War of Austrian Succession - Austrian Army Project

I have embarked on a new 18th Century painting project: building an Austrian army for the War of Austrian Succession with battalions sized at either 32 or 40 figures. I had been experimenting with basing 32 figure Austrian battalions (so that they would be the same number of figures as my new Prussian battalions) on deeper bases, but the same frontage as before. 

This started when I painted a battalion of Austrians in a firing line, which required deeper bases to protect the extended musket and bayonet. The extra depth of the stand made it possible to add a third rank of file closers (NCOs, officers and drummers). The end result looks realistic to me (see the next two pictures below).

The War of the Austrian Succession (1741-1748) Austrian army has a different look from its Seven Years War (1756-1763) counterpart, a look that makes it more colorful. For starters, many of the infantry regiments had colored waistcoats and turnbacks in the facing color. For example, the Deutschmeister and the Baden-Baden regiments had dark blue cuffs, waistcoats and turnbacks. The Luzan and the Wied regiments had green cuffs, waistcoats and turnbacks. However, in the SYW, the regiments no longer had colored turnbacks, using white instead, and most no longer wore the colored waistcoat. The drummers' uniforms were in the reverse colors with white cuffs.

At the start of the WAS, the Austrian army was still using flags of Charles VI, the father of Maria Theresa. Charles died in 1740 and while it was customary for new flags to be issued bearing the cypher of the new monarch, the Austrian army of 1741 did not have time to change its standards.

There were a variety of designs including horizontal stripes bordered with flames of alternating red, yellow and black; also flags that had a checkerboard pattern of red and white around the edges of the flag. Another flag pattern had a green field with the Austrian eagle and coat of arms in the center and the edges were bordered with red and white flames.

My newly painted Deutschmeister regiment has the red and white striped flag, which I hand-painted over an image that I captured from Pinterest.

The first battalion of my Deutschmeister Regiment sports a white Colonel's Color and an orange-yellow regimental flag

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