French Gunning For It

HAVE finished nine French artillerymen for my 54mm toy-soldier Project Kaiser refight of the Franco-Prussian War.
The four gunners started as Union artillerymen from the American Civil War, but a suitable paint-job changed that.
The artillery guards are converted Prussian infantry. There were to have been six of them, but one lost his head - literally - after the conversion process seemed to have been satisfactorily completed.

French artillery - four gunners and five guards

Overmanning a bronze cannon

Toy Soldier Collector April/May 2020

ISSUE 93 of Toy Soldier Collector has the usual collection of mouth-watering photos.
But there are also more articles in it I actually wanted to read than I am normally able to find.

Toy Soldier Collector … colour plus

However, the highlight for me is the photos used to illustrate Keith Nairn-Munro's article about Elastolin and Lineol toy-soldier production between the two world wars.

Slingshot March/April 2020

ISSUE 329 of the Society of Ancients' magazine Slingshot arrived yesterday, and I devoured it over the course of the day.
As usual I found almost every article of interest, and some especially riveting.

Slingshot … no sign of flagging

At the risk of unfairly omitting others, I will single out  - double out, actually - Duncan Head's The French At Bosworth and Julian Lorriman's Numbers In Some Roman Battles.
The former told me much I did not know, while the latter told me much to confirm my own views.

Medieval Warfare Feb/Mar 2020

MEDIEVAL Warfare magazine has returned to having themes, so I bought issue 6 of volume 9 and was generally pleased with it.

Medieval Warfare … striking cover

True, it gets off to a bad start when the first two articles on Iceland basically repeat each other in giving background information on Norse sagas.
And, in a non-themed article, we are given an account of the Battle of Grandson that is big on colourful, but misleading illustrations, while at the same time not having space for a single map of the battlefield.
But overall I found the magazine an interesting read, and might be tempted to buy future copies.

Ancient Warfare Feb/Mar 2020

CHARIOT warfare "across the ancient world from Egypt to China" is the theme of Ancient Warfare magazine's issue 4 of vol XIII.

Ancient Warfare … Egypt to the fore

I found this an especially interesting edition of a consistently entertaining magazine.
The one thing it did not clear up, at least for me, is how chariots used as a mobile shooting platform were able to out-shoot bow-armed infantry who had an advantage in numbers and stability.
Perhaps chariots avoided such infantry …?