"Prussian paradox" Topic

Looking at the serried ranks of my late war Prussian Reserve infantry, you would be struck by their 'rag, tag & bobtail' appearance.

Usually each battalion in a regiment differently costumed, sometimes even companies in a battalion, they also show a fair sprinkling of British, French, Russian & other uniform styles as well as their not-so standard uniforms.

Paradoxically, their Landwehr brethren look far more ordered in their plain but neatly businesslike schirmutzes & litewkas simply because they're universally dressed the same.

I feel I may have overemphasised the Reserve variety but it does make for a "colourful" Prussian army.

You may be underestimating the variety of uniforms in the landwehr regiments – I think they were plagued by shortages too.

I am in the middle of a late Prussian project now. I'm loving the variety, even if they look a bit less spectacular than other armies.

There's an amazing amount of info out there on what each regiment actually wore, even if it can't be definitive.

I'm picking up from threads here that Landwehr can look a bit mixed too, with occasional black litewkas, and a mix of white and black belts. And 2nd Silesians in stovepipe shako. So the variations are there.

I like my reservists in grey tailless coats, overalls and schirmutzes. They look positively 1840s – almost like later shell jackets – compared to what the Prussians were wearing only six or seven years previously.

Plain but colourful, that's the Prussian army 1814/15 I admit I was not particularly struck by the overwhelming Napoleonicness of them prior to a commission to paint some cavalry for Waterloo campaign, now I'm very intrigued and like you have find them not at all dull.
Cheers happy holidays and Seasons greetings to all.

usually the Landwehr would wear their very best Sunday clothes, the dark blue Litweka, on a bit campaigning, this looked different then (as for all armies)

I am grinding through Prussians for the Liberation/100 Days period. I'm working with 10mm Old Glory strips since I am a napoleonic neophyte and the price was right for an experiment in new period. So far it's all blue coat, grey pants and black leggings for the line infantry. I've seen pictures of the light grey "English" uniforms but they have a short jacket while the sculpts I use have a jacket "with tails and turnbacks"

Is there a good substitute within the Old Glory 10mm line to represent the short jacket or is there another way to get a little more variation out of the normal Prussian line infantry pack?

Dear Ochoin
Certainly an interesting observation but a little more digging reveals that the Dark blue to Medium or black Litewka was the only unifying thing. This was based upon the and probably was the sunday best clothes. Often shoes and boots were not available and clogs substituted. A considerable amount of clothes and equipment were acquired by various means. The Landwehr were as avourishes as the Cossacks for stripping prisoners of necisities like Greatcoats, boots, trousers, jackets, packs, weapons etc…

The variability I have written about in my books on the subject. The Reservist story is probably better known.
Stephen

Ay 10mm you probably can't see the differences between the standard infantry jacket and the tailless one – and certainly not at the usual viewing distance (difficult enough at 15mm). Therefore a paint job will get you a long way – using grey rather than blue. Likewise you can use British Peninsula infantry for the British style uniform (though I would still use standard Prussian command, for 100 days at least – though not right for the drummers). They can be painted up blue or green, depending.

What looks a lot more difficult is infantry wearing caps. Head swaps with landwehr are surely impractical at this scale (litewka and shako are usable too). I wonder if there are other 10mm ranges that can be used. I did look a year or two ago, but the scarcity of figures discouraged me and I stuck with good old 15mm.

May apologies for hijacking, but I'm facing the same conundrum as the OP. Would it be appropriate to mix stiffened cap and non-stiffened cap castings in the same landwehr unit?

As several of you have made clear, you have the figures you have & although you may wish for a stove pipe here or a rolled blanket there, this isn't always an option.

I'll add a few colour differences to the Landwehr & try to make them a little less uniform.

I've been painting up Calpe Prussians for the last 6 months, adding to my already painted figures.
Thus far 18 battalions of Landwehr, 1 battalion of Jagers and 15 batteries of guns.

All my Landwehr are pretty much the same with some variation in Litewka color, different backpacks, some canvas some leather with white or black belts.

On the painting block are 8 battalions of line.

I have 6 Reserve battalions to paint which should be interesting as a variation from Prussian Blue. The Calpe figures are quite varied so maybe they will have a rag tag look them ochoin is talking about.

I tried to make my Prussian Landwehr as shoddy as possible. a odd hat color, linin bags most white, 1 or 2 off white, 1 unbleached. over supplied I filed off swords. Love my figures with 1 shoe or none. For Reserve Inf. I used Nash's book which gives numbers of troops which had what uniforms.