Austrian Wagons - battle field adornments.

 One aspect of wargaming that is sometimes overlooked is the large "tail" needed for an army to operate.  

Whilst one could incorporate logistics into the table top battles we play, the logistics tail is most likely to feature in battles either as an objective (steal the enemy supplies) or as a "road block", hindering a retreating army from getting it's "teeth" arms over river crossings or difficult terrain.  

The number of wagons needed is quite considerable - here are some examples - 

Bruce Quarrie's "Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature" calculates that over 3,500 are needed to move the flour rations for 240,000 men for 25 days.  Plus the wagons for beer, fodder, ammunition, etc.

WJ Rawkins, "The Austro-Hungarian Army 1792-1814 gives a figure of 11 wagons & 26 pack horses as the official allocation for an infantry regiment.  Actual numbers would be considerably more, as Austrian Officers were definitely interested in "glamping" rather than "camping".

Without further introduction, here are the models:

Austrian Infantry Ammunition Wagon.  This was modelled on the HAT 1/72 supply wagon - beautifully modelled thus:

Suitably inspired, I made a couple of 6mm versions - Wagon #1:

This needs a pole at the front.  The wheels are from the Baccus Equ01* set.  Stowage was scratch built.  

Wagon #2.  This will have a spare wheel attached to the rear stowage rack - this will be attached once I've painted the model.

Forge wagon.  Every Austrian regiment had a forge wagon allocated.  The Austrian design had the bellows in a compartment at the back, which means if I keep the tilt on, I do not need to model it!

My source material is this excellent large scale model in the Museum of the Battle of Wagram 1809 .  

This volunteer run museum is well worth a trip.  Not only are there loads of historical artefacts, when we visited in 2018 there was an excellent display of scratch built model Austrian military transport AND a huge number of Austrian 1/72 plastic soldiers, arranged in real regiments and battalions in 1:1 scale.

So here are some "eye candy" photos of the forge wagon (thanks to Sarah for excellent photos!):

Here is scratch build progress to date...

The forge still needs the front pole, rear baggage rack & spare wheel, etc.  

*Baccus Equ01.  I bought one of these for use as generic baggage wagons a couple of years ago.  As I needed wagons with different outlines, Peter kindly took back the 4 carts in exchange for 4 x 4 horse teams and 4 sets of wheels.  Lock-down has given me the space to have a bash at getting the wagons I want! (Thanks Peter!)

Finally, for those who are interested, here is where I got the details for my quotes on wagons & logistics...

Napoleon's campaigns in miniature - Bruce Quarrie:

regarding flour rations for the troops:

"...the Imperial Guard Corps in 1812.  They were provided with ... 1,720 wagons for 'ready use", plus... 1,200 comtoises...  ... and a further... ...600 more heavy wagons... which was designed to be adequate for 240,000 men for 25 days."

In addition to the flour wagons, there was wine/beer and fresh meat, which was normally vast herds of sheep & cows.  There were also wagons needed to carry the fodder for the supply wagons.

CB2 - Austro-Hungarian Army - WJ Rawkins:

"in 1789 each infantry regiment had a support train of 14 Proviant wagons, 6 four horse ammunition wagons, a mobile blacksmith and 54 pack horses, PLUS each company had pack horses, mules & carts which carried the cooking utensils, tents, forage and sutler's stores.  The infantry regiment had 534 tents..."

"In 1809 the regimental train was reduced to 10 four horse wagons, 26 pack horses & the field smithy."  In 1807 the tents had been removed from the equipment and troops were expected to billet on the locals at the ratio of 10 men/cottage.

In 1809 the foot artillery had 1 caisson per gun/howitzer and 1 provision wagon per two artillery pieces.  The "cavalry" artillery had fewer ammunition wagons, but had pack mules and forage wagons.