"AWI artillerymen painting thoughts?" Topic

So, in my 'modest' AWI collection, I have 44 guns and each gun has 4 crewmen plus one casualty figure. Seeking the greatest diversity within reason, I want to paint in various schemes.

(And if we might dispense with the maybe that didn't get worn in the field argument here, this is a collection for table top gaming and not a museum display and will be used with more hypothetical games than historical scenarios over its lifetime. So variety in the painting is several times more important to me than precise historical accuracy – though history does matter, of course. Thank you kindly.)

For the British regulars there is at least both in tricorn and helmet.

For the continentals there is Rhode Island and the 1779 regulations.

There are French and German uniforms.

There are militia uniforms. And we can add ragged uniforms to the mix.

I am painting in 15 mm, predominantly Musket Miniatures infantry and Freikorps cavalry but with a liberal sprinkling of others like Polly Oliver and Stone Mountain and some I'd have to think hard to recall. So, super detail isn't in order, I will be painting to a gaming standard.

So, my question here is where can I go to improve the diversity without getting into the realm of "Imagination" painting? Think, historical basis in general but perhaps not fielded in actual battle. Remember, diversity.

This will help maintain the enthusiasm when painting 220 artillerymen figures (remember the casualties!).

Thanks for all constructive replies. And even Winston's replies – as long as there is something useful in it. : )

And an aside, I am going to attempt to paint my entire AWI collection from now until the end of 2017. I will need to average close to 300 figures per month to make it. Who knows if I will hit that target but having the goal should help get an awful lot done between now and then. (That counts a man as one, a horse as one, a gun as one, etc.) Bases already ordered and some already received. It is a LOT of bases.

Just how many figures do you have and what size gamespecially are you playing ?? 😀

According to Mollo and McGregor's Blandford tome 'Uniforms of the American Revolution', Lamb's New York Artillery Company wore blue faced buff, which is a change from the usual blue faced red. (They also carried bricoles if the illustration is to be believed).

Another way to add variety to your Patriot batteries is to include Molly Pitcher in a number of different outfits (I think I am right in saying that Miss Pitcher served in every patriot gun crew during the war). Personally I have depicted her in a straw bonnet tied with a sky blue bow, a brown jacket trimmed with red, a white blouse and a green skirt.

Finally, you can vary the colours of the feathers in the hats of the British Royal Regiment of Artillery. As far as I am aware these were generally black but I think I have read somewhere that batteries attached to combined grenadier battalions may have worn red – and on that basis you could give green feathers to batteries attached to light battalions and challenge anyone to prove you wrong (mind you I must admit that I have no idea whether green hackles were associated with light infantry in this period or for that matter whether artillery batteries were ever attached to the light battalions)

SD Clark – I have about 4,600 for the AWI but to cover north, central, and southern theaters – and more besides. I will be able to do a creditable Battle of Long Island and a very close Monmouth and Brandywine. But, as said, a lot of hypothetical engagements as well. I have 20 cavalry regiments all with dismounts and that alone accounts for 800 figures including the casualty figures (one for every combat unit to use as status markers).

But I'm interested here in artillery uniforms beyond the basics to the extent possible.

There are a number of references to American artillery wearing black rather than blue regimental coats.

The Virginia State Artillery supposedly wore blue coats faced and lined with red, with red waistcoats and breeches. The only action I have found they fought in was Camden.

Lamb's NY company from 1775 has already been mentioned; from the same year/phase of the war, you have the Rhode Island company; you would also have Gridley's command, drawn from the Massachusetts militia/early Continentals, who would have been mainly in civvies. An interesting development occurred in the post-Canadian Northern Army, in which Stevens' battalion of gunners was raised by volunteers/drafts from the infantry, and would therefore have been wearing either civilian clothing, or whatever uniforms the predominantly Massachusetts regiments had been issued either in late 1776, or early 1777.

During the mid-war period, there was some talk of dressing the Continental artillery in black coats, faced red. I'm open to correction here, but I think Proctor's regiment was (the only?) one that did not, and held onto its blue coats faced red that later became the standard uniform under the 1779 Regulations. There might be some State troops who wore "local" uniforms, but I think most, if not all, of these non-Continental units were absorbed into the four main artillery regiments. The artillery at Monmouth would probably have been in shirtsleeves, like the infantry.

For the British, it's worth noting that one or two battalions of Loyalist infantry were re-directed to serve as mattrosses for the RA and RIA (another unit that did this was the batch of recruits for the 33rd Foot, who served Burgoyne's artillery in a similar manner after they were mis-directed to Canada). Also, one or two units, such as the Queen's Rangers, acquired a small artillery element, invariably trained by RA NCOs, but with the pieces manned by men of the actual unit.

Otherwise, you have the Howe-style uniforms or the Burgoyne-style uniforms for 1777 – after that, it's not entirely clear if troops (infantry or gunners) retained those styles in the field for the rest of the war, or whether they ceased with the completion of that year's campaigns. We do know that the gunners supporting the two types of flank battalion (grenadiers and lights) wore white and green feathers respectively, in their hats; also, the 4th Battalion RA wore black feathers as a rule.

German artillery generally consisted of pairs of battalion guns except for Pausch's company in the North, which retained half of its strength as a general artillery unit.

That should at least give you some ideas for variations.

The Royal Artillery gunners did not wear helmets. Those are modified cocked hats. Point being – do not paint them shiny.

Apologies. It sounds like I was wrong about the RA wearing red feathers. Go with what Super Max says, he knows what he is talking about.

We do know that the gunners supporting the two types of flank battalion (grenadiers and lights) wore white and green feathers respectively, in their hats; also, the 4th Battalion RA wore black feathers as a rule.

SMax. I wonder if you are thinking of the letter from Francis Laye, officer of the Royal Artillery, writing from
Long Island in December 1778.

"…The British Grenadiers & Light Infantry being cantooned here & always the fashion in action I applied to be attached to them which was granted…The Light Infantry wear a green feather in their Caps & we the Grenadiers a White one in our Hatts."

The possible ambiguity hadn't occurred to me before, but on balance I'd still say the implication is that Laye was serving as an infantry officer in the Grenadier battalion.

I am fairly ignorant regarding artillery uniforms per se. Whether the 4th Regt, Royal Artillery wore a black favour in their hats at some point, other than the balck cockade of Hanover, is outside my ken, but it is important to remember that for the British army, all field adaptations of dress were local, wartime measures; either regimental, or at the request of a force commander or the local C-in-C. Hat feathers didn't become regulation items in the British army until 1796.

In other words, during the AWI there was no established system of identifying hat/cap feathers or tufts, as in various continental armies. There was only custom; for instance, the association of Grenadiers with white feathers and Light Infantry with green, which cannot be dated with certainty earlier than 1778 and, as SM pointed, may not have lasted longer than a single campaign, or uniform cycle (allowing for wartime supply restrictions). All we know is that in the years following the AWI, this had become common practice. Interestingly, white also became the distinguishing colour for the Royal Artillery headgear when the 'Regulation feather' was introduced.

For that reason, I am surprised that the Troiani painting of the Royal Artillery, 1775, shows the NCO with a black upright hackle in his hat. This is either before or early in the war, before the side-stepping of regulations began, and long before we would expect to see upright hackle feathers on a uniform cocked hat,that is, after the AWI.

Moreover, feathers adopted in America, (and indeed Britain- see Loutherbpurg's 'Warley Camp' paintings) tended to be sprays of ostrich feathers, rather than the more complicated and more expensive upright hackle plumes. Horse hair, as we see on Light Infantry helmets and the Burgoyne Ex. hat-caps, was the other option.

P.S. Somebody can correct me here, but I don't think British 'Flank battalions' had batteries of artillery attached to them as such, more a couple of 3-pdr battalion guns for a given operation. Whether these would have had an officer in charge, I am not sure, but I wonder whether enlisted Royal Artillery personnel would have adopted hat feathers without instructions to do so.

Usually a section of two guns – 6-pdrs for the Grenadiers, 3-pdrs for the Light Infantry. At full strength, you would expect a subaltern, or at least a sergeant, to command a section – hence I think that the RA officer's letter follows his secondment to the artillery supporting the battalion, not to the battalion itself.

Troiani, I think, is following the wearing of a black feather by the 4th Battalion, RA. I would support your view of its physical appearance, though; hackles are very 1790s and onwards.

Ah, yes, 6-pdrs.

Such is my lack of knowledge re. artillery matters, can I ask, would the section of guns attached to a Flank battalion be administered via a 'director of artillery' at brigade level to organise personnel, supply and maintenance?

I can see now that it is more likely that Laye would have been commanding guns when with the Flank corps, as he had with the 42nd before this appointment, and afterwards in Virginia & the Carolinas. I jumped to conclusions as a result of his remarking "We, the Grenadiers…"

It is interesting to note his identification with the infantry corps to which he was temporarily posted. This highlights the function of such distinguishing marks to boost esprit de corps among men detached from their own units.

…can I ask, would the section of guns attached to a Flank battalion be administered via a 'director of artillery' at brigade level to organise personnel, supply and maintenance?

Difficult to say for sure, as there was no official "brigade" organisation for the flank battalions (except perhaps briefly when there were four battalions of grenadiers and three of light bobs in 1776 and they had generals attached – after that, the CO of the 1st Battalion in each corps seems to have been de facto "brigadier" once they went to two battalions each).

Given that each infantry company remained answerable to its parent regiment for admin purposes, I would suspect that the gunners were administered by the RA commander with each army, but their day-to-day movements and battle missions were directed by the battalion COs.

And no tricorns! That's an F&I thing. Cocked hats look different.

Yes, I was aware that the flank corps did not operate within a brigade structure, but I was thinking more of a logistical chain of command to ensure that the guns were properly supplied and in good repair.

I imagine carrying out that task efficiently would be outside the remit of infantry field officers and require the professional expertise of staff officers from the Royal Artillery. There must surely have been someone between the senior officer of Artillery and the section commanders attached to Flank battalions, to whom the latter could report.