-Darmstadt (est. 1567), joining Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. Like all of the German states, as Napoleon's ally it was expected to contribute troops to the emperor's far flung wars, including Spain.

This Infantry Regiment Gross-und Erbprinz Nr. 4, composed of two battalions, was formed along the French model, with four fusilier companies and two flank companies. Its war record included Medellin, Ocana and the defence of Badajoz, as well as Talavera of course, but, like most of the German Division, spent the majority of the war fighting Spanish insurgents in distant far-flung outposts.

More information

As always, my go-to for this division has been JJ's site:
http://jjwargames.blogspot.com/2014/10/napoleons-german-division-at-talavera.html

And there is lots more information here: https://www.napoleon-series.org/military-information/organization-strategy-tactics/the-soldiers-of-hesse-nassau-appendix-i/

1st Battalion

The commander was a HaT Light Infantry officer with a head swap.

The flag bearer and drummer were both Nassau troops with the tails of their coats lengthened.

The figure top left was left with the gaiters, the other three receiving scultpted campaign trousers. All heads are the altered covered shakos scrounged from the Friekorps with the exception of the Franznap forage capped head upper right. The original figures had lightly sculpted epaulettes which I carved off. My reading indicated that all the fusiliers in Spain had black pompoms.

Voltigeurs, with sculpted epaulettes.

Grenadiers.

2nd Battalion

The 2nd Battalion in the field.

Again, the commander was a HaT French Light Infantry (1808) officer with a Franznap head swap and a brace of sculpted pistols added.

Drummer and flag bearer are converted Nassau figures. I read that many of the Hesse-Darmstadt troops wore brown trousers with a yellow stripe in Spain so I gave those to the drummer.