"British artillery and water bottles the same colour ?" Topic

Making a paint list for a project. Where the water bottles and artillery the same shade of light blue grey?

Thanks.

I don't think so. The guns were a true light grey. The wooden water canteens were like a robin's egg blue.

Considering the limitations of supply and manufacturing of the Napoleonic era plus the ravages of campaigning I suspect that you could be justified in painting either any sort of greyish blue you liked.

I'm sure I've read that some British guns had natural i.e. unpainted wood carriages.

If you take the British infantry equipment of WW2 as an example, that was produced in several colours…

There is meant to be an 1815 water bottle in the Brussels museum, but it struck me as remarkably dark blue (esp after 200 years). Is there not a suggestion that many such are Crimean War veterans?

Never heard of British gun carriages unpainted! Not a good idea. Paint is not just to look pretty or prove you are not French…………

From Franklin, British Field Artillery, pg. 38 it is more of a dark grey similar to Dulux Ebony Mist 3; or

National Colour System S 6000-N, Munsell Colour system N4.5.; or

Or, Humbrol Ocean Grey #106, which is equivalent to Revel #47.

Franklin states that modern interpretations of the colour give the equipment a blue grey tint but that is not correct.

Yes, I have never heard of unpainted field artillery equipment. I use Humbrol Ocean Grey 106 and it looks correct.

I'd have thought the whole point of painting them was to keep the damp out. I'll see if I can find that reference to bare wood.

The Vallejo equivalent of Humbrol 106 is Basalt Grey – which is quite dark but it does have a definite coolness to it so I can see how that reference to the official paint charts could have been interpreted by model makers over the years to give a more bluish grey than was the really the case.

Franklin has made mistakes… just saying'.
: )

Thanks guys for your answers.

One more pot of paint won't break the bank. It's the other temptations at salute tomorrow I need to worry about :)

Pinky

Yes Guns and carriages and wagons were 'Common Colour', a sort of light grey, whilst waterbottles and other Board of Ordnance items were, wait for it, Board of Ordnance blue.

Which for some convoluted reason is why British Army REME and RLC officers sometimes wear Navy issue dark blue wooly pullys instead of OG ones, apparently! Back in the day the British Army was entirely split between War Office and BO departments, and paid and equipped entirely separately…