Took a pause from Wurttembergers and recently finished my first couple regiments of Prussian Cuirassiers - some of my favorite uniforms of the napoleonic period! I think their white collets with no cuirass gives them a striking and unique visual, so choosing to go with the collets and not their campaign blue litewkas was a no brainer.
The problem was actually coming up with adequate models for this prussian cavalry, as there are no plastic kits in 1/72 for late Prussian Cuirassiers. Waterloo 1815 has a set of metal cuirassiers, but they were not a good solution for me. For one, they're metal, and therefore considerably more expensive than plastics. Secondly, they come 6 in a set, with 3 of the horsemen being command models - and officer, a trumpeter, and a color bearer. Thus, to come up with multiple units of my 18-model cavalry regiments, I'd need to buy a lot of sets, and end up with a large number of the spare command models, for which I'd have no use whatsoever. Lastly, the models from that set are not great enough sculpts as to tempt me to put some good money on them.
Thus, I looked for a solution with plastic kits, and it involved using HaT Russian Dragoons riders on HaT Russian Cuirassiers horses. The russian dragoon helmets from the HaT kit are sculpted with their early, bushy crests, which is perfect as it gives me enough material to work with, so I was able to trim them into the shape of prussian crests. The other conversion I did was to make their breeches go over their gaiters, which was pretty straighforward, since the detail delimitating their breeches, right under their knees, was pretty shallow and easy to scrap.
All in all, I think the end result turned out to be a very convincing Prussian Cuirassier Regiment, and because I like these heavies so much, I plan on doing 4 regiments in total.
Your conversion is very effective. The late Prussian Cuirassier uniform is striking but simple. I totally agree with the choice of the white collet; mine are the same!
ReplyDeleteThe Cuirassier arm was especially trimmed down after the Treaty of Tilsit, so the four regiments were all that were left of that once much larger contingent!