The Western Theater Project

Review and Outlook

by Jim Purky


At this year's SYWA convention, I acquired the start of a 25mm army for Prince Ferdinand's campaigns in western Germany during the SYW. The allied force consists of two battalions of Hanoverian musketeers, four battalions of British infantry, and two battalions of British and Hanoverian converged grenadiers. I also have two 6-pound Royal Artillery guns and crew. Needless to say, I will have to paint or acquire a suitable force of French to provide the opposition.

With that in mind, I bought a few bags of Old Glory SYW French and sent them off to Dennis Smail in Lexington, KY for painting. At this point in time, I now have five battalions of Old Glory French and plan to add three more to bring the number up to eight. Eight battalions seems like a nice round and symetrical number of battalions from one manufacturer. I then ordered some RSM 95 castings to build six more musketeer battalions and two battalions of Grenadiers de France (refer to Vol IX, Issue No. 1 for details of French Grenadier organization). Once these are comleted, then I will add about four battalions of Front Rank French and maybe two battalions of Front Rank Gardes Francaises (to use in the War of Austrian Succession).

For cavalry, I will probably use 100% RSM 95 figures. I continue to like RSM figures the best of all figures made for the period. They look like real people, have perfect proportions that reflect the elegance of the 18th Century, and they are also economically priced. I will probably end up with about 24 battalions of French infantry (24-figures per battalion), maybe 6 heavy field gun, and 8 to 12 units of cavalry (12-figures per regiment). These will vie against 16 battalions of Allies (6-British, 8-Hanoverian and 2 to 4 Hessian battalions, also sized at 24-figures per battalion). Only 4 guns. Will use some Prussian dragoons and hussars that I already have and supplement them with some Hanoverian and British cavalry. Watch for further progress reports in future issues.

More On Jim's SYW Western Theater Project

One of the appeals of the Western Theater and the army of Prince Ferdinand is the fact that it includes a wide variety of allies, colors and uniform styles that make it both beautiful to look at and economical to assemble, especially if you have already built a Prussian army.

Prince Ferdinand's army includes red-coated Hanoverians and British infantry, two battalions of Highlanders, converged grenadier units, Prussian infantry and cavalry, Hessians (which look like Prussians) and Brunswickers. One could easily use Prussian infantry to represent Hessians and Brunswickers until there was time to paint up some British and Hanoverians. Likewise, the Black (H5) and Yellow Hussars (H7) and Dragoon Regiment No. 10 fought with Ferdinand for several years, so you could easily justify using these units from your Prussian army in your army of Prince Ferdinand.

The Hanoverian cavalry is very colorful too, with its white coats and colored facings. The heavy cavalry have no lapels and were generally smaller 3-squadron units (I use 12 -figure units to represent these units). The four dragoon regiments, which have lapels, were larger units which I represent with 24-figures. So two regiments of Hanoverian Horse would equal one regiment of Dragoons on the wargame table.

The Hanoverian infantry mimic the British with their red coats, but they have a slight Prussian appearance with their mustaches, while the grenadiers wear Prussian-style miters. The Hanoverian artillery looks like British artillery except for the fact that they wear light blue coats instead of the British dark blue.

The Hessian infantry could easily pass for Prussian infantry throughout all service arms. Flags would be the only distinguishing difference between Prussians and Hessians. (I'm probably getting myself into trouble with that statement.).

The British army is famous for its red coats and they are a sight to behold on any wargame table. I am using 24-figure units at a 30:1 scale to represent about 720 men. I suspect that the actual numbers on campaign were closer to 400 to 600 men. The British cavalry have small units of two to three squadrons. Accordingly, I use 12-figure units to represent the British and brigade two units together to form a 24-figure brigade. There are also two Highlander units with the British army in Germany. These are Kieth's (87th Regt.) and Campbell's (88th Regt.) Highlanders. The British grenadier companies were detached from their parent units and converged as Maxwell's Grenadiers.

To give you a general idea of the distribution of allied troops in Prince Ferdinand's army, I looked up a roster from Savory for May 1760.

We can see from the above table that the Hanoverians comprised roughly 50% of the total infantry and cavalry in the allied army. I should note that the number of Hessian battalions was actually 34, but in 1760, the Hessian regiments, formerly I battalion of 800 men, were divided into two battalion regiments of 400 men per battalion. I have taken the liberty of assuming that the 34 Hessian battalions were under the new organization, so I halved the number to derive a total for the Hessian contingent. Note also that I excluded the light infantry, which were predominately Hanoverian in origin.

We can also see that the British contingent only accounts for 12% (or one in eight battalions in the army) of the infantry and 26% of the cavalry. You can fudge the percentages a bit to get the number of units close to what you want or already have, but you should keep the proportions in mind and not field an all-British army against the French in Western Germany.

I want my French army to outnumber my allies, so I am thinking of having 24 battalions in the French army and 16 to 18 battalions in the allied army. Using the smaller number, this would require an army of 8 Hanoverian battalions (50%), 4 Hessian (25%), 2 British (12.5%) and 2 Brunswicker (12.5%). With five British line and grenadiers already in my collection, I am over-weighted in British infantry at the present time.

The allied cavalry contingent will have about 10 by 24 figure regiments (or some of these can be 2x12-figures = 1x 24-figure regt). The Hanoverians will have 5 regiments(50%), the British will have 2 regiments (25%), the Hessians 1 regiment (10%) and other, probably Prussian, will have 2 regiments (15%).

I am still working on an order of battle for the allied artillery contingent. Savory's OB for May 1760 lists three light artillery brigades (2 x British and 1 x Buckeberg) and three heavy brigades (I x British and 2 x Hanoverian). So it looks as if the Hanoverians account for about two-thirds of the total artillery, and the British the other third. One could add a couple of Hessian guns for variety.

I hope that you find this little exercise useful in planning and constructing Prince Ferdinand's army. I know that it was eye-opening for me to see the extent that the Hanoverians dominated the army and how little a force the British represented.

In future issues, I will update my progress on Prince Ferdinand's army and also write an analysis of the composition of the French army. The French are equally as colorful with white-coated French infantry, red-coated Swiss and Irish, and blue-coated Germans.

More Review and Outlook

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© Copyright 1999 by James E. Purky

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UnitBtns% Total Btns
Hanoverian Infantry3045%
Hessian Infantry1726%
Brunswick Infantry1117%
British Infantry812%
Total Infantry66 btns.100%
Hanoverian Cavalry40 sqds56%
British Cavalry20 sqds26%
Hessian Cavalry10 sqds14%
Brunswick Cavalry3 sqds40%
Total Cavalry73sqds100%