"Scottish piper uniform colours" Topic

I'm painting a piper for my Normandy British force. Ignoring any debate of pipes used in combat, Bill Millin excluded, I need to know what colours to paint him and struggling to find a reference.

1. Tam O Shanter, khaki or coloured. The bobble a different colour (is there a proper name for it?)? What hackels where worn, what colours?

2. Trousers or trews? Where trews ever worn and by which regiments or am I sticking with normal battle dress.

3. And finally the pipes themselves. Khaki, tartan or another colour? I've seen versions of piper Millin with a green set of pipes?

Many thanks, and if possible let me know your sources.

The TOS ( Tam o'Shanter) would be khaki. Balmorals or Glengarries if worn would be coloured. Bill Millin wore the green Commando beret.

The " Bobble' is called a tourie and is khaki coloured on the TOS. Some Balmorals and Gelengarries have regimental coloured touries, but most are red.

I've never seen a pic of a piper in trews; only kilts or BattleDress trousers. I've done one of each for my army.

Bagpipe covers can vary from regiment to regiment. Millin might have had a green bag cover to match the beret. Royal blue is used by some regiments, but most pics I've seen from WWII have tartan bags.

The drones and chanter were black, while the fittings would have been a mixture of sliver and ivory.

link

Tassels were either black or the same green as the bag cover (if it was a green tartan).

Thanks all. B St decide on my regiment and research the tartan then. And find some tutorials on painting it in 15mm…

I don't see that you can really be said to be wrong whatever you do. A piper in Normandy was breaking the regulations just using the pipes. Uniform in Normandy was battle battle dress with either a regiment appropriate beret or tin hat anything else was out of uniform but if you are breaking regs anyway what does that matter.

to a picture of Bill Millin's dress and pipes at D day (held in Dawlish Museum) battle dress top would be over this. Note the bagpipe fittings are mostly in Casein suggesting they were pre-war civilian pipes. A set of pipes he played later in Normandy were fitted with proper silver/ivory fittings. The kilt (although worn in WW1 by his father) is a civilian Cameron tartan.

x42

Edit:- My link does not seem to work as I intended so here is link to Wikipedia's entry on bill showing much that I intended.

Late postscript: I did similar research on Piper Millin some years back (check a thread on TMP from 2006, "D-Day Piper – Bill Millin") and when I painted my commando piper based on Millin, I put him in his kilt of Cameron of Erracht tartan (the correct army sett), pipe bag cover in Hunting Fraser tartan (a real to try to paint!), khaki hosetops, and the green commando beret.

Other army pipers would be dressed in various combinations of battledress and parade dress, depending on the occasion and regimental custom, CO whims, and availability of uniform. Scrounging often produced enough kilts for a band when required, sometimes band sporrans as well. Sporrans were not generally seen otherwise, nor were tartan or diced hosetops common. Headgear would usually be the khaki tam o'shanter with a regimental badge over a tartan backing but the dark blue glengarries (plain for pipers even when the regiment wore diced ones) were seen and a steel helmet would be the norm in the battle line. Pipe bag covers were as per regimental custom, ordinarily the unit tartan.

Piper Millin in 25mm (from Warlord Games minis commando range, I believe):