Battlefield Accoutrements - Bridges 1 - Workbench update

 Rivers and Bridges are often a key part of the battles that we fight as Wargamers, I have wanted to have some suitable bridges for my war-games that look good both with and without troops.

My main Napoleonic interest is the battles of 1809 in the Danube valley and in Italy.  In particular, I want bridges for Ebelsberg (3 May 1809), Linz-Urfahr (17 May 1809), Sacile (16 April 1809) and Piave (8 May 1809).  The first two require wooden bridges and the Piave requires a burnt bridge.  I also fancied making a "makeshift" bridge for the Berezina river crossing of 1812.  I reckoned that some interchangeable bridges, spanning a 2" wide river (for major rivers in BBB) would have many uses.

I searched the internet high and low to come up with these bridge pictures...

Ebelsberg

There are some issues with this picture.  The Austrians are wearing Kasket hats that were replaced in 1798 by Raupenhelm (and were being replaced again in 1809 by Shakos).  The French are wearing Bicorne - correct for the Tiralliers du Po, but their uniforms would be all blue...  

Having said that, it is Austrians trying to destroy a wooden trestle bridge, whilst being charged by the French (or Italians!).... so the story telling bit is correct.

Linz

Landshut

Vienna (Tabor bridge, destroyed in 1809 as the Austrians left)

So what I need is a bridge mounted on wooden trestles, with a planked deck and side rails, with approach ramps either side.  I base my troops on 1" wide bases, so the bridge deck needs to be 1.25" so the troops can be on the bridge.  The base needs to be 1.5" wide by 2".  I used Slaters 0.5mm plastic card for the deck and chopped up sections from the 2A04 N gauge white line side fencing kit to provide rails and trestles.

Here are the models to date:

2 completed bridges with side rails and abutments.  The bridges are not stuck to the trestles, I need to paint the river under the bridge first...

3 views showing completed bridges with a 3 base unit marching across them.

A view showing the trestles.  I added extra vertical bits of plastic for supports at the outer edges of the base, where the observer would see them.  I also modelled two sets of abutments.

Here are the temporary/replacement bridge (for Berezina crossing) - suitably makeshift!

Finally, the destroyed bridge...  it will be painted as fire damaged.