Load cannister!

The latest addition to my American Civil War collection for Sharp Practice is a Confederate artillery team with a 3" Ordnance Rifle.

They are made from the Perry Miniatures plastic ACW Artillery set with the addition of an officer (whose base needs flocking) from the same company's Confederate infantry box but with red cap and facings to transfer him to the gunners.

This is my second box of the Perry artillery. The first was to provide gunners for my Mexican forces. I now have as many limbers as I will realistically ever need (you get parts to build three in each box) so I thought it might be fun to have a go at building a caisson.

Caissons were used to carry additional ammunition beyond the ready supply in the gun's own limber. During the Napoleonic wars a caisson was usually a four-wheeled vehicle with a sloping wooded top that allowed rain to drain off and not dampen the powder. ACW caissons on the other hand seem to have been two-wheeled affairs carrying two of the ammunition chests found on a limber. The caisson was designed to hook onto the rear of a limber. It also carried a spare wheel in case one was lost in action.

A Google search found sufficient pictures of caissons to allow me to cobble one together out of the parts for two limbers and some bits of plastic card and brass wire. It's not a perfect scale model but it's good enough for my purposes.

I understand the paint used by both sides on the wooden components of artillery was made by mixing yellow ochre and black paint. That's exactly what I did and the result is a somewhat surprising greyish green. All of the metal work is black (with a little gunmetal grey dry-brushed on the wheel rims). I understand the tops of the ammunition chests were covered in sheet copper. I don't have any specifically copper paint but Citadel airbrush colour Castellax Bronze will do until I can pick some up.