1st Kurmark Landwehr Cavalry
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1st Kurmark Landwehr cavalry charge into the 7th Italian foot regiment at Dennewitz
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After nine weeks in the antipodes away from the painting desk I finally got back into it this past week, lots of toys arriving also as a few Kickstarters have completed while I was away but were on hold before posting, most notable Piano miniatures Baden and the new plastic French which I am excited for. Another is the new Écorcheurs rules for medieval skirmish along with an order from Gripping Beast.
Last year I ordered some Landwehr cavalry just after Gripping Beast started to produce the Calpe miniatures range and picked them up at Partizan in November, so they had no real chance of seeing the table before this year.
One of the units I elected to build this last week was the Kurmark Landwehr cavalry, two sqaudrons strong. The unit is quite interesting and striking with its Prussian litwka and British shakos laced with white band. Plus the different pennons in each Squadron. There is also a great painting by Knotel of the 7nit charging Italian infantry at Dennewitz. The figures are a fantastic sculpt by Peter and wear a combination of regulation and non-regulation items.
Uniform
A standard dark blue cavalry litewka for the ORs, the officers wore regulation uniform and shako. The litewka had a poppy red facing colour only appears on the collar, not the cuffs, gold buttons for officers, brass for ORs. White epaulettes for the first Sqaudron, red for the second and yellow for the third. The leather work is all black, included in the sculpt is horse shoe holder also a neat addition. The portmanteau is the same blue with poppy red lace work
The shabraque has pointed ends in light blue like a dragoon uniform with a twin lace of Poppy red with a poppy red heart in the corner. The shabraque is a pre 1750s model type, similar to Graf Brühl chevauxlegers shabraque in the 7 years war.
The shako is thought to be a British stovepipe shako. One reference says they may have been captured French hussar shakoes but more credible sources do credit the British with the original source. This shako was black but the top rim was laced in white. Where the plate would have been, there was now a large black and white Prussian cockade, centre in black and outer rim white. A second smaller Prussian cockade was placed at the top of the shako on the white rim, also with a black centre and white outer. The two cockades were joined by a line of ribbon with a black centre and white edging. The ribbon ended in a button which helped hold the large central cockade in place, most sources show this in white metal. The chin scales attached to the shako were yellow metal.
The lances were white over black pennants for the first Sqaudron, second quartered black and poppy red black.
In Knotel's painting of the 1st regiment at Dennewitz, a squadron officer appears in the left foreground of the picture, he wears full regulation uniform down to the sheepskin shabraque with rounded corners.
