Napoleonic Button Counting
In the railway modelling world, so I believe, the equivalent of a button counter is a rivet counter. I’m not interested in counting rivets or buttons. In fact, sometimes I wish some wargames figures were less detailed. If it’s there I feel the need to paint it. So when the odd arm is conveniently covering a tricky paint job, all the better. I’ve included some thoughts on my first Pendraken 1809 samples, both unimportant and really rather crucial. • Some musket straps reach all the way to the end of the barrel. However, this adds strength to the weapon. • The cuffs of the French light infantrymen are pointed. This is good news for the very few light infantry regiments that might or did have pointed cuffs in 1809 – long before the later universal adoption by the light infantry regiments. In the Danube campaign, the 10th regiment may have had pointed cuffs as they are recorded as having them sometime in 1809. However, excellent illustrations in Ian Castle’s Eggmühl (pages 24 and 80) show soldiers of this regiment with the normal flapped cuffs. • Although the chasseur à cheval trumpeter and standard bearer both have a pair of fringed epaulettes the officer has no epaulettes at all. Already I was thinking I would have quite a bit of converting work to do.
© Historex
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