"Royal Marines at Battle of Kafr-el-Dawwar" Topic
9 Posts
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Conrad Kinch | 08 May 2016 5:23 a.m. PST |
I've been looking at the Egyptian Campaign of 1882 recently, mainly because I thought it would allow me to pit my Zulu War British against my Crimean War Turks. There were only a few engagements, but while I was noodling around on wikipedia, I came across the battle of Kafr el Dawwar. You can see some pictures here. link The engagement/battle involved some British mounted infantry, some line infantry, an armoured train and some Royal Marines. Normally, I wouldn't be that concerned about the RM as I have red coated British troops, but it appears (at least based on Featherstone) that they wore blue in Egypt. There is a second line of authority, which would seem to suggest that they wore grey as they did two years later at Tamai.
It is a puzzlement. |
Reactionary | 08 May 2016 5:35 a.m. PST |
'Cos they are Navy rather than Army perhaps. |
Artilleryman | 08 May 2016 5:36 a.m. PST |
I am not sure how relevant this is, but I remember reading that the Royal Marines began adopting blue uniforms in the 1840s and 50s when they started serving on steam ships. Apparently the smoke smuts were more obviously damaging to the traditional scarlet jacket than a blue one. |
Rapier Miniatures | 08 May 2016 5:43 a.m. PST |
Marine Infantry wore Blue, with their artillery in red coats at this time. The light grey is the tropical dress variant. |
Durban Gamer | 08 May 2016 7:20 a.m. PST |
Thanks. Any extra scenarios for this campaign very welcome! Only found you had cited Vogt twice though – what are the other sources you found? |
Conrad Kinch | 08 May 2016 8:53 a.m. PST |
Thank you for the confirmation. I went back and checked, I had only meant to give Vogt once. The initial link was meant to go to Wikipedia. Mea culpa. |
Royal Marine | 08 May 2016 3:19 p.m. PST |
As long as it is dashing Royal Marines will wear anything, colour isn't an issue. |
Triplecdad | 09 May 2016 7:35 a.m. PST |
I cannot help you with that particular uniform, however, if you want to paint up a Wolseley officer figure, an interesting note I found in "A Tidy Little War" (about the Egyptian campaign of 1882 and highly recommended) was that his staff was concerned he was a very noticeable target because of the distinctive pink scarf he wore wrapped around his sun helmet . . . There were some Indian Army troops involved in the campaign who wore serge grey. |
Nick Stern | 09 May 2016 12:48 p.m. PST |
For what it's worth, the Osprey Campaign Series on Tel-El-Kebir, has the RMLI wearing red: "Royal Marine Light Infantry wore a scarlet serge frock-coat with blue collar, cuffs and shoulder-straps; blue trousers with red stripe (later, in Cairo on a ceremonial parade, they wore white duck trousers), white helmet with white pagris; white equipment with crossbelts (which were probably dyed later)" |
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