Hessian Leib Regiment

Regular readers of this blog will know that I am slightly obsessed with 18^th century Hessians. This blog focused on Hessians in the early SYW but these new posts will concentrate on the late war. What I like about them is that they are a Prussian looking army but much smaller and feasible given that I have to paint both sides if I embark on a project. Add to that the fact that my second favourite army of this bewigged century is the French. Who could possible manufacture both sides? Well I am teasing you because my favourite manufacturer is Black Hussar who, incidentally, produce both Prussians and French for the SYW. The imminent arrival of Prussian Cuirassiers is most welcome too.

So here is the start of a small project (Hessians v French) for late SYW. When I say small, I mean similar sized to the WAS in Italy project which consists of about 12 battalions and 12 squadrons each side.

The other thing I like about Hessians are their bewilderingly colourful AWI flags. In 1760 the old Landgraf passed away and his son Friedrich II came to the throne. He was a Prussian General and inhaber of a Prussian Infantry regiment too. Already quite Prussian in it's look, he tinkered with the organisation and flags to make the army a mini-replica of his big neighbour to the East. The early flags, prior to 1760, I find a little bit dull. The post 1760 flags are much more Prussian in look but many details of what they looked like are unknown. With the AWI you would have thought that the fog of what the flags looked like might have lifted but sadly not. Many of the articles on the AWI flags captured are inconsistent with Prussian practice. A good article is here at

http://dupagemilitaryflag.com/Hessian_Flags.html

So what I am doing is a late SYW Hessian army with AWI flags. Some are conjectural as the Hessians only sent single battalions to North America whereas I will field double battalion regiments. Some questions remain as to what exactly was the colour combination of the Leibfahne and what was the colour combination of the Regimentfahne? I will try to follow the logic of the Prussian system but I admit there are many opposing views so this is just my interpretation. But you also have to just love the vibrant colour of the flags which came from http://FlagsofWar.com

Iain there is a great chap and he has resized the flags slightly for me so that they fit on the Black Hussar flagpoles. I think the artwork is even better than GMB's, which is saying something.

In terms of the uniforms, most will be based on the SYW late version but with this first regiment, I have gone with the AWI uniform. The late SYW version had pink facings which looked wrong with these flags whereas the sand/mustard yellow facings compliment the flags. And in the unlikely event that I ever do armies for the AWI, then these two battalions can be combined into one, less one set of flags.