The Penultimate Swedish GNW Regiment - Kronobergs

Its taken quite a while to get this post done - for some reason, my motivation to paint the Swedes dropped away last week, and it took me five or six days to paint and base one batch of six. My mojo seems to have returned, though, as the second stand is completed, bar the basing material, and the third batch of six figures are under coated and will be attacked after dinner this evening. Here is the command base for the new regiment:

Swedish name: Kronobergs regemente,

The regiment was first established in 1623 as the Kronoberg Regiment. The regiment was linked to the Allotment System in July 28th 1684.

The regiment's history goes back to the "fänikor" that was raised in the province of Småland (the counties of Kalmar and Kronoberg) in the 16th century. King Gustav II Adolf formed a "landsregemente" - a Grand Regiment, from these Småland "fänikor".

In 1623 the Grand Regiment was split up into two independent regiments, The Kronoberg Regiment and the Kalmar Regiment. As a result of the Constitution adopted in 1634 the Army was reorganized. The Kronoberg regiment was then referred to as the "5th Regiment". The regiment was allotted with 1100 "rotar". Hence, the Regiment had 1100 soldiers organized into 8 companies. All of the "rotar" were located within the south of Småland (the county of Kronoberg).

Uniform before the standard uniform: Yellow coat with red cuffs (1676). The regiment received the standard uniform (the blue and yellow Carolean uniform) in 1692.

Victorious Battle Campaigns (segernamn):

Kliszow 1702

Warszawa 1705

Fraustadt 1706

Holovczyn 1708

Helsingborg 1710

Here is the flag I pulled from the web for this unit:

Once again, a pretty cool flag I think!

Yesterday, being Sunday 6 June, six of us had a 15mm WW2 game at Barry's place, although despite the auspicious date, we did not do a D Day inspired game. Instead, Barry arranged a rather strange mid war encounter that saw the Soviet Russians take on the New Zealand Division - so T34/76 versus Shermans effectively, although the Kiwis had some Fireflies as well as 17lb AT guns and 25lb artillery, against which the earlier T34's proved wholly inadequate. Fortunately, we had a few KV 85's and SU 152's, which managed to keep the game going, but we Russkies were never really in the game and it was only the fact that the Kiwi armoured commander (Paul) pulled his punch after the early destruction of all Marks tank forces that the game lasted more than a couple of hours. I only took a few pictures as the smaller figures are not so photogenic unless taken close up - and close up images dont really much of an idea of what is happening in the game. To be brutally frank, I found the game somewhat unsatisfying after the first few turns and that may also be a contributory factor in the lack of documentary evidence of the engagement - but for what they are worth, here they are!

I commanded the Soviet infantry - 6 units as per above - so A LOT of infantry!

Marks command - seven T34/76's plus 4 tiny light tanks

Chris had the KV 85's and Su 152's on the Soviet left flank

NZ armour on the move to intercept the Soviet advance

New Zealand infantry moving forwards

One of my two Soviet infantry battalions with towed 76mm field guns to their rear

In the distance, the Kiwi 25 lb "Long Range Snipers" await a fire order

Led by a Firefly, the NZ tanks move through the wooded terrain

The result of the contact between Paul's Kiwi Shermans and Mark's T34's, not a happy sight for we Russians!

A view from the rear of Paul's position as his Shermans finish off half our armour in turn three of the game!

And then - I stopped taking pictures! This was near the very end of the game, when we finally managed to roll a 5 or 6 to summon air support (the Kiwis had been rolling up aircraft with monotonous regularity!). Even then, we of course only managed to summon a single aircraft from a possible max of three! At least it was able to take out one of the three 17lb AT guns before the game ended in an overwhelming Western victory!

It was good to see the guys but the game itself wasn't the most enjoyable experience. The rules were a home grown set that owe quite a lot to Flames of War, which I have never really warmed to as a rule set. I think for larger scale games with 15mm, my favourite set is Cross Fire, but they really wont work with multiple players per side. The Two Fat Lardies Chain of Command are quite good for 20mm smaller scale actions, but I have not played them for several years.