"French naval regiments 1813 uniform?" Topic

I'm looking at an order of battle for Lutzen and Bautzen in 1813. There are quite a few naval battalions listed for the French. Are these marines stripped from the navy, or marines and sailors both? Any idea what the uniform was for these guys, and does anyone make them in 15mm?

Thanks

And does anyone make them in 25mm?

From Knotel:

link

link

From various sources, it seems that they were hardly ever seen without wearing the greatcoats. As you may imagine, the senior grades looked rather like the Imperial Guard to the allied troops. They were naval gunners.

I painted mine up from the pic on the back cover of "NAPOLEON'S GRANDE ARME'E OF 1813" by Scott Bowden. IIRC, Blue greatcoat, red epaulette, bicorn.

tshryock / idontbelieveit

They are NOT marines in the usual sense and NOT sailors.
They were formed from Marine Artillery regts. attached to the Marine (Navy) dept. and transferred into the Army.

Used as infantry during 1813, some were transferred to the Guard Artillery after Bautzen – seems they were half-way between infantrymen and artillerymen.

They turned out to be very good troops and any French Grenadier in greatcoat figure could be used to depict them.

THink of them as being the same as some of the Heavy Artillery units from the Union army of 1864. Taken out of forts and sent in as infantry to support the Army of the Potomac

Compared with most of the French troops in Germany in 1813, they were very good troops. They were used to military discipline, knew at least the rudiments of drill and had a degree of esprit d'corps, particularly at the company level. It also helped that they were somewhat older and tougher than the young conscripts who made up many of the line units.

By the way, as the prints show, not all of the gunners wore red epaulettes; they were reserved for First Class gunners.

Colin

When Camcleod [23 Jan 2009 9:54 a.m. PST ] says grenadiers, he means line not guard grenadiers, as the Marine artillery mostly wore blue greatcoats with the epaulettes on. I can't remember if the collars of the greatcoats were coloured, I can't find that site anymore, but this one still has pics of the full uniform

link think I can still find one.

Thanks for all the information. It's all very helpful, especially the uniform links.

Yes – any French LINE Grenadier in greatcoat figure.

All the representations I've seen show a plain blue greatcoat with blue collar.
Headgear was shako or bicorne with red pom-pom or short carrot shaped plume. Shakoes usually had a cover.

The Hourtoulle series of uniform plates includes two plates of the Marine Artillery.

How many of them would be First Class gunners and how many lower classes?

Simon,

I do not actually know, but assumed that it would be about 33%-50% first class gunners.

Colin

The degree in the Annales Maritimes gives for a company

1 capitaine
1 lieutenant
1 sous . lieutenant
1 sergent – major
1 caporal – fourrier
4 sergents
8 caporaux
16 cannoniers 1er classe
16 cannoniers 2e classe
88 cannoniers
3 tambours (drummers)

6 such companies form a battalion which is commanded by a

1 chef de bataillon
helped by
1 adjudant – major
2 adjudans sous officiers

The

Annales Maritimes et Coloniales, Années 1809 – 1816, Tome 1.er is available on google books

Very interesting, so really only 96 men out of a full strength battalion would have epaulettes. Cheers, Simon

Excellent stuff, von W! One final thing to add is that they seem to have been issued almost entirely with black belts when they were organised to go to Germany.

I just looked at Napoleon's last Grand Armée

Here one of them is shown and discussed, he has a great coat and black equipment belts and a hat, no epaulettes are shown on the great coat.

In the text the author states that all soldiers were regarded as being elite and all did wear for that reason red epaulettes and cross belts – with a sabre briquet.
Also the picture depicting a naval gunner shows as hairdress a short queue – like the Gaurds did.

Marmont describes them as his only units who could deploy and fight in a line.
They fought so well and looked very similar to the Guard – that the Prussians misstook them as such.

All in all very interesting units, giving a lot of variation, also they can be nicely painted from French greadiers in hat and shako, very tempting to do such a unit.

Thanks Von Winterfeldt for the info. Interesting stuff about the queue, in 28mm the Perry figures for the 3rd/4th Guard Chasseurs and Grenadiers would be good given that they've got queues and mixed headgear. They have all got epaulettes though.

Is my understanding from the previous links to paintings accurate that their great coats were in fact blue rather than the general rag tag mix of the rest of the army by 1813?

Cheers,

The Bandit

Yes dark blue great coats.

I was looking at the Britannia Miniatures website yesterday and they do a Captain, Officer and Ensign in their Napoleonic Naval range that might be good for a Naval regiemnt. May not be completely accurate but the French Naval captian does look most impressive!

also this link might be very usefull

TMP link