Crimea: Talking about Russian greatcoats

 

 I made a video talking about Russian greatcoats during the Crimean War. 

Some of the sources I used in the video are: 

https://www.authentic-costumes.com/product-page/russian-overcoat-1854-77

https://en.topwar.ru/198456-uniforma-krymskoj-vojny.html

https://www.matakishi.net/crimean-war-2021.html

https://talesfromghq.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-battle-of-arzov.html

 

In short, I am trying to make sense of the pictorial and written sources available to me, and finding it all a bit of a mess.

The Crimean War - A Wargamer's Reading List

Ever since watching Ralph Astley's excellent YouTube playlist for his Crimean War 18mm wargaming project, I have had this bug for a "thin red streak, tipped with steel". I then discovered Paul Ward's fantastic collection via his "Matakishi's Tea House" channel on  YouTube, and then the website that goes along with it. I then made the mistake of watching the 1968 film "The Charge of the Light Brigade", and I was utterly undone.

My brain went into overdrive trying to put together a project of my own, which is now underway. I was immediately captivated by the utter disaster (from a command & control standpoint) of the Crimean War and of course the visual splendour of a war, that at least for Britain, was the last gasp of the Napoleonic uniform aesthetic, and for all sides, the last pretense that the technology of war had not changed since Waterloo. 

Besides a general survey of the Crimean War, I have focused my reading on individual battles as well. My first focus being The Alma, which I believe offers the wargamer many options as a scenario. It can be tweaked here and there, tinkered with, and so has much to recommend it to the wargamer. 

Below is my reading list for the Crimean War, with some notes as appropriate. The links lead to Amazon where you can purchase the books.

 Note that this page will be updated as I read more.

General 

• The Russian Army of the Crimean War 1854-56 (Men-at-Arms) by Robert Thomas & Richard Scollins (1991) - 
• The Russian Army of the Crimea (Men-at-Arms) by Albert Seaton & Michael Roffe (1973) - 
• British Army On Campaign (2) 1854-56 : The Crimea (Men at Arms Series) by Michael Barthorp & Pierre Turner (1987) - 
• The Crimean War: 1854–1856 (Essential Histories) by J Sweetman (2001) -
   

Battle of the Alma

• The Battle of the Alma by Peter Gibbs (1963) - This book contains some interesting maps of the battle, specifically how British divisions went from march to line. The narrative is heavy on little details and moves along at a clip, without getting bogged down in minutiae. A quick and easy read. Highly recommended. Note that it is very Anglocentric and very much a product of its time.
  

• The Alma, 1854, (Knight's battles for wargamers) by Henry Harris (1971) - A slender volume written with the wargamer in mind. The author provides a very thorough survey of the topology the battle was fought on, which is most useful to the wargamer in terms of designing a scenario. The maps are top notch and the book manages to be succinct and provide everything a wargamer will need to put on the battle.

• The Battle of Alma and Its Incidents: By an Officer - Another slender volume. This is a essentially a poem that was written in honour of Emperor Napoleon III after the Battle of the Alma. Interesting as a historical artifact, but limited as a source for the Crimean War or Battle of the Alma, except that it provides an insight into the contemporary Victorian jingoism of the day. One would recommend reading this, but not purchasing it, unless one is a collector.

A Long Due Update (Happy New Year 2024!)

Blog Update

First of all, Happy New Year 2024! I haven't updated this blog since January 2020 in favour of releasing YouTube videos, however, the more YouTube videos I release, the more I realise that blogs and videos are very different media that serve different purposes. Based upon the traffic this blog gets, it is clear that blogs still remain much more searchable than videos. I suspect that it has to do with limitations on how YouTube videos are scraped for words, versus the written text of a blog. 

Anyway, enough shop talk. 

Life Updates

A lot has happened since my last update on the blog in January 2020. First, my wife and I managed to secure excellent employment with a tech company in California, which later morphed into a role that is largely on the road. This then led to us making the decision to move to the cooler climes of Washington state. The impetus behind this was my wife's family moving en masse to the Dallas area in Texas. Since we weren't keen on swapping the dry, hot Bakersfield climate for more-or-less the same, we moved North and were able to purchase our first home. 

We are now a household of 2 dogs near the sea, and loving life up in Washington.

 

Playing Games

One unintended outcome of the move to Washington is that I have found a regular gaming group, just across the border in Canada. How I met the main chap from the club was certainly serendipitous. In November 2022 I happened to be at Warfare in Farnborough, in the UK. I was in the UK ostensibly for work, but managed to stay over the weekend. I took the last-minute opportunity to attend the wargaming show with some purchases in mind. (I ended up spending about $500, so only small purchases) 

 

I had stopped for a pie and a cup of tea at the little snack area, when a man with a "North American" accent approached me and asked if he might share the table with me, since there was nowhere else to sit. I obliged, noted the accent, and asked him where he had come from. He said, "Vancouver, Canada." To which I said, "oh, I live 15 minutes from Vancouver." What luck! We chatted for a bit, and it turns out that I can see his town from my house, I am just across the water from him. Well, this led to emails and some sessions with the fabled White Rock Gamers, and the rest, as they say, is history. 

Having a regular gaming group to play with has re-invigorated my hobby as I am playing almost every week, and more importantly, playing historical wargames again! 

Examples of the stunning games we played in 2023:

A very small part of a very large Leipzig refight using Shako 2

Canvas Eagles

Action in the Sudan, Battles for Empire

My dastardly gunman finishes off a helpless supine opponent in What A Cowboy

Painting Miniatures

2022 was a very fruitful year for me in terms of painting. Especially considering that I was jumping off from a position of inertia. 

I'll share some snaps in this blog post, but they are but a small sample of everything I have been working on. Suffice to say, the prospect of playing with my miniatures has turned up the tempo. 

 

The numbers are as follows:

• 28mm = 21 Infantry
  
• 15mm = 42 Infantry
  
• 10mm = 24 Infantry | 3 Artillery & Crew
  
• 6mm = 36 Infantry | 3 Tanks
  

By project:

• 28mm Seven Years War = 6 Infantry
• 15mm Carthaginian Army = 24 Infantry
• Warhammer 40k Eldar = 5 Infantry
• 28mm Early Imperial Romans = 10 Infantry
• 6mm War of Spanish Succession British = 36 Infantry
• 10mm Franco-Prussian War French = 24 Infantry
• 10mm Franco-Prussian War French = 3 Artillery & Crew
• 15mm American Civil War Confederates = 18 Infantry
• 6mm World War II Polish = 3 Tanks
  

Goals for 2024

The Great Hobby Reawakening™ is well under way, but these are my goals for 2024:

• Get a gaming table set up in the basement, nothing fancy, but I would like something around 8 x 6 feet-ish. Initially I will use mats or cloths for coverage, but I would like to try my hand at MDF boards. 
• Finish up the Pendraken 10mm Franco-Prussian French force that I have and begin work on the German opposition.
• Paint up the Republican Roman opponents for my 15mm Carthaginian army. I ordered some from Old Glory 15's on January first.
  
• Finish up painting the remaining Baccus 6mm War of Spanish Succession British army that I bought in 2022. 

 In Closing...

I am on holiday in Greece at the moment, in the quest for some sunlight, and will only be home again at the end of the month. I am hoping to make more regular contributions to this blog in the coming year.