PASS IN REVIEW: RUSSO TURKISH WAR ROMANIAN ARMY

Russo Turkish War Romanian Army Contingent Ready for Inspection.

Greetings, fellow shut ins!  This post brings together, and concludes, the series on my pandemic project of Russo Turkish War era Romanians (for an explanation of the quotes around "completed" see Aly's comment in the May 14 post).  And what better way to mark such a moment than with a parade!  

 Romanian Army in the timeframe sometime after the Russo Turkish War. With minor differences, the look is the same as 1877/78.

Consistent with the parade theme, this post will mainly consist of eye candy (you can find and play appropriate band music in the background).  For the more curious or those seeking more in depth information, there are links to other posts that provide more information and background on each of the elements.  As usual, you may clix pix for BIG PIX.

THE LINE INFANTRY

The backbone the army, the Romanian line infantry These are Outpost figures. 

THE CAVALRY

Romanian cavalry brigade consisting of two regiments of regular red-coated Roshori and one regiment of blue coated Calarashi (territorial cavalry).  Figures are Northstar 1866 Austrian Hussars repurposed as Romanians.  
Photo credit: C. Savulescu (1977) Romania, History of Photography, 1:1, 63-77, DOI.
10.1080/03087298.1977.10442883

CHASSEURS AND DOROBANTI MILITIA 

Flanking the line infantry, two units of brown coated Romanian Chasseurs and two of the celebrated White jacketed Dorobanti Militia. These are all Outpost figures.

ARTILLERY PARK

Anchoring the line, the Romanian Artillery: four batteries of Krupps. These are Outpost Russian gunners and guns repurposed as Romanians. 
.

ON PARADE 

The Romanians arrayed with command in front. 

I am looking forward to some day putting these on the table with my Hugarians: what a colorful combination they would make! 

Excelsior!

MEMORIAL DAY 2020

Today in the US is Memorial Day, the origins of which stem from Decoration Day, a day set aside to decorate the resting places of those who had fallen in military service to the nation. Although we also commemorate the service of Veterans on November 11th--known as Veterans Day here the US--Memorial Day, as its name suggests, is more specifically about memorializing the dead--a point that often seems to get lost given that this long weekend is also the kick off of the summer/vacationing season. I won't belabor the point any further other than to say that with the staggering loss of life brought on by the COVID 19 pandemic across the globe, and with the US closing in on the 100,000 death mark, this year's pause has room to commemorate not only the loss of the service men and women whom we traditionally honor, but also the memories of all who have been lost in these trying times.

COAST-TO-COAST CRABAPPLE BLOSSOMS

Picture taken Saturday of our crabapple tree blossoming here in New Hampshire

Greetings, fellow shut-ins!  In this post, we meander away from the hobby and into "real life" once again.  The prompt for this interlude was a recent post on the excellent Palouse Wargaming Journal blog featuring a blossoming crabapple tree in Jonathan's yard ("garden" for our UK visitors).  This post appeared this last Saturday when, coincidentally, I had been out in my yard taking pictures of our crabapple tree in blossom.  Jonathan is out in Washington State and I'm across the continent here in New England, just about as far as you can get and still be in the US: spring seems to be breaking out in both spots at the same time.  Every year, there is a moment here in New Hampshire when the season seems to turn overnight. You wake up to see that the buds you have been watching closely for any change have suddenly have become leaves. This last weekend was that turn, and it provided inspiration for capturing the new season with my new fancy smart phone (yes, I took the plunge). So, I thought I'd take this coincidence as a sign to follow up on my April 6 post about the emerging season (then it was winter to spring). In this post, you may clix pix for BIG PIX as usual.

Most mornings, I'm up at dawn and get my exercise in with a power walk to the University where I work and back to my house (I'm fortunate to live so close).  Above is Monday's view on campus across he "great lawn" to the Thompson Hall clock tower. Everything had gone green there as well.   

Around campus, it was evident that the season had turned. Like most, our campus is closed with no students resident and staff and classes working remotely.  This adds to the tranquility of the place, even during these normally quiet early morning hours.  

In another sign of a change for the better (fingers crossed), the fitness center on campus (above) which has been closed and outfitted to serve as an emergency facility to treat COVID 19 patients is in being retained for now but stood down one level of readiness as the state begins to move through the opening up process. 

Coming back from my walk and looking out of the house over the back deck: the patio furniture is now out and things have gone green.  In the middle view, you can see the "ledge": here in the "Granite State" granite outcroppings like this are not uncommon.

Closeups of the ledge: in my April 6 post, it was here that a single point of blue caught my eye and indicated the emergence of spring. It is now blooming out in its early spring colors. I always find this scene reminiscent of an Alpine garden.  Turning from this, we revisit the walk to the back of the property as recorded on April 6.

The entrance to the woods, now with more foilage around it, is more distinctly "door-like" than before (what can I say? It's my imagination and it keeps me entertained). 

 Crossing through the door and taking the path back,..

...you now begin to notice a "green glow" ahead of you as you continue towards the back...

 ...along the way is this little whimsy.  This gave our dog quite a start when we first put it up. There are bears in our neighborhood, so it's not that far fetched to imagine a cub clinging to a tree.  We do have to take down our bird feeders in the spring as a precaution (otherwise the bears will have at them, often with destructive results).

Arriving at the gate at the back of the property, now the green is on full display...

 ...following along the back fence and turning back towards the house, the forest floor has gone over to its summer green...

..leaving the forest and coming back through the door back into the yard...

...we spy an early diner on the ledge. We may not have our bird feeders out any longer, but we still do put some seeds out on the ledge in the morning for the birds and other critters...

...turning about, our household saint still abides in its corner, only with a tad more green around it than before. 

Well, that's it for this interlude. Normal hobby programming will resume in our next post.

Excelsior!

ROMANIAN COMMAND DONE: PROJECT COMPLETE!

Romanian Army Command Stand Using Castaway Arts Franco Prussian French Figures.

Greetings, fellow shut-ins!  In this post, I am pleased to report on the completion of the "pandemic project" that has been the subject of posts reaching back to March 14.  My goal was to complete my Romanian Russo-Turkish War contingent by May 4 (so I'm a bit behind, but still in lockdown, so it's all good).  To recap, I had done the cavalry previously, meaning that the project involved doing the rest: the Dorobanti Infantry, the Chassuers, the Line Infantry, the artillery, and finally, the command elements (the subject of this post). As usual, in this post you may clix pix for BIG PIX.

Castaway Arts French Franco-Prussian War Command Figs: epaulettes and kepi plume added to convert one to a general (left).  

As I have mentioned previously, the Romanian uniform was French influenced.  In searching about to find a suitable set of mounted command figures in kepi, I turned up the excellent Castaway Arts Franco Prussian line...

...in order to represent the elegant Romanian general officer kit, I  took out my green stuff and added epaulettes to the shoulders and a plume to the kepi of my general.

Another perspective on the command stand: the flag was downloaded from Wikimedia Commons. 

The depictions of Romanian officer kepis vary wildly.  So I took a middle ground approach and did mine as representative rather than specific.  Also, the "canvas" provided by the headgear on these sculpts didn't leave much space for embellishment. Thus, I worked with what the figs gave me rather than trying to force a set of details into a shape and space where they wouldn't really work.  I did take on a challenge, though (no surprise) in doing the staff officer's kepi in white with yellow details, a combination that was just too smart to avoid. I have to add that these yellow details look more distinct to the the eye than they do in this shot.  One trick to help make them work was to up the contrast by using Humbrol Light Gray as opposed to flat white for the kepi, along with a bit of very fine black cartooning of the yellow lines. Regular readers of this blog may also notice my free-handed hungarian knots on the shoulders of the staff officer (and other officers). 

The flags on my army command stands have magnetic bases, so they can be used as additional eye candy or removed for a more utilitarian look (above).  I was not at first going to include the foot officer, but once he was done, I couldn't resist adding him. The distinctive pose is both dynamic and very toy soldier-like at the same time, an excellent example of how a "plain" figure can deliver a big effect.

I also did a separate sub-commander/chief of staff stand.  This is an unmodified figure for those who may be wondering about the Castaway line.  The only critique I have is that this is the only pose.  So down the road, I intend to look into using figures from the Foundry Maximilian Adventure French Imperial Command set to expand my sub commander stands so that they aren't all pointing in exactly the same way. 

The Castaway Arts figures (right) are a a bit slight, but are comparable to the North Star 1866 figures (left). I wouldn't mix them in units, but for singles and specialty figures they will work just fine. 

 Castaway Arts (left) and Ral Partha (Right). I was originally thinking that the Castaway Arts figures were similar to the "true" 25mm figs of old.  However, when I pulled out a venerable Ral Partha 25mm colonial command figure for a comparison shot, I quickly saw that this was not the case!  (But I do loves me my Ral Partha Colonials--which reminds me, I'm overdue for a colonial game).

The Romanian Command Complete = The Romanian Pandemic Project Complete.

Next up, a pass-in-review of the whole Romanian Contingent. 

Excelsior!

BOOM! ROMANIAN ARTILLERY RUSSO TURKISH WAR

Outpost Wargame Service Russo Turkish Russian Artillerists Painted as Romanians

Greetings fellow shut-ins!  In this post, I report the completion of the penultimate step in my pandemic project: the Artillery of my Russo-Turkish War era Romanian contingent. These follow from the Cavalry, the Dorobanti Infantry, the Chassuers, and the Line Infantry.  I am now starting in on the last bit, the command, but that is for another post, dear readers.  This post is about the artillery. Once again, I stuck with the Outpost Wargame service Russo Turkish War figures.  Although they have a line of Romanians they do not include specialized artillery figures.  Instead, they suggest that you use their Russians, whose ordnance and uniforms were virtually the same aside from color (Russians being in their characteristic green). Good enough for me! Here is my study of how I did these figs (as usual, you may clix pix for BIG PIX):

At first I was skeptical of the poses, of how the fellow pulling the lanyard in particular would come across, but once you put them all together the effect is very dynamic. 

 The gunners, sans-ordnance for easier inspection. 

 To get the red-0n-blue piping on the kepi to stand out, I underpainted it in white (a tip for anyone out there who shares my mania and who doesn't mind doing something twice).

 Outpost gun model (right) next to a Foundry Franco-Prussian War 9cm Krupp. The gun model is one order of magnitude larger than others in this scale, a not infrequent thing with gun models. Nevertheless, I found that these larger models look correctly sized in relation to the Outpost gunners.  

The Romanian Artillery Park at Firing Practice.

Excelsior!