When the German state of Hessen-Cassel agreed to supply troops to Britain to help it suppress rebellion in its North American colonies, the original contingent was to be 15 battalions of musketeers (five companies each), two companies of light infantry, and four battalions of grenadiers, each consisting of four companies. While a normal regiment consisted of six companies, five of which were either musketeers or fusiliers, and the sixth were grenadiers, it was common practice to brigade the grenadier companies together, creating the four battalions that were sent to America. While grenadiers were considered the elite of the infantry, in practice their role was no different to that of the other companies, although more was expected of them as they got the more difficult tasks.

The grenadier uniform was for the most part the same as that of the rest of the infantry, with coat, waistcoat, breeches and long gaiters (covered by coveralls on these figures) all cut in the Prussian fashion. The most obvious difference was in the headgear, for musketeers wore a simple tricorn hat, fusiliers wore a short mitre cap, and grenadiers wore a tall mitre with tasseled pompon at the top. Every man here wears this headgear, and so is correctly uniformed, as is the officer in our bottom row, for although he is an officer of grenadiers, he correctly wears an ordinary hat rather than the mitre of the men. Weaponry and equipment was also the same as for other parts of the infantry, consisting of knapsack, haversack, water container and cartridge pouch, and the only visible difference is that the cartridge pouch had both a plate on the flap and flaming grenade badges in all four corners – a detail that is missing on these figures, but is easily added with paint. That apart, the accuracy of these models is very good.

Like the other sets of Hessians produced by HaT at the same time as this one, the sculpting is very much on the ‘soft’ side when it comes to detail, so these are not good to look at. For example, although all the mitre caps have an engraved front plate, it is impossible to tell what design this is, and the faces are particularly bland, saved only by the presence of moustaches on all except the officer. The sword held by the officer is noticeably too short – the blade is 9.5 mm long (68.4 cm) when the real thing was around 83 cm in length, and the difference really shows. Grenadier companies had fifers rather than the hautbois, so it is good to see a fifer in this set, but amusingly the designer has not understood how this instrument is played, and so the fife is wedged under the nose of the unfortunate man rather than just below the mouth, where it should be. It is pleasing to report that in many areas flash is very minimal, but some seams are less clean than others, and there are a few areas of excess plastic between musket and body.

The poses are the usual suspects, but then advancing, marching, firing and standing poses is what many people want from such a set, so this is fine. There is enough movement to make them interesting without ignoring the formations such men usually fought in. The rather stiff officer seems to have his sword arm somewhere below his shoulder, but none of these poses could be described as inappropriate.

The evidence suggests that grenadiers often operated while wearing ordinary hats, but generally tried to go into battle with their impressive caps instead. Undoubtedly the tall caps added to their appearance, particularly to the enemy, and these figures do a decent job of depicting these men looking their best for battle. The lack of sharp detail does not do them any favours, but accurately done and in useful poses, this selection of figures is a fair addition to the range available for the American War.