On the night of October 14, 1781, four hundred men of the Royal Deux-Ponts and a sister regiment under Lieutenant Colonel Guillaume de Forbach, comte de Deux-Ponts (the colonel-proprietor's brother), formed up in the Allied siege lines outside Yorktown and prepared to assault Redoubt 9 — one of the two forward British strongpoints that had to fall before the main British works could be reached. The French column attacked with the bayonet, without firing; the order was to take the redoubt by storm. They got into the works within fifteen minutes, took about a hundred casualties of their own, captured the garrison, and held the position. Across the field at the same hour, Hamilton's American column was storming Redoubt 10 by the same method. Within four days the British siege works were untenable; on October 19 Cornwallis surrendered. The Royal Deux-Ponts had been in America for fifteen months. Their reputation was made that night.

This figure shows a sergeant of the Royal Deux-Ponts Chasseur company in the 1779 ordonnance dress — dark blue coat with yellow facings and white cross-belts of the line, distinguished by the green plume on the bicorne and the sergeant's saber at his left hip with its green sword knot. The Chasseur company was the regiment's light-infantry component, used for skirmishing and assault work, and positioned on the regiment's left flank when in line of battle (parallel to the British light infantry company on the left of their battalion). This sergeant would have been one of the senior NCOs in the Redoubt 9 column. He pairs with the Royal Deux-Ponts officer (Captain von Closen), the Royal Deux-Ponts private standing firing, and General Rochambeau 1783 — composing the regiment's command structure from general to NCO.

1/30 scale (60mm), matte-painted, single figure boxed. Catalog number 16187. As with the rest of the W. Britain modern range, the painting is photographic-quality detail intended to read well in dioramas and display cases.