"Gnw Swedish Grenadier" Topic

Hi all,
anyone got info on the mitre and pouch cyphers for the grenadiers in the Swedish GNW army?

If your name is not Paul, please take a look at link

Scalplock – See also the link suggested by Travellera. But in short you will find it hard information on the mitres at least (and probably the pouch cyphers) as Swedish GNW grenadiers didn't wear them. They looked just like musketeers.

If that is the case why do manufacturers of minis put them on the figures?I know that some regiments kitted out the grenadiers in hats but it would seem reasonable to make your elite troops stand out from the crowd as other nations did.Perhaps this can be clarified by a few more people.

Some great pics of actual cyphers put up on Musketeer Minis forum.

The mitres do seem to have been worn by the German Varvarde regiments, but not by the Swedish national Indelta regiments.

I make the Swedish Grenadiers for two reasons:

1) For those who wish to model German regiments.
2) Because when I didn't I kept on being pestered for them and it was easier to make them than keeping on providing the answer given above. :-)

My basic Swedish army and booster packs do not include grenadiers as the vast majority of wargamers want to model the Royal army which consisted wholly of Varvarde units.

Cheers

Peter

I would guess manufacturers do this because they haven't researched the army very well, but I guess you would have to ask them about this.

To be fair many of the older books do have pictures of Swedish mitres and pouch cyphers, always of the same few examples that we have – i.e from surviving examples we have & that may never have been worn in action. It was assumed that all the other units had them as well but more recent research has overturned this idea.

So be warned you can search as much as you like for details on this & you won't find them. Almost certainly because they don't exist, but even if they did exist there are no details. It might still be that the examples we have were worn by a few garrison battalions, so at best you will have to settle for using them.

Easily the best source on this is a book on the army by acedia press – search online for it.

Yes I agree with what you say about 'elites' but the fact remains that the Swedes, the French and other armies didn't do this. I have no idea why but they didn't. I suspect that this is just a case of trying to apply 'English speaking world' norms to the rest of the world.

Thanks for all the help.Looks like i am going to have to rethink my army composition and sell off what i can't use.

According to Höglund/Salnäs "Stora Nordiska Kriget 1700-1721" which is a recent well research publication you will find that it si clear that the Life Guard Grenadier battalion and the detached Grenadier battalion (1716) vore hats BUT it is also mentioned that the 96 grenadiers in the Södermanland Regiment received both hats and mitre caps. In the Dal regiment there were at least 6 mitre caps in use 1699. Drafted regiments in the baltic states and in Germany used mitres. Apart from this there is no information available regarding the practice of the Swedish regiments headgear. So I think you can stick to your original plan and invest is some of those beautiful Musketeer miniatures grenadiers!

Travellera: I agree use whatever you like but the point was more you are going to have to make the colours or whatever up for them if you think that they ever existed.

On your specific points. Yes the excellent book you mention talks about the things you mention but also notes that the Sodermanlands probably had the mitre caps only for parades, etc. The Dal regiment had them in 1694 but not evidence for later on, or indeed of what they looked like in 1694. Finally I think 4 of the 47 Baltic/German units might have had them.

So of the 100 or so infantry units in Höglund/Salnäs we have 6 who MIGHT have worn mitre caps.

After some thought i guess in the end it comes down to what looks good on the table.