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Huszar Command team

Hungarian Huszárs
A guide to converting them from Romanians and Cossacks

At first glance the conversions I have done to create my Huszárs may seem involved, but most of the work was quite simple. I used both Cossacks and Romanian cavalry to convert the Huszárs, this allowed me to mix a number of the sabre waving miniatures from the Cossack range with the Romanians to give the Huszárs a more aggressive feel. If you are just converting the one platoon making all your Huszárs from just the Romanians will look equally as good.

Huszárs
Most of the conversions involved simple headswaps utilising the GSO189 heads from the Special Order range, though I did also use heads from Hungarian Puskás Platoon commander and company commander in caps for variety.

See Casey’s Article on Headswaps for guidance.

Huszárs
Hungarian Heads HS006 I’ll mention any other conversion details as I go through my examples. The examples are broken up into Romanian and Cossack conversions so you can see where the miniatures have come from.

Left: GSO189

Machine-gunners

To get the ball rolling I’ll take a look at the harder conversions, the machine-gunners.

In the painted example I used the Romanian machine-gunner who’s arm with the MG comes separate. I cut the MG off at each side of his hand and then carefully filed out the last piece of the MG. I then glued a MG-34 from GSO181 into his hand before attaching his arm. The final step was to make the folded up bipod from green stuff putty.

He also gained a head from GSO189.

Huszár Machine-gunner
Huszár Machine-gunner The second machine-gunner uses the top half of the normal Hungarian machine-gunner. I chopped off his legs and drilled and filed his bottom half off up to his waist, but was careful to leave his bags intact. It was just a matter of trimming the inside of his bags off until he fitted on the legs attached to the horse. A little filling of gaps finished him off.

No headswap needed for this one.

The final machine-gunner for the third squad was made from a Romanian rider with his rifle slung. I just trimmed off the rifle and left the sling intact. I then glued a MG-34 from GSO19 in the position of the rifle. Like the first machine-gunner I added a folded bipod to the machine-gun. It also received a new head from HSO06.
Huszár Machine-gunner
Ammo pouches Conversions from Romanian Cavalry

The Romanians need little work to convert them in to suitable Huszárs. Apart from the headswap only the cartridge box on the front of their belt needs changing. The Romanian cartridge box is a single long pouch, to convert it to a suitable Hungarian arrangement just divide it into two smaller ammo pouches. Mark a line down the middle from top to bottom of the cartridge box and cut metal out along this line so it looks like two ammo pouches.

All the Romanian Cavalry converted below to Huszárs have had this done to their cartridge box.

My first conversion of the Romanian Cavalry is a headswap form the Hungarian company commander. I particularly like this head as he has a moustache.
Huszár
Huszár This one is just a simple headswap, giving him a new head from GSO189.
This one is with his rifle slug, just a another GSO189 headswap.
Huszár
Huszár A slightly different pose with another GSO189 headswap.
This Huszár received a head from a Hungarian Puskás Platoon commander, no moustache so a little more variety.
Huszár
Huszár The final Romanian Cavalry miniature I used was the NCO shielding his eyes. Before I added the new GSO189 head I first had to separate his hand from his old Romanian helmet. I carefully sliced between the hand and helmet. Once separated I removed the old head with a quick twist from my needle nosed pliers. I then carefully bent out the arm away from the neck, just to give me room to drill the hole and replace the head. Once the new head was in place I once more carefully bent the arm back so it touched the new helmet.
Conversions from Soviet Cossack Cavalry

Because I wanted to have a few Huszárs with their sabres drawn and looking a little aggressive I picked out a few of the Cossacks to use. I went for only the miniatures with sabres out.

I also went for mostly Cossacks with carbines slung, but included a few with PPSh-41 sub-machine guns, as they seemed a popular captured weapon among the Axis troops.

The Cossacks have no front cartridge boxes so I didn’t need to convert anything here.

Huszár
Huszár This Huszár just received a new head. The head is the Hungarian Company commander once again with his fantastic moustache.
This Huszár was a simple GSO189 headswap.
Huszár
Huszár I thought this guy with the PPSh-41 slung would make a great NCO so he received a Puskás Platoon commander’s head.
The final converted Cossack also received a Puskás Platoon commanders capped head.
Huszár
Huszár Squad
Huszár team Uniforms

The Huszár uniform is essentially the same as that of the infantry. Their branch colour at the start of 1942 was light blue (I used Infantry Blue (FWP400) + White (FWP301)). All mobile troops were changed to dark blue in late 1942, but I’m assuming new patches and tags weren’t issued until refitting in 1943.

The side cap had a light blue branch colour triangle on the front left side (point down).

Boots were black.

Huszár team
Huszár Command team Huszár team
Huszár team Huszár team
Huszár team

I hope this has inspired you to have a go yourself. It’s not as hard as it looks.

Wayne

Fielding Huszár in Flames Of War...

One a final related item from the Bicycle and Huszár briefings is the 150mm 14/31M howitzer.

I recommend you just use the IT580 100/17. If you are really keen you can replace the barrel tube with a slightly larger diameter brass tube from your local model store.

Right: 150mm 14/31M howitzer.
150mm 14/31M howitzer


Last Updated On Wednesday, July 8, 2015