"Least Favorite Uniform: What's yours?" Topic

Here's are some little different questions.

No right or wrong answer. Just your personal preferences.

During the Napoleonic Wars, with all the brilliant uniforms:

1. Of the Major Powers (Austria, Britain, France, Prussia, & Russia), which country had your least favorite uniforms?

2. Of all powers, including the minor powers, which country had your least favorite uniforms?

3. Which unit, from any country had your least favorite uniform.

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I'll start with my trash talk.
1. Major Powers: Austria (especially the German units with the Shako). Too much boring white.

2. All Powers: Austria again. Close second, Italy. Again, too much boring white.

3. Unit: Austrian 30th Infantry Regiment with Shako. White with gray facings!

1.Russia.
2.Russia.
3.Russian foot artillery.

I pick Prussia for the least favorite. Seems almost on the edge of the Ist World War for darkness.

Prussia again.

Prussian reserve regiments with gray muffin hats, gray tailless coats and gray breeches.

"Back in the day" I had a few Prussian 30mm figures, which I converted to Spanish Napleonics, mid-war ad hoc units.

GdeP

1. French bardin, talk about ruining a noble and great uniform.

2. None that I can think of.

3. 1st & 2nd carabiners post 1810, if the bardin ruined a great uniform. The horrible white wannabe cuirassier uniform of later carabiners is a war crime.

3. 1st & 2nd carabiners post 1810, if the bardin ruined a great uniform. The horrible white wannabe cuirassier uniform of later carabiners is a war crime.

Wow! Just goes to show that one man's meat is another man's poison. I've always thought the second carabinier uniform, especially when set off with the sky-blue cloak, to be the most stunning uniform of the Napoleonic Wars (and perhaps of all wars).

Reluctantly Prussian reserve units, and I have them all.
At least with the landwehr I tried to make each as poor as I could

1. Prussian post 1808 reforms.
2. Bavaria. Love the blue, but the helmet is ridiculous.
3. Red-faced British regiments like the 41st. Red on red is boring to paint.

Hmmmmm, the Swedish "Gilbert and Sullivan" comic opera vaudeville hotpants tophat monstrosities of the 1798-1800 era. Vomitus extremis

I am siding with gunfreak

Wow! Just goes to show that one man's meat is another man's poison. I've always thought the second carabinier uniform, especially when set off with the sky-blue cloak, to be the most stunning uniform of the Napoleonic Wars (and perhaps of all wars).

Only cowards hide behind metal plates. And bearskins always beat tin hats.

This is a tough one. It has to come down to colour, because with one exception I can't think of a uniform that looks bad because of its cut, and while I don't care for the casquettes of many of the German regiments, their uniforms look fine otherwise. So…

1. Austria. Too much white.

2. Sweden. While the uniform itself is fine, and I like the, ahem…Ikea colour scheme…I just can't take those top hats seriously as an item of military uniform, and they ruin the whole effect.

3. Spanish Algarve regiment and also their dragoon regiments for the same reason. All yellow. Awful.

3a. Strictly speaking not a unit but a special booby prize must surely go to the uniform of the students of Ecole de Mars. David took his love of the classical and ran with it. In completely the wrong direction. No bad colours here, but the uniform is just laughable.

Only cowards hide behind metal plates.

That is a ludicrous and disingenuous remark as well as being completely inaccurate.

Every marching band uniform I was ever forced to wear. They had shakos, so I think they count. Problems:

1) Uniforms aren't.

2) Too many buttons with no function.

3) Inverse themos function – keeps you hot when it's hot outside and cold when it's cold outside.

4) Everybody's school colors were arbitrary, and they suck.

5) Pressed one nanosecond after put on? Muahahahahahahahahahahahahah!

6) Clean once worn within 100m of food? Muahahahahahahahahahahahahah!

7) Shoes that look good uhrt your feet. Especially if you march in them?

Russia, Prussia

1. Prussia
2. Prussia
3. Prussian 24th Regiment. Grey coats with grey trousers, grey greatcoat roll and grey schirmutze. Grey shoes, grey musket, grey straps and grey equipment. Grey faces, grey bases flocked with grey grass.

Quick to paint – just spray in primer – but they'd look more bling left in bare metal.

@ holdit
Sweden. While the uniform itself is fine, and I like the, ahem…Ikea colour scheme

I hear you. The uniform manual must have been a screech.
"Musketeers will wear uniformjacket BILLY with breeches SVEN and leather equipment SBLAGVALD. Musket TVORNQVIST is to be fitted with musket sling HJORFAART and shako to be top hat SNORRKMAADEN…." etc etc

"…put it all in a big blue bag and take it to the checkout."
:-)

To be fair the swedes were always in IKEA colours. They were IKEA coloured 100 years earlier, and 50 years earlier.

My old Magna Karta Skool uniform with horrendously scratchy trousers… oh, Napoleonic!

1 & 2 Anything white. I'm with you there. Not a style problem, just a pain to paint.
3 Prussian Foot artillery – dark blue, dark grey, dark black… black! Black! The dark clouds of doom that destroy my world! I was put on a course of citalopram after painting a battery.

The answer always and everywhere is "anyone in a beige or gray overcoat." Add cased colors, and they make a terrific argument for playing with cardboard counters.

Infantry in overcoats, is it grey, is it beige. Is it taupe, is it tan, is it middle stone? Oh hell- which way are they marching? Toward us? Regiment' l'ordre mix!!!!

The answer always and everywhere is "anyone in a beige or gray overcoat." Add cased colors, and they make a terrific argument for playing with cardboard counters.

No, that's your quick-to-paint emergency extra unit or two.

I'd have to go with Austrian white for the most annoying uniform to paint for both Major Powers and All Participants, followed by any red-faced British unit(s) for the most annoying specific unit.

Though I am finding a variation of the French uniform to be rather annoying to paint, I think it's because I'm not painting actual Napoleonic French in that scheme. I *hope* it's because I'm not painting actual Napoleonic French in that scheme, anyway!

1. Austria
2. Austria
3. Any unit wearing the tarleton helmet.

Lambert! Please say more about your dislike for the Tarleton helmet. The same as worn by the Royal Horse Artillery; and early British Napoleonic Light dragoons?

GdeP

Yes, that's the one. It is my least favourite uniform item. I may have mentioned it before.
Curiously I do like the Prussian Reserve uniforms, there is variety between units even though they all tend to be a bit drab.

Austrian infantry is a bit dull to paint.

1: Prussia after 1813
2: Prussia after 1813
3: more post 1813 Prussians

Spanish Grenadiers with there night cap head wear

Depends what I'm doing.

If it's painting them it's a toss up between French and Russian Infantry, with Russians give me slightly less variation.
No real problems on minor powers.
Artillery, in any army.

Aesthetically, the late 18thC Swedish uniform, look at least the Potemkin Uniform was designed to be practical!

Least favorite; WWII German in all its incarnations with the possible exception of U-Boat crews.

I don't have a least favorite. I'd like to defend the Prussians too, though many units had simple grey uniforms the truth is a Prussian army in the field in 1813 had more variety than any other. Between Prussian uniforms, British assistance, Landwehr and odds and sods even individual battalions in a regiment might be different.
For favorite I have to go with French Marins de la Garde.

"That is a ludicrous and disingenuous remark as well as being completely inaccurate."
TMP Napoleonics Boards in a sentence.

That is a ludicrous and disingenuous remark as well as being completely inaccurate."
TMP Napoleonics Boards in a sentence

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