My Polish 54mm Winged Hussar finished. Pretty fun to paint and a nice change of pace. The Winged hussars were introduced into the Polish army with the election of the king Stephen Báthory from Hungary. This cavalry was almost as fast and agile as light cavalry but armored and armed as heavy cavalry. For 200 years they pretty much held the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth together, many victories attributed to this unit alone.
Their main tactics was to charge the enemy with lances, the formation was loose on the approach and casualties were as such low from the inaccurate muskets of those days. As they approached they closed ranks and rammed into the enemy, their lances were hollow and light weight which allowed them to be very long. Longer than most pikes, which also meant they hit the enemy before the enemy had a chance to hit them back.
The horses were a special breed of eastern horses which recovered their lost stamina quickly and were strong enough to allow for multiple charges in a single battle. This was also necessary when fighting the Tatars and light cavalry of the Ottoman empire. The wings on the back are debated, some say the sound of the wind rushing through the feathers made a fearsome noise, other sources claim they were mounted to make the rider appear taller and more intimidating. Recent studies show that it would be unlikely the hussars used their wings for anything else than ceremonial duties and parades since the wings apparently slowed down the horses during shooting of historical films. Whatever the cause of the wings was, they make the rider look unique and damn cool imo.
The Winged hussars had their most glorious hour in 1683, when the Ottoman empire had conquered all lands up to Vienna and had laid siege to the city. The German Empire and thePolish-Lithuanian commonwealth, after much deliberation and intrigue from the Vatican and France, sent relief forces which arrived in a spectacular manner at the exact right moment when the city walls had been breached. Imagine Lord of the Rings - Two Towers, the charge with Gandalf at the very end. That is what the combined cavalry force of the German-Polish army was like, with the tip of the charge being led by the winged hussars. They smashed into the side of the Ottoman army and managed to rout it, saving the bacon of the valorous Vienna defenders not a second too soon. The map on the miniature base is depicting the besieged city of Vienna.
The hussars often had skins of exotic animals (most often leopard) adore their cuirass – veterans used bear or wolf pelts. The unit was also armed to the teeth. Besides wielding a lance they also had sabers, broadswords, warhammers, battle axes, bows, pistols and from 1680 and onward a carbine as well. Each hussar funded his own equipment, the crown funded the lances, of which several were used in each battle as the hussars would charge multiple times to break the enemy army, each time with a new lance.
The cavalry and winged hussars in particular are deeply rooted in Polish culture, the Polish 1st Armored division (the Black Brigade in exile) which fought in Normandy used a symbol depicting a winged hussar helmet and wing on their tanks.
There is an Italian-Polish project dating back a few years but it seems that it is getting close to actually becoming a movie, about the siege of Vienna. More info about it here:
http://www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/24740,Director-Skolimowski-to-play-Sobieski-in-new-historical-blockbuster
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1899285/
I hope it will be decent, because honestly, so far all movies involving the winged hussars have been poorly made ahistorical crap or pure fantasy.
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