‘Hannover Siegt, Der Franzmann Liegt’: My 15mm SYW Hanoverian & German Allied Army (Part 4 – Hanoverian Artillery) 

In the last part of this series I waffled on at length about Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick and his staff.  This time I’m taking a quick look at Hanover’s artillery arm.

The artillery held a very high status in the Hanoverian army, but was consequently very conservative and resisted efforts at modernisation.  For example, 3pdr guns were retained as battalion guns throughout the Seven Years War, whereas the British and Prussian armies were moving toward 6pdr pieces in that role (Hanoverian 6pdrs were heavy pieces, being only used for position battery work).  They also resisted a proposed move to the excellent and much lighter/shorter Schaumburg-Lippe-Bückeburg 12pdr for their heavy position batteries.  Hanoverian guns and carriages were therefore generally heavier and more old-fashioned than their peers.  Nevertheless, the Hanoverian artillery remained numerous and effective throughout the Seven Years War.

As with the rest of the Hanoverian army, artillery uniforms were very British in cut, though colourings were markedly different (the figure on the left in the painting above is a Hanoverian artilleryman and the other two figures are Hanoverian Foot Guards).  The coat was a distinctive light blue colour, with lapels, cuffs and linings in red (no collar, shoulder-straps or lace).  Sources are split on button-colour; Kronoskaf says white metal, but all the pictorial evidence suggests yellow metal, which also matches the gold-yellow hat-lace.  I’ve gone with yellow metal.

Waistcoats were red.  Breeches and belts were buff.  Gaiters were white, secured below the knee with a buff leather strap.  They also wore a belly-box in either buff or whitened leather, decorated with a yellow metal badge (shown variously as either a crowned circular Badge of Hanover or as a flaming grenade).

Guns were polished brass, while gun-carriages and equipment were painted red, with black ironwork.  These are a mixture of Eureka 18mm and Blue Moon 15mm British artillery crew figures, which fit extremely well together in terms of size and sculpting-style, despite being theoretically modelled in different scales.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, I used the same mixture of figures for my British artillery.  The guns are Eureka Prussian 12pdrs and Blue Moon British 3pdrs.  I’ve also got some 6pdrs waiting to be painted.

Anyway, that’s it for now!  There’s more SYW to come (isn’t there always…?), including freshly-painted Hanoverian cavalry, a load of Prussians, and some more Reichsarmee.  I’ll also be photographing my old 28mm AWI collection over the next few weeks and we’ll be refighting the Battle of Bunker/Breed’s Hill later in the month.