At the battle of Ravenna Pedro Navarro a Spanish commander came up with the idea of war carts, multiple guns on wheels with shields and spears to defend them, to add a bit additional strength to the infantry. Ive always been interested in them and as there arent any historical images of them I've tried to invent something that would suffice, made out of bits and bods I had lying around. I had some duplicate pieces from a hinchcliffe organ gun, a number of mdf wheels that I picked up from warbases, some aluminium and plastic tube,mdf offcuts, balsa wood, Perry plastic pavisses and some polearms from the same source, some old glory polearms, a couple of 15mm chariot bodies and some GW muskets which together with some old glory Swiss artillery crew( together with a few Foundry Swiss) gave me these war carts.
I used the late medieval ribauldquin as some form of inspiration, wrought barrels would be relatively easy to fabricate I thought? Outside of Ravenna, I'll just use them as light artillery.
A fun bit of scratch building, I went for red and yellow as Spanish colours but I still think they're generic enough.
Great work on these carts Iain, and I really like the use of the Spanish colours.
ReplyDeleteNow that is a site to see, Iain. Crackin work!
ReplyDeleteExcellent work! I didn't know they had defenses on artillery like that back then. Reminds me of some of the armor plating on more modern guns. The spikey bits are cool, too. Now I'm wondering why I haven't seen more of that kind of protection in fantasy armies, such as for dwarves and orcs.
ReplyDeleteThese look great Iain - particularly en masse in the last few photo's. Hopefully a few people realise you have posted - I note no new posts have appeared on Jons PWJ Blog Roll for over two days - I just posted this but goodness when or if it will be shown to anyone? https://1808534.blogspot.com/2026/09/first-defenders-of-berlin.html
ReplyDeleteWell, besides my own!
DeleteAmazing bit of conversion and modelling, Iain.
ReplyDeleteImpressive scratch building Iain! The war carts art spectacular. Exactly the sort of stuff I love.
ReplyDeleteGreat use of the different parts Iain, they look fantastic on mass, and great painting to.
ReplyDeleteSuper pieces of modelling Iain, they have turned out really well, super work on them.
ReplyDeleteAn absolutely splendid job of using various parts (bits box).
ReplyDeleteThose a re brilliant Iain:)! I checked your Blog via the 'All Blogs' option, where I can click on it and it shows your recent posts. Or at least the ones it has published alreayd, as it didn't show this one, until I actually visited your Blog:(. I only knew about it via your comment on Norm smith's Blog. Sooooo frustrating!
ReplyDeleteThese guns look terrific, Iain!
ReplyDeleteGreat work Iain. A genius idea by the Spanish that obviously didn't work so well as it was rarely used. But it would have been a bit of surprise to their opponents the first time they were used.
ReplyDeleteSorry I have taken so long to get to your post. I am going through my list slowly. On the upside a tried Jonathan Freitag's method in his blog and it worked for me in spreading my last post.
Great work Iain!
ReplyDeleteReally nice! I confess I didn't know of them and they are an interesting concept, but as said above, they have a Warhammer vibe!
ReplyDeleteWarhammer Empire and Dwarven armies would approve of this post and your creativity and research!
ReplyDeleteLove how you've managed to construct these out of random parts and not just one or two, but five of them! They are going to wreck havoc on their targets if they manage not to misfire! LOL
Wow! Five cannons at once! It will be interesting to see the Italian pikemen.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful unit. The group shot would be a fearsome sight for any would be attacker.
ReplyDeleteBlimey! That's great work Iain.
ReplyDeleteA formidable battery of infernal looking machines!
ReplyDeleteBest wishes, James