"Colour of Russian Gun Carriage" Topic

Can anyone give me a rough idea of the colour of Russian Napoleonic gun carriages. One source suggests a dark green and another a lighter apple green.

Thanks,

Mark

See

TMP link

Thanks Steven. The link proved very useful. I presumed someone had previously posted about this but couldn't figure out what title to search for. Still not exactly certain how I'll proceed (ie. the evidence seems mixed between a darker black/green and the lighter "apply green") although I'm leaning to the lighter colour.

For a similar discussion see

link

It should be pretty clear from the preceeding that there is much more evidence for a light, bright green. The thread Steven posted even has pics--check the "tweaked" photos I put up.

jeff

I didn't even know they had cameras back then.

Shortly after Catherine's death, Paul I ordered the front ranks of Hussar units to be equipped with Prussian Praktika LTL3 SLRs. Fortunately for this discussion, by 1812, the more modern Gribeauval color system was in use by the light cavalry units of the major powers.

jeff

The problems with *actual* carriage colors are legion. Here are just some of them:

1.Paint was expensive, hard to make and keep in large quantities and difficult to collect the amount of materials needed to make the right colors, so

2. Colors could vary. Green especially. It often made on the cheap with charcoal and yellow ochre. That produced a dark olive green you see for many nations.

3. As different artillery units would paint at different times at different places with different ingredients and amounts, colors could vary

4. The colors produced in the 1793-1815 period could and did fade quickly in sunlight, even with a linseed oil base, which was also expensive.

Sooo, if you look at pictures of artillery carriages from the Russian War Muesum [The link Steven S. provided includes a link to it], you will see carriage colors that range from dark green to a bright apple green. Supposedly they have never been painted since the 1800s, but who knows how much they have faded or changed color. You can see where the black on the metal fittings has run into the green.

Paint then is before the chromium, zinc, and Cobalt colours, mass production and the availability of cheap oil bases. "Uniformity" of color was not easily obtained. Lead white, iron oxide red [for barns] and yellow ochre were the cheapest and most 'fast' colors available and used to create most other colors. It is the reason many armies kept white/natural fiber colored uniforms so long.

Prussian blue was discoverd/invented in the 1750s. Cheaper and new, it proved a 'fast' color. Many armies started dying their uniforms that color, painting gun carriages blue because of it.

So to be accurate in your painting of Russian gun carriages, you probably should paint them a variety of shades of green. ;-j

Marcus,

You've already heard from the prevailing two schools of thought in regard to the color used for Russian gun carriages. I'm in the light green camp, because the best evidence I've found over the years leans that way. Though admittedly it's not totally conclusive either way.

The one thing I would not agree with is the suggestion made toward using shades of olive. Only because this was the color used by the French, and after the Treaty of Tilsit anything French was abhorred in the Czar's Court. So you would be safe to stay away from olive shades.

A suggestion that was made to me years ago, by another gamer, is go to the grocery store. Find the green apples, then after looking them over pick out the darkest shaded apple and the lightest shaded apple. Once you have those pick out one that falls in between the other two. The three apples will give you the shade range you want to work in to mix your color. Once you get home mix up some paint to match your apples, and test it by painting directly on the apples till you find the color that works.

As for colors, I used Folk Art Apple Green (a little too bright) and Prairie Green (a blueish green) in about a 75% to 25% ratio depending on the apples. I was quite happy with the results.

Once you get the desired shade paint up some of your gun carriages, then set them aside to dry. While you wait enjoy one of the apples!! Be sure to clean off the paint from the skin of the apple, of course!

I'm with the Scotsman on this, adding the different levels and shades of lighting over workbench/shelf/gaming table once we get to the miniatures themselves…

I would even ask the heretical question: does it matter? As long as there is no risk of tabletop confusion with French olive or Austrian yellow-ochre, the main point is that your batteries smash the enemies of the Czar and Holy Mother Russia!

Vagamer63:

You have to be careful in assuming what those living in the early 1800s considered Apple Green. For instance, 'Pink' was a bright red, after the flower. Fox Hunters dressed in Red were called societies 'pinks'. And apple varieties, particularly in wetter climates like Russia have changed over the last two hundred years.

The Olive green was far cheaper to produce than apple green. And as I said, even in the Russian War Museum, the colors vary from dark green to bright 'apple' green.

Thanks everyone for your comments. I guess it's part of the hobby to be almost obsessive about getting the colour "right"(like mixing paints!!)

Since my Napoleonic armies have the parade ground look I'll probably keep the Russian carriages uniform (although I concede that this would probably be very unlikely in fact.)

You know, I really love TMP. There's practically nothing one can't ask about and find thoughtful and well researched answers.

Thanks Again,

Marcus

…and what you see depends upon what light is reflecting off of the gun garriage and coming to your eye. As well as the surrounding colours.

There are two "types" of light for the purposes of discussion. The first is the color spectrum from a light source. A laser. or flame with metals added, or light bulb irradiate light and this can be seen by our eyes.

"Reflected light" starts with a source (the sun in the morning or mid day or thu clouds or thu smoke) which has a certain range of wavelenghts(a.k.a. colours) and intenstu of these colours in it. It then its an object like a gun carriage. Some of the light is absorbed by the gun carriage and we don't see it. Some of the light is reflected from the gun carriage and bounces to our eyes. What we see is a combination of what was shone on the carriage and what bounced off to be "seen".
(I had a red car and in some parking lots with the yellow sodium vapor lights- it looks black because there is no red light emmitted from the Na vapor lights, so none of it is seen. Took 1/4 hour to realize there were a lot of black cars and no red cars in that lot).

So the same carriage could looke a lot different depending upon some other factors as well.

The Royal Artillery Museum in Woolwich has a set of beautiful large scale models of Russian artillery equipment, which were given to Wellington by the Tsar in the immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic wars; the woodwork is a light, bright green.

Dear Colin
Yes the RAHT Firepower have some wonderful models but they have not been on display since 1990s when the Rotunda closed. It is frustrating that even serious researcher are not permitted access.

The pigment used by the Russian was verigris as described in my book. It would have given a great number of different shades depending upon the number of coats and whether a varnish was applied which is unlikely in the case of Russian guns. The use of softwood would require careful choise of the paint. The paint chosen is a bacteriostat and still in places used to stop fungal/algal growth.

Stephen