95 Rifles in 1/32 scale

This Rifleman from the 95th regiment of foot is depicted in the Peninsular War (1808-1814) and is currently reloading his Baker Rifle. The battalion which served on the Peninsula was attached to the Light Division and participated in various engagements. The Rifleman wears his telltale green jacket but has substituted his green trousers for regular infantry greys. His Shako bears the light infantry brass in the shape of a bugle and above that is his Regiments own green badge. He is shown in the act of tearing the cartridge paper with his teeth in order to access the powder within. The main difference between the Rifle regiments and standard regiments was that the Riflemen carried Baker rifles which were shorter than the Brown Bess and had a rifled barrel. This rifling meant that individual shooters could be relied upon to mark and drop individual targets at will as opposed to the typical mass volley of the era. The prime disadvantage with this weapon was that a complete reload was a comparatively more arduous process to that of the smooth bore counterparts because of the need to wrap the ball in a small felt or leather strip so that it could grip the rifling which would allow the projectile to spin. The wrapped balls were significantly more difficult to ram into the barrel, this could however be circumvented by simply spiting the ball into the barrel without a patch, occasionally the loss of accuracy was made up for with volume of fire. Hical, James