"TYW - Bavarian uniforms of the 1630s/1640s" Topic

Does anyone have any information about the uniforms of the Bavarian forces during the mid and late thirty years war? I'm specially interested in the 1635-1640s period.

I doubt they wore uniforms as such.

This was the era of civilian contractors and providing uniforms cut into profits. Various shades of blues, browns, reds, black, grey and undyed cloth would work. I doubt many even had shoes. Even the stately Swedes had fallen into looking like a motely group by this time. Flags are best used to identify units during this period of the TYW. On the bright side your painted units can pretty much be used for any force of the time.

Black is an unlikely clothing colour for rank-and-file, as it was expensive to produce and very difficult to make it fast when mass produced – it degraded to brown quite quickly in sunlight. Officers only, I would have said, if that.

I read somewhere that red stockings were quite common for Bavarians of this period.

Civilian contractors? Unless you are refering to the merchants and craftsmen who supplied arms, clothing and equipment there were no "civilian contractors" involved with the units. The actual regiments themselves were raised and equipped by military enterprisers who were very much military men who both commanded their unit as well as investing money and resources in it.

The Bavarian army was the best financed army of the period and Elector Maximilian mantained a tight control and oversight over the army with the help of a network of dedicated officials. Rules were in place which prevented a lot of the problems and abuses found elsewhere. For example Bavarian colonels were limited to a single regiment and the maximum number of companies in the regiments were also strictly limited (no more than 10 allowed) This meant that the army was kept at a size which could be sustained both by the state as well as by the military enterprisers. As a result Bavarian units usually in much better shape than their Swedish or Imperial counterparts, units were well manned and contained a significant number of experienced veteran soldiers.

Contrary to what was stated above the Bavarian soldiers were probably the least likely to go without shoes of any during the TYW, army and regimental finances were solid and made it possible to mantain the units in a decent state as long as supplies were available. Shoemakers were in fact directly employed by the Bavarian army and the records show shoes and stockings being sent by the thousand to the army.

Clothes were supplied as well, unfortunately none of the researchers working with the Bavarian archives have so far been interested in doing detailed research on the subject. They were happy to note that cloth & clothing was purschased and issued to the troops and then moved on to other subjects. Reitzenstein whose main interest was the slightly earlier period noted that the most common colours encountered in the documents he looked at were red, blue, "ash grey" and "silver grey" (sadly he did not bother to record the shades of the blue & red cloth).

Of course the Bavarian supply network and finances could be disrupted by the troops campaigning too far away from Bavarian base area or when enemy troops interrupted supply lines or overran Bavarian lands. But on the whole the Bavarian war effort was remarkably well managed and sustained by TYW standards.

Thank you, Daniel! And would the Bavarian army have had any specially uniformes guard unit?

I have seen a painting on line from the era (sorry not at home right now or I would post link) that supposedly shows Bavarian unit with med/light blue grey/brown pants and multiple hat colors.
Maybe Daniel S or someone else know the painting I am referring to and can tell you if its worth using as a painting guide or not.
Update:
link

My apologies its for the wrong time frame (Battle of White Mountain) by Pieter Snayers (1592-1667). So it may not be suitable for what period your looking for.

I stand corrected on all counts. "Civilian Contractor" is really more of a modern term (I'm thinking Blackwater as an example) and perhaps a poor analogy. I should have waited until Daniel S had weighted in on the subject. I think if someone wanted to publish his collected posts on just this site alone you would have a definitive work on all things TYW. Daniel, hint, hint.

DGT,
IMO Getty Images is mislabling the paintings in the link, while it does show White Mountain it is not painted by Snayers, the style is quite diffrent that seen in Snayers paintings in Wien and elswhere. It is however very interesting in it's own right although from the early period rather than the mid-late period which Don S asked about.

And would the Bavarian army have had any specially uniformes guard unit

Only a palace guard (The Trabanten) and a mounted ducal/electoral bodyguard (The Corbiner) neither of which was a "field unit" and formally they seem to have been part of the Ducal household rather than being part of the army.

At the start of the war Adam Philip von Cronberg's company of horse was designated as Duke Maximilian's "Leibgarde" but it was only for a short period of time and later the company became part of Cronbergs regiment.

Thank you, Daniel!
And DGT123, that painting is amazing, seems to depicting early war soldiers. Sometimes I wonder if we don't ser more paintings by German artists of late thirty years war soldiers because those are with private collectors, or if it's because given the Chaos in Germany during the war, such paintings weren't produced…

PS: Daniel, do you know anything about the dress of the Corbiner guard? I couldn't find anything about their dress at Googlebooks

A bit can be found here link

There was not much of a German tradition of painting soldiers at that time, it had pretty much died out when the "Landsknecht art" disappeared around 1580-1590. Instead it was the Flemish painters who began to paint military subjects with great skill on a large scale, most famously masters such as Vrancx and Snayers.

There are actually a large number of late war paintings, most notably those by Snayers in the so called Piccolomini series of 12 paintings which today are displayed at the Austrian army museum. But none of the Bavarian senior commanders seem to have commisioned something similar.

Thank you so much! (((: