"AWI artillery carriage colors?" Topic

What color where the British artillery carriages during the War for Independence?

I assume the Rebels had light blue.

Thanks in advance.

The British carriages were grey for the AWI. Hessian or Brunswick carriages were a greyish blue. French were reddish brown, as were British SYW/FIW carriages. This was the regulation, which is no guarantee of what they would look like in reality.

Rebels used whatever they could get. If they had leftover SYW carriages, they would be painted in reddish brown. If they were more modern, they would be British grey. If they were suppplied by the French, they would be reddish brown. If captured from the Brunswickers at Saratoga, greyish blue. If the carriages were locally made in the colonies, they would be painted in whatever paint was available. Note that the paint was intended to protect the wood, primarily, and that colors were standardized because that is what armies did. The paints used were certainly not standardized to any color charts, and would show the same variability as non-colorfast clothing. Since many of the Continental guns were captured by Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga, these might have been FIW surplus. Or not.

The British would certainly utilize captured rebel artillery, also. Just to complicate matters even more.

Since both sides had extreme supply problems, I would happily use any of these colors, with grey predominating in the British army.

The French were changing over to a medium blue so the Continental army late in the war adopted that color . It was used along with the Gribeauval system until the 1830's when single trail carriages & French olive green was adopted.

I would argue that if Continental artillery "adopted" the French colors, it was only in the batteries using donated French weaponry. The Continental Army could not afford to impose uniformity on artillery carriage colors. They could not even afford to pay their men, let alone supply standard color paint. IF such regulations were issued, they were as well followed as were regimental uniform regulations, which is to say, hardly at all.

Most illustrations and accounts I've seen for the Rebel Carriages was dark in color. But the Rebels did use alot of captured equipment so any color could and would be acceptable.

On a related note, what metal were the barrels made of? ie what colour were they? I'm new to this period and want to paint my mixed Hessian/Iroquois bear patrol correctly.

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Yes, I'm painting some teddy bears from Eureka. There's no way I can explain these to family and friends.

From the F&I period, thru the AWI period British gun carriages were a grey color.

I think I recall that the Germans were issued British guns, so if that is true, their carriages should be grey as well.

The French were reddish in both periods, I believe.

NPS parks have American carriages usually painted reddish too, though they could also be grey if captured. I am sure the wood was painted once a year to protect it, especially after wear and tear, so captured colors could change.

The iron work was usually painted black.

The gun barrels were black for the iron guns, and brass.

I believe that red oxide was the "standard" (in so far as there was one) colour for Continental artillery and that the main reason for this was the availability of this colour and its use on buildings, especially barns. This was also the reason for its use on the Champlain fleet under Arnold in 1776.

British gun carriages were gray/bluish gray during the earlier 18th century as well. (See the picture on Britishbattles.com which is taken from a period painting. I don't know where the idea got started that they were reddish during the SYW/F&I War (No offense meant OFM.)
The French used red and blue during the 18th century. I also believe that they only shipped the barrels to the Americans and not the carriages which were produced locally.
I'm not sure if the German troops had their own guns or if they were supplied by the British. And as OFM said American carriages could be any color. Arnold's use of barn red may be typical.

Joe

Avoid too much uniformity with the Americans. They used what they had. Red lead, white lead, a mix of the two, and just plain varnish (cooked tree sap and vegatible oils) were all used. Captured guns may have remained the original colors. Unpainted was also an option. I'm not sure that they had Tung oil yet, but they certainly had Linseed or Rapeseed.

At least some of the German units brought their own guns – which had blue carriages in the Prussian style.

Perhaps I was thinking of the Germans with Burgoyne. If I recall, they were issued artillery out of the Canadian garrison, which I think included pieces from the F&I period. Could have been French? Or captured English, then used by the French, then recaptured by the Brits? Hmmm.

historygamer,

Yes, I think the Hesse Hanau company with Riedesel got old 3 or 4 pounders of French origin on British carriages. The Hesse Cassel boys had Swedish-style guns (3s or 4s, forget which) and the Anspach-Bayreuth regiments had their own guns too, but not sure what they were (Austrian or British possibly?). IIRC, I don't think the Waldeckers had their own guns, but the Anhalt-Zerbst and Brunswick contingents certainly didn't.