Seelow Heights Photo Review

Haven't posted for a while, so I thought everyone might like to see the various photos that were taken for the Seelow Heights scenario book published a few years back. For such a little known Eastern Front operation, the book sold surprisingly well, but I am down to my last few copies and doubt I will be re-printing it any time soon, so here are a few bits of eye candy to brighten the festive mood!! They are in no particular order, but I have included the odd comment or piece of identification. I hope you enjoy looking through it.

                           Initially considered this for the front cover

Men of the Bremen Police Battalion prepare to meet the Soviet onslaught!!

            Three shots of German paras engaged in house to house fighting.

                            The final front cover photo, more or less.

                                                   One of my favourites.

                                                    The rear cover photo.

                                             Another one of my favourites.

                                                    ....and another!

                                                 Quite like this one too.

                                             Simple but effective.

All the photos were taken by long term friend and fellow wargamer John Smith, who has done quite a bit of this kind of thing for, amongst other Colin Rumford and Rapid Fire!

AWI Hessian Grenadiers

 

With a couple of Hessian musketeer regiments already having taken the field, supported by a few jagers and a field gun, I thought that a battalion of grenadiers would be a useful addition. I decided to do a battalion of 8 bases (32 figures) all from the excellent Perry range. I usually rate these a little higher in terms of morale - B class rather than C for the musketeers. Hessian troops also move in a slightly more sedate fashion in action; each movement "action" that they achieve in line formation is at 3 inches rather than 4 for the British and Continental regulars, although they do manage to keep up when deployed in march column, when the movement rate is 6 inches.

I may well add a second unit of grenadiers at some pont - the Hessians did actually field an entire grenadier brigade early in the war, as well as possibly a battalion of fusiliers to bring the Hessian contingent up to 5 battalions in total. At the moment I am a bit occupied painting 7YW Austrian infantry and building up my Napoleonic Prussian army. Even though I am now retired, it feels like wading through treacle trying to catch up with the backlog. That said, I have recently completed a brigade (72 figures) of British grenadiers and around 95 American militia, so I haven't been completely idle!!