Of travels
Visiting Austria with a particuliar (strangely?) aim for Wagram.
La Fère Champenoise is not just there...it is there too.
1870 Gravelotte
Kulikovo
ST Petersburg... +Arsenal Wein, +Yekaterinburg
AUSTRIA OCT. 2019.
Driving through south western Germany to reach Wien and Wagram! So much to see an the ways.
I loved it but was...right disappointed with Wagram battlefield.
The Aspern/ Lobau part is nearly zero covered with new constructions. Overall nearly nothing is marked,kept; obviously the Austrians not much interested in this. Towards the Russbach part of the field, the surroundings still give an idea of the grounds.
Austria is very nice, beautiful little towns, mountains, and a number of beautiful castles.
To do the whole for a good wargamer, you need 8-10 days.
This Austrian officer welcomes you in the small Wagram museum (private/no public state stuff at all).
A mobile forge. One day on my table too.
Strange 12lb(?) lashed; and what looks like a cart to carry the crew. Austrians comfort.
Would my Blue moon Austrian logistical tail look like this?
A glimpse of the field from Aspern. Mostly flat but driving says you can occasionally escape the grande battery.
La grainerie, Essling.
At least this one is still there and impressive. kept as a breeding farm.
Impregnable door with bullets impacts.
Reincarnated hussar horses around. Would not reach the other side...
...In case they'd still be there assaulting...
You, as an exhausted saxon bicorned infantryman, can see the Austrian masses coming to retake it from you?
Game wise, the most useful part and intriguing bit of the visit: everywhere the little river is quite an obstacle and lined with trees and bush that will impede distant visibility through it. Here from French positions.
On the height (the Wagram) above the Russbach, a few 100m behind, effectively hidden from the flatland, here the irregularity and open ground told of a former hasty work.
...heights behind the village, you can see far above to the right wing of the French; useful.
and it carries on to the left( as seen from Austrian positions), but with a complicated ups and downs and no clear artillery positions
Like those sent to break the bridge at Essling... now out of reach, half salvaged from grounding.
Possibly already used back then; can imagine them commandeered to cross troops.
as seen by Reynier's covering guns?
I went to ALL possible flat figures dios/ museums I knew be on the way;) here the Kazeldorf one.
Inspiration for Sharp Practice. next time will go to Innsbrück and more;). Imagine having to paint 80 Bavarian skirmishers?
Here Salzburg. A pretty gem...even with bad weather.
...in the mountains.
The wargamer's gem in Wien. The army history museum.
All those names in books....
From my ancestors most favorite enemies;)
This museum is huge; with only 4 hours I did not manage to have the artillery hall and the Panzer hall.
In 1814 Bashkirs came from this kind of space, were in France and so much enjoyed this victory and possibly the "wealth" they grabbed thereafter...
and...named it Ferechampenoise.
me in front of the road sign. Nothing to see, just a normal village, not worth another hour of driving;)
and a bridge that tells you Europe lies on one side Asia on the other.
A bit further is a Cossack field/village called "Death to the French"; 1812 training ground you see ;)
compared to the run down aspect of most of rural Russia. The Bashkirs kept their individual homes (and the unsocialist care for them), forcing in collectivism in housing would have got a revolt.
SAINT PETERSBURG FEB 2020
A week in beautiful St Petersburg, not enough as there is so much, especially if, like us, you go beyond the usual tourists spots. We also add several historical flats of soviets (Kirov) and writers etc. A sobering experience for the innocents vs the marxist system in full swing.
St P. militia flag in Kazan cathedral, near the tomb of Kutusov.
More then on our tables, parade 1827 for the tsar.
A model of a tracked armoured Mg in Leningrad siege memorial museum.
Comrade Kirov's library is his flat. And no he did not share the kitchen with others. He even "exploited" a cook.
..assaulting Ismael. Zinnfiguren dio in his museum.
2.5 hours of visit, long chats with the museum guide.
In Fabergé museum..
In Hermitage, full walls of all the generals of 1812. Not too sure if they are in period dress though.
Austrian pappenheimer...
A truly grand thing. Unfortunately the part on fortresses and engineers of the 17-18th century was in "remont".
Scores of artillery pieces from bronze guns to modern soviet gear.
Petit mountain howitzer.
Licornes; the type without horns ;)
bad picture, low lighting and glass cases, of ammunition carts of 1812.
Sideways but did not get properly the forge.
1812 GS wagon.
1/1 scale for a change. No need of painting.
The dragons droped something on the way.
Kutusov last bedroom in Bünzlau 1813.
Inside a shell.
Some approximate dioramas about Borodino, a famous Russian victory ;)
1838 katyusha!!!!
The whole thing.
Minis; a couple of dio; not very accurate.
Taking Kazan for Ivan the great..
A grenadier mitre with bullets holes.
A HUGE XVIIth century siege gun.
Probably a prototype.
to paint my musketeers.
Cavalry weapons. Good mine are in 18 mm not to paint all the art !!!
I forgot to check;).
Never seen before.
I strongly resisted having armies of the 16th century despite the temptations.
Annoyingly magnificent arquebuses.
Plenty in the Artillery museum, in Hermitage.
Guess what will be painting more of the By Fire and sword and 30YW troops...
guns rows; mostly everything is Russian, a few Turkish captured ones..
Russian machine gun.
Bronze Russian (big) breech loader.
for mountains...
Small arms.
captured Krupp 4lb
kaboom.
First saw captured ones in Petropavlosk, that were used as coastal defence ( now decorative).
if you don't believe.
Scutiny revealed they had with them, Russian made clones 1885.
1878 flag.
1904+++.
1878+++ coastal guns.
You can compare to the fence height ;).
Russo jap war howitzer.
One of the indoor rows of WW1 artillery.
WW1 37mm .
Mortars.
Two brit WW1 pieces.
All in the right scale...
Rows of WW2 guns.
AA listening station.
Clearly not something to move away fast.
Light projector.
Observation bunker
Command bunker Stalin line 1941.
45mm pre war.
Later version with horse drawn wheels.
Seems they too had the idea.
Everything they ever had is there.
Cold war stuff aplenty but less then in this Ural museum.
Cashtan...nothing to do with earning on the side of the sunny beach.
Floating gem: The Aurora.
They made a good recent restauration job, but a lot we cannot see.
Bits of fleet to paint yours well.
If you manage Cyrilic letters , you can get the names;).
A big one. This is the first one of 19 rooms.
Did not climb any rope, just been to second partial level;).
XVIIth century with sweet prisoners rowing. Pre Jean Valjean types.
Not too easy to succeed pictures with glass everywhere.
A rare model showing studding sails out.
Plenty of magnificent pictures. Turks providing the victories shown, mostly. Here Athos 1807.
And no it is not a remake or sequel of The three musketeers.
1806 heroic brig Alexander mauling superior numbers.
Figureheads alley.
Things thrown by guns to do various damage to your ship. Moulages.
More of it; note the bar shot.
As if you were inside. Note the deserted dack as in too many 1/700th toys;)
You are inside a Russian ship battling the Turks. Sinop 1853.
Then this is the result....
First Russian monitor.
First submarine 1881.
Pompom 40mm.
10-barrel-gatling-type Colt. 1876
37mm-5 barrels-Hotchkiss. 1895
Amstrong 4 barrel 1875 on cruiser Afrika
Amstrong 44mm anti torpedo boat gun 1880+
The BOOM end of a spar torpedo. reckless chaps on small boats coming close to stick this on the side of ships... not a Panzerfaust hey!
Like these ones. Russians who survived and managed, first time in history to bring their boat back. Action-off-Măcin-1877.
Măcin-1877-a-bit-afterwards.
Another type.
Russo Jap war, several rooms.
Novik cruiser, I think... Guess what, forgot to label everything;)
Cut inside ship of this late XIXth century early XXth.
Rear admiral enseign.
Rooms like that...Then ww1.
Big dreadnought, a room on reconstructing the fleet after Tsuchima..
Topedo boat.
Mineslaying.
Early soviet times.
WW2 heavy cruiser.
Could not believe it: river gunboat with paddle wheels.
Another, maybe coastal too.
Post war-80s, Gorchkov's navy.
One of the prettiest ships.
Plenty of visitors, many young ones.
They are making a museum a bit like Gettysburg, trying to recreate the surroundings as it was in 1380 down to the plants and woods.
back in 2014... it was improved since. Bigger.
Italian navy museum La Spezia
Plenty from everywhere
aie
A glimpse of the gigantic military museum near Ekaterinburg.
One third of the outside...
Main pavillon, another one is near completion.
The whole thing is mostly WW2 and soviet stuff..
pumfff.
I went first to the museum in Gravelotte, thinking innocently they would have loads of things to visit the fields. NIB..nada. A typical modern French museum, not bad but nearly excusing itself to be about war. It is not just about the battle. At least I read a lot, had a map provided by Bruce Weigle, the Geoportail map from @ 1880+, one of German artillery positions, a compass, and an ancestor who was there. (he did not help though).
The next big help came from the German veterans who at the end of the XIXth century nicely put markers (DENKMAHL) everywhere their units was suffering. A bit like in Gettysburg. Of course nothing about the French, the place being in the Westmark of the2nd Reich for a while.
Overall you can see a lot, and understand what they could se and figure out or not of the mess. The place has not been covered by modern developments or sabotaged. So I spent 6+ hours driving, walking, looking taking pictures, braving the heat whistling German marches. (few good ones from the period, mostly afterwards). the few youngsters around from the villages, no doubt thinking I was slightly mad, unless they already had this type of alien before. I made the mistake of not taking enough notes and labelling only part of the picture too late.
The fields would have been smaller than now; on 1950 aerial pics, you get the long vegetable plots from the houses outwards.
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