OK, I cheated a bit and used an infantry uniform for testing this. Mainly I'm trying to decide on colors for the Batrachian artillerymen. I'm more inclined to the gray or blue (the latter being the reverse of my Soweiter artillerymen). On the other hand these would be rather dark compared to the pale gray/white of the Batrachian infantry. Not really a problem, but might make the Batrachian seem less coherent (so to speak).As always I welcome any constructive comments.
9 comments:
Coherent?
You mean like the British?
Cavalry uniforms: Blue
Infantry: Red (though some are also Blue)
Artillery Uniforms: Blue
How about the Saxons?
Cavalry: Reds and Blues with a few in White or Green
Infantry: White, Green, Doe Brown, Red, Yellow, Pink..(I could go on).
Artillery: Green (mostly)
If you decide to make most of the army one colour and the artillery something else this makes perfect sense, as for most of the period the 'ordinnance' was a closely monitored arm as it cost the MOST!
Black powder is *dirty*! The darker the clothes of the artillerymen, the better.
Swiss are reputed to be sensible and practical people: by the mid-18th C. the artillery of Geneva wore a dark blue coat (routinely discarded when crewing the pieces) and black smallclothes.
Thus, from the logical & historical pov, darkly-clad Batrachian artillery would be likely. Then the aesthetical pleasure is certainly not to be forgotten, and you are the ONE who will look the most often at them... Follow *your* taste.
Batrachian artillery 'merely' reversing the color pattern of the Soweiter artillerymen may be too..simple? Gray would add a new hue to the overall palette, and would fit with pale gray of the infantry.
Best regards,
Jean-Louis
Thanks for the comments!
I think I'll try the redcoats/blue facings on 1 mini and see how it looks. It wouldn't be too hard to paint gray over the blue if I decide to try gray facings.
Well, not exactly the reverse colors, I would try to make the shades of red and blue different enough from the Offenbach artillery blue and red, plus the wooden parts of the guns would be different enough in color and the cut of the uniforms would help distinguish them. I don't think it would be much of an issue on the battlefield/game table.
Fitz-Badger,
The suggestion of gray rather than blue was not based on a worry about tabletop identification (a real issue on the historical battlefields of the time, when a British army met a French one with red-clad Swiss and Irish infantry and French ‘Gendarmerie’; and when Prussian and Austrian Cuirassiers were identically clad in white: historical anecdotes of misidentification abund). Specially not for artillery, not a ‘melee’ arm, and with carriges in ‘national’ colors. The idea was just to add *variety*, to enlarge the palette reflected on the tabletop.
Did you begin ‘toying’ with ideas for the cavalry? Historically, by ‘true’ Lace Wars times, few armies were as 'monochromatic' as the Swedish one –or, for that matter, the British one, with only ‘The Blues’ (and most of the Chasseurs Britanniques Dragoons) not in the same red as the infantry. In both French and Prussian cases, e.g., ‘Heavy Horses’ and Dragoons both had their on characteristic color, different of that of the Line Foot –not to speak of Hussars…
Then I confess that, for most of the fictitious mid-18th armies I have ‘daydreamed’, I succumbed to the temptation of ‘national overcharacterization’, with same coat color for infantry and (most of) the cavalry. Not a matter of 'tabletop IFF' –would have been totally unhistorical– and blatantly incompatible with my wish of ‘extremely colorful armies’: probably a combination of lazyness and lack of imagination.
BTW as a blogger I confess to now have a very ‘Google Reader user unfriendly’practice: in order to keep all info. relevant to a given topic gathered rather than scattered along numerous posts, I expand previous posts, either in their main text ([ab]using the ‘dit previous posts’ utility) or by posting *comments* . Actually I tend to treat my blog as a ‘poor man’s website’, with the last post (sept 12?) regularly updated as ‘What’s New?’ intro page. Probably an infringement of Netetiquette?
Best regards,
Jean-Louis
Yup, Jean-Louis is correct, black powder residue is dirty and most nations had dark uniforms for their artillerymen because light ones were impossible to keep clean.
But, that being said, it is your imagi-Nation and you can uniform them however you like.
-- Jeff
I like the first one! As for the dirty powder, well in the Grand Duchy of Davidsberg we have a special laundry division which makes sure the uniforms are always spotless!!
cheers
Well, for what it's worth, I'm partial to either the red and blue or red and black (dark grey?)artillery uniforms. This is likely a residual effect of the (historical) Russian artillery uniforms I painted recently. There's just something about bright red uniforms.
Best Regards,
Stokes
I've answered your question at the Kingdom of Wittenberg blog, fitz-badger, about the artillerist tool. But here are links to two pictures that show the tools in some detail.
SYW Prussian
http://tinyurl.com/2ng58t
1806 Prussian
http://tinyurl.com/2kdy69
andygamer,
Thanks! That helps a lot. :-)
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