"civil war artillery color" Topic

All,
I'm putting together a small force of usa and csa troops. I have seen many artillery pieces from the civil war and they all look blackish, greenish, grayish. Were they made of brass? If so, how long did they have a brassy shine in the field before they began to develop the rich patina that Antiques Roadshow loves so much? In other words, what color should I paint the cannons? Thanks.

Yes, you'll have brass guns, steel guns, polished guns, guns painted black, carriages in lots of colours but mainly green and they get very dirty in use.

Check out the many available pictures and pick one or two you like.

If you paint smoothbore barrels bronze, rifle barrels and all other metalwork black and wood olive green you'll be close enough for government work.

Jim's right, of course: if you want to go for the full range of possibilities, there's a wide range open. But a lot depends on scale and intended use. My program serves well for 10mm and 6mm armies intended to serve in every year and theater. If you want to exactly represent some particular small engagement in 28mm, that's another story.

Interesting thread here on this topic:

link

I do as Robert suggests.

I use a light black ink wash over the bronze and steel to represent more field conditions

The three most common field pieces in the ACW were the 12 pound Napoleon smoothbore (bronze), the 3" Ordnance Rifle (iron), and the 10-pound Parrott Rifle (iron).

Most carriages (on both sides) were painted a deep olive green. To keep it simple, this dark olive was derived by mixing black and yellow ochre paint in a prescribed ratio. The actual shade of olive depended on the amounts of black and yellow ochre paint available to the battery. It could range from a very dark olive (black heavy) to a mustard (yellow ochre heavy).

There were exceptions of course. Some Confederate Napoleons were cast in iron, and occasionally carriages were painted in other colors.

Carriages an olive green I prefer Vallejo Russian Uniform 70.924.

Metal work on carriages- gloss black.

All Parrot rifles, 3" Ordnance, Waird rifles, any iron guns- gloss black.
Napoleons, 6 lb guns, 12 lb. Howitzers, 24 lb. Howitzers, any bronze guns- shiny brass or gold.

As others have said, if you will be modeling specific batteries then you could try some research.

On the other hand, if you are painting up generic guns for gaming, particularly in a smaller size like 6mm, 10mm or 15mm, and are more concerned with plausibility, then you could try what we did in the early days of Johnny Reb-and so far as I know most of the gang does to this day.

As Extrabio, Cleburne and others say, paint the barrels of the smoothbores bronze and the rifled pieces black; that would be accurate for most guns anyway and doing so makes it easier to tell which is which. Then paint the carriages and the like some sort of an olive green with black-painted metal work. For a bit of variety I paint the occasional Confederate gun carriage red or another color under the theory that they didn't always have green paint available, but I have no evidence for that and actually do it because I think it looks nice.

The only issue you may have in distinguishing guns is if you have a battery with type II James rifles as they are bronze and shaped like an Ordinance rife. In 15mm they could be confused for a confederate Napoleon.

Kim

The Rockbridge artillery 6 pound guns from VMI had red carriages early in the war. They would eventually be replaced with Napoleons.

Kim

Doing 10mm so brass for the Napoleons and Black for the rifled pieces looks like a good way to tell them apart. Thanks for the advice.