Spanish/Portuguese Infantry

Hat Spanish Geurrillas, painted by Boomer

I've been building up my Spanish forces for a while now while we've been waiting for the Command & Colours: Napoleonics Spanish expansion, which apparently will be with us in late November. Even after pre-ordering I very much thought that I'll get my copy before Christmas, which curiously enough will mean that I'll get it at around the same time as I got Napoleonics last year.

These are all HAT chaps from their Spanish Guerrillas set. They are all in round hats and a variety of differant uniforms. I took the decision to paint them up in red and brown as it leaves them relatively flexible.

The chaps advancing through the garden, officer and musician from Kennington

If my Ospreys are correct, the Almeria Regiment wore this uniform from 1808 to 1811, while Mina's first regiment of Alva wore something very similar with white gaiters. The homespun brown and black round hat combination was also worn by Portuguese militia units towards the end of the Peninsula war. Consequently, they'll be doing duty as Spanish and Portuguese line infantry for a while. Eventually of course, I'll need to organise proper Portuguese line infantry, but these will do for the time being.

An American officer from Kennington's 1812 range,

he seems a reasonable match to some of the Portuguese uniforms I've seen

The Almeria Regiment was a two battalion regiment organised in 1808 from the third battalion of the Zaragoza regiment and the Volunteers of Granada. They took part in the defence of Barcelona in1808 and were heavily in Catalonia and Aragon.

They were wiped out by the French in fighting Taragona in 1811.

An American bugler from Kennington's 1812 range,

painted up as a gallant Spanish/Portuguese

Don Francisco Espoz y Mina had three battalions of uniformed guerrillas in his band, all of whom wore the black round hat and brown coats, but with gaiters and a colour coded facings red for the first battalion, green and yellow for the second and third.

The Ordenanza chaps were probably happy enough to have any uniform at all, but Rene Chartrand states that their uniform jackets were brown faced in a uniform colour.

This approach probably doesn't do much for the purist, but it allows me to bulk up my forces quickly and get games on the table.

Attribution: Most of the above was cribbed from the relevant Osprey's, both of which were written by Rene Chartrand.