As many readers will know, Russian officers in the early Napoleonic period seem to have worn bicornes (and they continued to do so to some extent until the end of the wars). However, after 1805, officers were allowed to wear a shako, and at least by 1807 there was a distinctive officer’s shako with an eagle ornament and decorative chin straps or chains. It is difficult to determine (for a non-Russian reader at least) to what extent this type of shako was adopted. There are some depiction of them at least, such as the one from the Vinhuijzen collection.
There are no miniatures that I know of with this headgear, so I decided to try to convert one. The conversion was very simple, I just swapped heads with an NCO model (both figures are by Brigade Games). I did two and they will make up officers for my musketeer skirmishers (mostly because I had surplus command figures). Although the conversion was straightforward, I did mess up. Halfway through painting, I dropped the Sevsk officer (turquise facings). The miniature fell head first and the glued on head came off… This is actually not an uncommon occurrence. I tend to drop figures regularly! It is also mostly quite easy to glue a head back into place and that turned out to be the case with this figure as well. What tends to happen is that there is a thin crack in the paint job where the head split from the body. In a best case scenario, this can be painted over. This worked for the Sevsk officer, although it took a few coats. I dont think it is very noticable if you dont look very closely…
Pancratist 