"Military clothing in the Thirty Years" Topic

Hello everyone ,

I love the Thirty Years' War and have a lot of 25 mm figurines on this conflict, all 25 mm MiniFigs which unfortunately only offer Swedes and imperialists.

I know that there were no uniforms at that time, but the beginnings of uniformity in clothing appeared in certain regiments and in any case the military fashions of clothing from one army to another could be very different.

I am therefore looking for documentation which would make comparisons and establish the differences in clothing habits between the various armies, nationalities etc…

Thanks for your help.

Vexillia website used to have a website with a "uniform" guide for the TYW. Since the store's closing, it's been moved here: link

Hope this helps.

Prince Alberts Revenge, Thanks, that's a great resource.

FusilierDan, someone pointed me to it when I asked a similar question on TMP to assist me in painting up my 10mm armies. It was an invaluable guide to give the armies some identity with the colors chosen.

I thought the Swedes were the first to create uniforms for their forces?

"I thought the Swedes were the first to create uniforms for their forces?"

Good point! At least there were certain units that were dressed in similar colours. The most known is the Norrland regiment which had predominately red dress.

url=https://postimg.cc/WDHmrRSt]

‌

In the book "Från Karl Knutsson till Kristina" the author Höglund provide an image of the "uniform" colours that can be found in Swedish archives:

url=https://postimg.cc/BLPTBhwp]

‌

Prince Alberts Revenge, thank you for the link, it's a start and it's interesting, but is there a book with illustrations?

I've already told Prince Alberts Revenge in a different thread, but for the rest of you guys don't use Bill Boyle's "Uniforms of the Thirty Years War." It's chock full of inaccuracies. I'm not sure if the infantry uniforms for the other source that Travellera has posted is correct, but I know for sure that the bottom half (cavalry) is not, as Swedish cavalry were required to supply their own clothing.

thestoats,

I agree with you that Boyle´s article includes a lot of errors.
I am not sure what sources you have available but the information i Höglunds books are based on extensive research in the Swedish archive material. Höglunds book was published in 2012 and is the most recent study on the subject that I am aware of. If you are able to read 17th century handwriting you can here find a wealth of information on the Swedish army, which is what Höglund used:

link

This includes accounts of pay and cloth/clothing provided to Swedish military formations. The information is however not consistent or complete for all units. Only a few units have information of the colour of dress. For cavalry units there is information for 19 units for the period of 1613-1632. For infantry some 50 units for the period of 1613-1632. In letters from Gustav II Adolf it is however evident that his ambition was to have uniformly dressed troops. An objective that was of course hard to reach due to financial and practical constraints.

@thestoats
Thanks for the information, but then what to use?

@Travellera
That's good, but in any case, a well-illustrated general work is needed, because it wasn't just the Swedes in this war.

@Paskal
Unfortunately, what you are looking for does not really exist. I find that some of the charm with this hobby is to research and find credible information. The alternative is to accept that the main bulk of the forces of the TYW would wear more or less the same rags as everybody else. The "uniforms" I comment above are just splashes of paint in a sea of grey-brown misery. The Swedish army museum have a great diorama which displays the sad reality of TYW dress below. On a positive note the reality gives the wargamer a lot of freedom to paint miniatures in colours any way he likes :)

theminiaturespage.com

‌"TMP link

theminiaturespage.com

‌"TMP link

theminiaturespage.com

‌"TMP link

@Travellera, thanks for the correction, that is very interesting to note! Would the process of supplying the cavalry with cloth/clothing continue into the later periods of the Thirty Years' War?

@Paskal What specific time period within the conflict are you looking to represent? The look of both combatants (albeit the Swedes more noticeably) would've changed as the Thirty Years' War dragged on. If you have a specific timeframe or even a specific Catholic Army you'd like to represent me and others far more knowledgeable may be able to help you out. I do know that at least for Bavaria, according to Daniel Staberg, popular color choices were blue, red, silver, and ashen grey. For the Swedes it seems like blue was a popular color as well.

I do not have any information on the issue of clothing after 1632 but I would guess that the practice continued since it was an ambition to have the troops look in a uniform fashion. Anyway, looking on the information available combinations of colours of blue, grey, red and maybe yellow would be dominating in the Swedish cavalry (as well as in the infantry)

@Travellera
Bravo for the beautiful photos, nothing to do with wargame figurines. What I'm looking for doesn't exist?

Really?

Yes,part of the charm of this hobby lies in the search for credible information and that is precisely what I am doing by going to this forum.

There were no uniforms at that time, but they certainly existed clothing fashions by nations, I'm looking for illustrations on it.

@thestoats
MiniFigs only offers in 25 mm the armies of Gustavus Adolphe and those of his Catholic adversaries and the figurines are very good and very different in their clothing styles.

Now if I could find some documentation of what the French and Spanish looked like in 1643.

@Paskal,

I am just trying to help but it seems I do not fully understand what you are looking for. You asked the question if there is an illustrated work that cover all the different nations involved in detail for the TYW and I am not aware of any such literature.

@Paskal, for the late period of the TYW Pieter Snayers is a well-known contemporary artist. Living in the Netherlands, he would be especially accustomed to painting Spanish troops (maybe a little too accustomed, considering he paints the Swedes in this style in his Lutzen painting!).

On an unrelated note, I'm curious if your Imperialists/Catholics are Catholic League troops or part of the Imperial Army?

Daniel S where are you?

This file is an old thing, nowadays rather partially suspicious.
The recent series of books by Helion answer a lot about these questions. If you are into this, I strongly advise you to get them. (you can suffer less with pdfs, even!)
And yes, mostly uniform is not a widespread thing (and even less over time) some trends though can be used.

When will one do French and Spanish in 18mm (or STL) that look right?

@Travellera
Thank you for your participation.

@thestoats
I would like to use my 25mm MiniFigs, do you know them?

@Jcfrog
The sculptor of the masters of the 15mm MiniFigs figurines managed to distinguish for their infantry, the French from the Spanish from the German from the Moravian from the Swedish from the Imperial and did the same with the cavalry by adding other ethnic groups, so that's what There was documentation.

On the other hand, the sculptor of the masters of the 25mm MiniFigs figurines only made the Swedish and German ones which fortunately, they too are very different from each other.

So there were differences without them wearing uniforms.