"Any British units still using stovepipe at Waterloo" Topic

That weren't light infantry.

I have some of the new front rank British. But my focus has changed from Spain to Belgium.
I might be able to get a battalion out of them but all of them are in stovepipe.

For British Line the 28th did, and if IIRC they were the only non-lights to do so.

Just posted this to another tread. Grenadiers and lights of the 28th may have carried French back packs.

TMP link

GdeP

What about the two East Indies units in II corps?

I'd be surprised if they upgraded their uniforms in a timely manner.

I actually don't know anything about these units and what they did at the battle, I only noticed them on the OoB a few months ago and thought it could be a could brigade to do if we every got a Waterloo project off the ground round here.

The East Indies units were from the Netherlands Army and thus a different kettle of fish altogether.

Were they not way off to the west and miles from the field?

Shame, because they did seem to have very distinctive uniforms, when compared with most Netherlands Infantry

If it's true the 28th used stovepipe. That's very fortunate as Picton's division is the one I planed on doing!

IIRC, all British light regiments, non-rifles, also wore stovepipes in this campaign.

But the stovepipes all had metal front plates very different to those seen in the Peninsula alas.

The big regimental plate of yore gave way to the horn of the light infantry and even the 28th's was a much smaller effort, the crowned sphinx, the regimental number and scrolls above and below all as four small separate units.

The Netherlands East Indies units were in Anthing's division which was at Hal. Shame because they had nice uniforms.

The 28th also had the badge on the rear of the stovepipe, which was a distinction unique to them. I simply painted it on when I did them back in the day.

I know this is controversial and that we cannot rely on artists' work years after the event…..but I'll ask it anyway, once more.

Was the (traditional ie as usually modelled) Peninsular, flat topped, truly cylindrical, low crown shako of line infantry the same pattern as that worn by Rifles and Light infantry (let alone 28th) by 1815? Generally, the latter looks slightly conical and taller…altogether much more elegant.

Good question deadhead (and one I can't answer), but one depiction that is definitely inaccurate in many figures and illustrations is the height of the Belgic shako. Far from being the top-hat size thing often seen, actual extant specimens show it to be the size, shape and height of Tommy Cooper's fez. The false front added an inch or so at the front but they are grotty-looking things and it is not surprising they were quickly dispensed with after 1815.

The extent to which British uniforms of 1815 resembled Austrian ones of 20 years earlier is little remarked on, but is quite pronounced. The stovepipe shako is a copy of the Grenzer klobuk, and again, extant ones are not as tall as you'd expect, but also not very tapering either. The folding-peak stovepipe sported by Rifles officers is in profile a mirliton. The Belgic shako is a knockoff of the casque, which on most Austrian figures is much more accurately low-rise than on most British. The single-breasted coatee design with outer-edge turnbacks only is also Austrian-looking, the main differences being the chest lace and the colour of course.

What I would be interested to know is why British infantry wore a canvas backpack painted black whereas all other armies wore hide. It can't have been shortage of hide, and if it was due to cost, it seems not have bothered anyone else. Hanoverian infantry of 1815 supposedly had British backpacks in "yellow" but I am guessing that means the same design but of unpainted canvas.

I doubt that the "yellow" knapsacks are natural canvas, there would be no protection from the elements for the canvas and the contents. Carlos Espana's troops were issued also yellow knapsacks. Yellow ocre is a relativly cheap paint. The British Army started to go away from hair on leather knapsacks in the late 1700s, and pretty much never went back.

Out of curiosity how long did the 28th carry captured French knapsacks? Was just for one campaign? Were they able to keep resupplying themselves into 1814? Were they still in use in 1815?

Good question deadhead (and one I can't answer), but one depiction that is definitely inaccurate in many figures and illustrations is the height of the Belgic shako. Far from being the top-hat size thing often seen, actual extant specimens show it to be the size, shape and height of Tommy Cooper's fez. The false front added an inch or so at the front but they are grotty-looking things and it is not surprising they were quickly dispensed with after 1815.

"Our infantry indeed, our whole army appeared at the review in the same clothes in which they had marched, slept, and fought for months. The colour had faded to a dusky brick-dust hue; their coats, originally not very smartly made, had acquired by constant wearing that loose easy set so characteristic of old clothes, comfortable to the wearer, but not calculated to add grace to his
appearance.

Pour surcroit de laideur, their cap is perhaps the meanest, ugliest thing ever invented. From all these causes it arose that our infantry appeared to the utmost disadvantage dirty, shabby, mean, and very small."

Cavalie Mercer

link

"This year the cocked hat worn since 1797 was superseded by the chaco similar in size and shape to the one commonly adopted in the army. So strange an alteration— from the sage-like cocked hat to its trim substitute— obtained for the new head-gear the cimmerian appelation of the "smoke-jack." The white heckle feather worn with the cocked hat was retained.. … As time wound up, this description of chaco lost its upright lines for one which, approaching a cone in shape, was called the "sugar-loaf cap." The latter again. was superseded by another in 1813, which, from its peculiar form was familiarly styled the "bang-up."

link

Now that is interesting. The Stovepipe or "Smoke Jack" becomes the "sugar loaf cap". Whether by design or wear and tear, this does suggest a move from a cylinder shape to a tapering shape, with a narrower top….somehow what I always imagined.

@ 42f

good links, thanks.

When Mercer and others write of "brick" red, or of coats "faded to a dusky brick-dust", it is also worth thinking about what colour bricks were to them, in the early 19th century. If you Google images of '"Queen Anne" brickwork' i.e. look at houses built in the early 18th century and that still stand today, they are categorically a sort of orange-with-a-misting-of-cinnamon. Hence to Mercer, "brick red" meant not "dirty industrial reddish brown", but "orange".

Humbrol's MC1 British Scarlet of yore that was in fact orange seems to have been spot on.

In the same way, hunting pink isn't pink, it's red, and I seriously wonder what colour French cavalry facings in colours like "rose" were. "Rose" is the French for "pink" all right, but unsurprisingly it's also the French for "rose". According to link centifolia roses were popular in our era and so were the damask variety. Both rose varieties are decidedly a shocking-to-fuchsia pink, not baby pink. Was that what "rose" facings meant?

How I remember the Humbrol British Scarlet and asked how they could have got it so wrong…..I am increasingly feeling guilt.

Now their Prussian Dragoon Blue….but that is another story debated here before

We kicked this subject about a bit earlier this year
Here:

TMP link

I have worked out that Bavarian blue was the same colour as the blue of a BMW badge. The latter is a piece of Bavaria's flag encircled by a tyre. Was PDB the same shade?

The two blues have also been covered here not too long ago.

Like many invaluable exchanges, the challenge is to now find them. (42Flanker did well to find the recoat thread. Did not von W contribute to the Bavarian debate?)

Both Prussian Dragoon Blue and Bavarian Blue turned out to be much darker than we think and than we usually represent in miniature.

but……….

We all know what looks good. The coats do fade in UV light…..and washing machines…..and non fast dyes

Some colours darken in sunlight, bizarrely, such as that of teak wood.

The redcoat thread I interesting but I think it may be overthinking things. To Mercer, brick red would have been the red of bricks, which was orange.