1:72 Turkish Infantry (Tufekei) XVII Century

Men with a musket in the Ottoman army

The designation in the name refers to the Turkish word for a musket and captures what the set represents: foot soldiers whose main weapon was a long musket with a matchlock or a flintlock. The Ottoman army took up firearms early, and in the 17th century it counted on them as the basis of its infantry, whether in the picked corps or in units called up in the provinces.

A firing line is read from the movements

Here the relation between the figures is clearer than in any other foot set. Loading a long musket took tens of seconds and ran through a clear sequence of actions: pour the powder, insert the shot, run down the ramrod, prepare the lock and only then aim. If you set the set out so that every figure captures a different stage, the rank gains a rhythm and the viewer himself fills in that the fire is running from right to left.

How to set the depth

Shooters did not stand in a single line. The rear rank was reloading, the front one firing, and between them there remained room for the men to rotate through. So leave a bigger gap between the ranks than would seem natural, and add one figure to the side, an NCO or a powder carrier for example.

The details that decide

The match is a small thing, but in a small scale the eye catches it at once; a thin strip painted red at the end is enough. Choose the coloring of the clothing more varied in the upper part and subdued below, where the dust of the march settles. If you are building a longer formation, vary the turn of the heads: two men looking to the side are enough for the rank to stop looking as though it had been cast from one mold.