"Blue on blue; SYW " Topic

I'm adding Reichsarmee units to my French SYW army.
From consulting Kronskaf, it seems accurate to say the various contingents either wore Austrian style or Prussian style uniforms.

kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php? … l_Infantry

I'm using the excellent HaT MAC SYW Prussian sets for this.
eg link

Thus in uniform style & colour, many units are very similar to the Prussian enemy, apart from the flags they carried.
I've been wondering how many battlefield mistakes – blue on blue- occurred.

Any ideas?

With those being 1/72 scale figures, what do you use for cavalry and artillery? There really isn't much out there for 7YW in plastic 1/72 scale figures.

Probably more than were recognized – certainly happened in the Napoleonic Wars and the ACW

Wurttemburg grenadiers put a cloth cover over their mitres so as not to be confused as Prussians.

@ DAK.

Good story. I bet, though, no-one models their Wurttemburgers like that.

@ Joker.

Good question. Plenty of Prussian hussars out there. I've been using the extra HaT tricornes to do hat swops with the Italeri Prussian 1805 cuirassiers (not a perfect match but they do, with a painted on cuirass). We've been using all sorts of guns (Marlburian etc) but I'm going to get some IMEX AWI Continental artillery sets & do the hat swop with these figures.

HaT will come through, one day….

As DAF says, Wurttemberg grenadiers covered their mitres with white cloth and Swedish grenadiers covered them with black cloth. Most other Reicharmee units either had bearskins or coats that were not blue.
Interestingly, Reicharmee units NOT fighting the Prussians (ie Hesse Darmstadt) did not cover their mitres.

not many I would say, it was fairly obvious which side you were on from where you were standing

I've been wondering how many battlefield mistakes – blue on blue- occurred

I think I may have read somewhere that the blue-coated Austrian Stabs Infanterie Regiment once evaded capture by Prussians because of mistaken identity.

Fewer than in later periods probably, due to more fluid front lines in Napoleonic times and ACW . Linear tactics and leisurely deployment made for fairly clear, erm, lines, at least for infantry in larger battles.

In lower-level encounters, it's more a question of possibly avoiding being attacked, as referenced by PC above. Interestingly, it's mostly (light) cavalry memoirs that have anecdotes like the Austrian hussars heeding a Prussian call to rally.