BOOM! THERE IT IS: HUNGARIAN ARTILLERY CONVERSION COMPLETE!

Hungarian Artillery in Kepi: Converted Northstar 1866 Austrian Gunners

For the long suffering readers of this blog who have been hearing about this (surprisingly extended) project, I shan't try their endurance further by reciting what has already been said. For them, this eye candy is the "payoff" for their endurance and helpful nudges along the way.  For those who are unfamiliar with the project and who may be otherwise curious or afflicted with a similar mania and interested in replicating this madness, you may recover the details of the conversion  in the Jan 28th Post,  the Feb 5th Post, and the Feb 23rd Post.  As usual, you may clix pix for BIG PIX.

  "Red Cap" Artillerymen with 8 pounder

Blue-capped gunners with 4 pounder

Candy-striped guns (they won't be mistaken for Austrians!)

The Hungarian grand battery: one "red cap" battery and two blue.

Re-reading Bill Haggert's excellent piece in the Midwest Wargamer's Association Newsletter #120 (Dec 2002) on the Hungarian Revolt, 1848-49, I found an interesting tidbit on the Hungarian artillery.  Its core was formed from the former Imperial 5th Artillery Regiment, which was a Hungarian unit stationed in Pest, which defected to Hungary en masse. Most of the volunteers who joined the Hungarian artillery were university students.  So the Hungarian artillery, a technical service that normally might be of low quality in a breakaway state was, to the contrary, "so proficient that the Austrians were convinced that they were facing French mercenaries from the newly Republican France" (Haggert, MWAN, p21).  So, in answer to the caustic query of, "They're pretty, but can they fight?" The answer is: Igen, Igen!

Clever lads with pretty guns--who shoot pretty well.

Excelsior!