Ottomania! RedBox Turkish Artillery (17th Century)

My Ottoman Turkish Artillery project (which I’ve now shamelessly dubbed ‘Ottomania’) kicks off with a completed box of RedBox’s “Turkish Artillery (17th Century)”. As I’ve indicated in a previous post, RedBox have issued a number of different kits featuring Turkish artillery from the 16th/17th centuries, so I intend to do more.

I’ve created two gun teams which service two different calibres of gun. Both guns are large compared to Napoleonic artillery. Plastic Soldier Review informs us that the larger gun has a barrel length of 35mm (equivalent to 2.5 metres) while the smaller gun has a barrel length of 29mm (equivalent 2.1 metres).

Much of my time was spent on the basing which features resin-cast gabions as a defensive emplacement. I’m convinced that the extra time spent on basing is important for artillery groups.

I’m particularly pleased with the way my gabions turned out. Some preparation was necessary before painting with some initial cleaning before being mounted on some short lengths of plastic card to better accommodate the modelling clay base. Minor holes which had appeared in the original resin cast were filled in with a little bit of glue. 

With a generous gun crew of 8 figures to service each gun, I was careful to make a big enough space to accommodate them all without crowding.

The walls of Vienna brace for another projectile about to be sent hurtling towards them.

The smaller of the two cannon, mounted on a fetching blue carriage.

The larger of the two guns about to be fired.

And I’m already planning my next lot of Ottoman artillerymen, making use of yet more gabions with some highly specialised siege artillery. More on that to come…