Thursday, September 5, 2013

Airfix Figures Converted As Prussian Infantry

First up we have 24 Prussian Line Infantry converted from Airfix Napoleonic French Line Infantry and painted by Brenton Searle in the early 1980s.  These were gifted to me and I rebased and touched up during October 2002 with an extra two figures added including a standard bearer.  Sadly the rest of his teenage collection of plastic Napoleonics, with one exception that I know of and will feature later) are now lost.



They represent IR Nr 10.  In collection I have given them the code F37.

The other unit featured in this post is a more adventurous conversion I did from the Airfix Napoleonic British Infantry figures, painted as one of the Prussian reserve regiments that were outfitted in Portuguese uniforms donated by the British.  My guess was I did them sometime in the late 1970s.  I wanted to the flexibility to use them as Portuguese and that was what inspired me to make this unit (along with the picture in the Philip Haythornthwaite book Uniforms of Waterloo published by Blandford  - a book which is probably my favorite uniform book).





A total of 36 figures this time, in which I'm guessing were 12 figure units each representing a battalion.  Don't be deceived by the chaps in the British rifle uniforms, there are 8 ring ins from my British Rifle Regiment that I didn't recognize when I took the picture.  If you look closely you can see they don't have the Prussian cockade and have been racially profiled as Celtic with reddish hair, rather than the more Germanic yellow hair.  While a Reserve regiment, they were ultimately number as IR Nr 21.  In my collection they are F07.

The officer figure is from the Airfix Napoleonic French artillery set.  While just allowed to lead some horses in French service, now he is a leader of men for the Prussians.

2 comments:

  1. I also used AIRFIX figures in the 80's to reporesent napoleonic figures. Even I used ACW US infantry that were transformed into British by the addition of plasticine shakos!
    Regards
    Rafa

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  2. Perfect timing - the use of plasticine comes up in my next post.

    I remember converting some Airfix ACW artillery to be French Old Guard horse artillery, but I think they are now lost. The had busbys made out of plasticine.

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