TYW Protestant-Swedish Army
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Another regiment done – the mercenary ‘blue’ regiment.
The mercenary blue regiment, composed of veterans of many years of service, did wear blue uniforms – according to catholic eyewitnesses at Breitenfeld and Lutzen. It was a strong regiment and was brigaded on its own. At Lutzen, the regiment was mistaken, by many, to have attacked the imperialists in place of the shattered swedish brigade. However, the swedish brigade also seem to have had, in part, blue uniforms, so it could have been a mistaken identity. Besides, it would have been more likely for Knyphausen, commanding the centre, would use a reserve brigade to fill that gap instead of taking a regiment fighting in the front line and leave a wider gap in the centre.
It seems the blue regiment attacked Matthias Kerhaus’ imperialist regiment, also composed of veterans, but was in turn attacked from the flank by Otto Heinrich von Westfahlen’s harquebusier cavalry regiment. Westfahlen’s regiment was raised in 1632 and consisted of about 150 men. Would they have been enough to cause the rout? In my opinion yes, if the blue regiment was already engaged in combat and the harquebusiers well-led. And that seems was the case.
The blue regiment’s commander Winckel was wounded and the brigade retreated. According to recent studies, out of a complement of 918 men, only 331 remained fit for combat – the rest were killed, wounded or captured. The casualties were 88% of the pikemen and 42% of the musketeers – this may be interpreted as the pikemen covering the musketeers’ retreat or the musketeers, being unarmoured, could run away faster than their armoured comrades. The remnants stayed in reserve until the end of the battle, no longer taking active part.
The models are all warlord games.
No worries about hi-jacking my thread ctg – the tyw is an interesting topic!
Foot commander finished, my first Swede. Nils Brahe, Count of Visingborg. An able commander, he demonstrated courage and initiative in many occasions obtaining the rank of general in 1632 at the age of 28. At Lutzen he was wounded in the knee at the head of the yellow brigade. He died 15 days later from his wound.
The command stand is made from the metal miniatures of the swedish infantry box set. I painted the general in the same colours as his painting (though probably he wore different clothes miles away from the artists’ studio!). The flag does not represent the yellow regiment – yellow and black are the two main colours of the brahe family so I used the colours for the flag, since I like to give command stands a flag bearer.
Attachments:
The first cavalry unit done – Ohm’s regiment. Originally raised in 1626 by Streiff, this german mercenary unit served the swedes until 1635, when they joined the French. In 1632 this unit was led by Johan Bernard von Ohm and at the battle of Lutzen it was in reserve, the only unit not engaged in combat. The reason they were chosen in that role is unknown.
I represented the unit as harquebusiers, though they may have been cuirassiers, or a mix of both. They’re not very well equipped. It seems that the front line units in the Swedish battle-array were better than the second-line, so my interpretation is that either Ohm’s regiment despite being a veteran unit had many new recruits or else there was friction between Ohm and the Swedish high command. Obviously it’s a big ?
The jacket colour is artistic license since there is no record on uniformity in mercenary cavalry units. However, there is evidence on the flag. Since plain white background usually represented the colonel’s company, the leader is Ohm himself (though I don’t know how he looked like). Other companies’ flags had a background of mid-blue and white.
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