Ox Carts for the Peninsular

 I have been building French wagons for the BBB Napoleonic Scenario books and, as I had a wagon spare, I thought I would make a British wagon (for the peninsular).  According to the internet the lack of horses in Spain and poor roads meant that Wellington's armies used pack mules for logistics, so the utility of a British wagon model was negligible.

The same research indicated that the British (and Spanish and Portuguese) used ox carts.  As I had bought a pack of Tumbrils (EQU02 in the Baccus catalogue) I decided to make some Ox carts.  The Tumbrils are modelled by Baccus as 1 x horse wagons.  My previous purchase of Ox wagons, in order to use the wagons, meant I had already got a herd of Oxen.

I made three adjustments to the wagons:

1 - Balance - my first wagon (Mk1) was very finely balanced, so at the last minute I drilled holes into the wagon and inserted fine staples inside the wheels to provide a bit of extra fixing.  The Mk2 wagons got this mod from the start.

2 - Change the shafts - the tumbril comes with two shafts as it's a 1 x horse wagon.  These were removed and a single pole inserted at the front.

3 - Harness the oxen - the oxen got neck collars to make them look like they were harnessed to the cart.

I also lengthened the base to 1 and 1/4 inch, as I felt the Mk1 only just fit on the base and I was concerned that the wagon was too near the edge.

Here's the base models:

Here's the based oxen and painted carts with loads:

Two carts have covered loads, one has round plastic strip cut in 4 mm lengths to represent barrels of olives, or perhaps Spanish red!

Here's the finished carts:

I have not based drivers with the carts - my plan is to make single figures of the 4 main armies to show which nationality currently owns the carts.

A fairly simple bash to give some attractive logistic units.  I hope that this encourages you to have a go!