"Captured artillery colours" Topic

the French in 1806 made use of Captured Austrain guns from eariler campaigns – Davout had a battery of 12pdrs listed in his corps reserve, for example.

Would these have been repained in french green, or retained their austrian yellow?

That's a good question since I'm working on Davout Corp for 1806 and was thinking about the same thing recently.

I'm certain stephen summerfield will know, we just need to entice him over here for a moment.

I think it most likley that they would have been repainted for a number of reasons including regimental uniformity and availability of paint for maintenance (it was a protective and not just to look nice).

No they were not repainted. In fact there was great variation of colours within French Artillery Green. Remember that the only difference in the paint was the addition of Lampblack.

In time with replacing items there may have been some repainting. The job was undertaken normally by the Ouvrier companies of the Artillery Arsenals.
Stephen

I am happy to stand corrected….

I'm not, while I assumed the Prussians would have re-painted 12pdrs captured from the French, How fast would that happen? Well not fast enough for my Prussians to use them, I painted 2 batteries in French colors.

based on the placement of batteries including captured ones, the need to re-paint them immediately would not be a priority. Only horse artillery batteries which may be located far ahead of the front line would be in danger of being fired upon or charged as a mistake. Plenty of friendly banners would be in the area of the artillery in a firing or reserve position.

Plenty of dead time between active campaigns. Notations indicate plenty of gun maintenance including repainting guns during these periods. So I would not imagine that the repainting would be a significant logistical effort.

It should be noted that the range at which the eye can percieve colour is within canister range. The colour of the gun carriages would be less of an issue. The outline of the troops would be more important.

If the guns were suitably painted then that was how they remained until there was a lull in their movement for months. Possibly in the Armistic in August some repainting would have occurred. The Prussians were so short of everything, I doubt this was a priority or possible.

The French used paint supplies captured in 1805-1809 to paint their guns in any case.
Stephen

Bernadotte also used guns from Hannover to a large extend, Davout even in-corporated for a short while Prussian guns in 1806.
I doubt that any were re-painted.

thanks, I had an inkling that yellow would be fine for 1806.

Dear Mark
I am glad that you got the hint. The carriage colours are very poorly recorded. Remember that it is yellow ochre that you are using and this had a variation from buff to dull yellow. It is not the bright sulphur yellow that is often seen.
Stephen

naples yellow with a brown ink wash maybe?

Yes that would seem reasonable. Naples Yellow is a dull yellow and could be said to be a dull buff. The brown ink wash may give it a too red a hue so may need to dry brush a little of the Naples Yellow or mud to take that away.

It is too many years since I painted figures and that was in enamels so did not use inks that much. There has been a great improvement in acrylics in the last decade.
Stephen

Stephen – it sounds like it must be time for you to paint again

Always love seeing your responses, being based in fact more than rhetoric, so come on, come back to the dark side and paint some new stuff please.

Marc

Dear Marc
There is a choice as to whether I paint or write books. I supported my three degrees by painting 15mm figures. The standard of painting and the improvement in figures over the last decade or so has been amazing.

My infantry are on 7.5mm wide by 10-12mm deep bases and the cavalry on 10mm wide by 20-25mm deep. Is this so old fashioned now for 15mm? So confused as to how to rebase by armies if I went back to wargaming or selling off my armies.

I use to play Sound of the Guns, WRG and Newbury at competitions. That gives me some age then went into umpiring at the British Open and Nationals. Gave that up the same years as Princess Diana was killed.

I got back some interest as I did the book design, some photography and edited Wargames in History 8 on the Opening Battles of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. I commanded Prussians in the last battle.
link

Things may become easier now that I am not living in Hull and working in Canterbury. Will finish the move to Kent by the end of this month. It has only taken a year.

Stephen

"Things may become easier now that I am not living in Hull".

you could have just put a full stop at that, I think.