Linguistic Gymnastics

Does anyone speak Catalan?

Well, the latest lot of Spanish are done ad do they look good. There is a saying in my part of the world that ‘red and green should not be seen, except upon a fool’. Well, this lot may be foolish but they certainly look good.



In one of Coupigny’s Brigades there are two battalions of light troops, the 1st and 2nd Volunteers of Barcelona. I am still trying to convince Trevor that these were not levies from Barcelona but regular light infantry battalions. If nothing else, common sense dictates that if they were levies from Barcelona they are a long way from home if they are in the Bailen order of battle.



It is so often the way though, that the initial evidence often robs people of their powers of interpretation. The list is from Oman, who was not there either and clearly pieced things together after the fact. A similar issue has come up over the two Granada battalions in the division as distinct from the Provincial Militia of Granada. As the first battalion of the Regiment was also present elsewhere I am pretty convinced these are the other two regular battalions. It would make sense given the character of the army. If this was Palafox’ Army of the Reserve which had vast numbers of hastily raised volunteers and levies I would be far less certain.



Anyway, this is 8 figures of a total of two battalions of 16 figures each. I enjoyed painting them a great deal, as there was no equipment they were also very quick to do.

Also the La Valliere 4lb’s have arrived today for the Horse Battery. These are from Elite and have long ornate barrels: they look far more like turn-of-the century pieces and may be good for the Spanish, but will certainly not do for the Prussian 1806 3lb battery I am still trying to put together.

Speaking of impossible languages, how about Finnish?

The next lot to be sold are the 20mm Finns I have. The 15mm ACW stuff looks destined to go for the £75 asking price, maybe more.

37mm Bofors Anti Tank gun and crew

I have now dug out my Finns and I have around two battalions of 3 companies, some maxims and so on. 4 field guns and a Bofors 37mm AT gun plus some tanks. Thinking about it my mate Adam must have more of this: certainly another 37mm, a Praga truck, the fearsome FT17 and half a dozen cavalry. The FT17 fought a titanic clash with a Russian BA10 armoured car I remember. Neither side managed to hit the other for ages, until eventually the BA got lucky first.



There is a lot of fun in the Finns, but Adam now lives in Norfolk and I have no desire to build up a Russian 39-40 force to match this lot. I did, though, leave the T26s and the OT33 unmarked to allow them to be used by both sides. Not so the Vickers 6-tonner and the Landsverk Armoured cars.





So, they will go up on ebay in the next few days, hopefully they will fetch the £200 I am looking for. The money will be redeployed to pay for yet more WAS troops…

J