What period to choose?

[mikeland]

2x2 is not for me. To many units changing formations all the time.

I do not want to paint the army with muddy/dusty effect. I like clean effect. Sure, I will add some dirt on trousers but no more than usual. I think of TAN-EARTH from Vallejo with army painter 6mm grass. It worked perfectly for my by Fire and Sword Swedish army.

I do not drybrush large areas on miniatures. I prefer wet shading... It takes forever but I do not have anyone to play with so no hurry.

Sorry off topic, would love to see pictures of your Fire and Sword Swedish army.

[MiSiO]

It is just Lvl 1 (Patrol/Scout) and it still needs few bases (work in progress) but sure. I will take some pictures (on my regimental artilery and Reiters with arbebuz) on Monday and post it on my blog. I will post the link here (as an off-top).

[janner]

Sorry Janner, the statement of Victorian rifle green getting darker is wrong. The colour was not UV proof and the regulations ordered them to be made darker to prevent the fading to get them too light before replacement. At the end of the 19th century a newly made OR's uniform was nearly black for that reason. Six months later.....

But your statement is correct with the post WW II No. 1 Jacket. I guess you wore one. That's the problem with modern experience, it can't be used without check for 19th century.

I'm used to avoiding this sort of validity issue in my medieval research, and especially when considering military culture.

I was basing this statement on my recollection of the journals of early 19th century riflemen and how the cloth darkened with grease and grime, but I'm sure you're more familiar with them than I.

Sorry that I wasn't clear and that led to you making a false assumption as to my source.

Regards,

[Invisible officer]

Well, grease and oil seem to darken a cloth, but the moment you wash it that comes out. Together with some of the colour.
I have some Rifle tunics and doublets from late victorian time in my private collection. Those parts protected from the light are much darker than those on the outside, open to the sunlight. They are made to a darker pattern than older ones.

One of the most important things any curator has to know is that old cloth was very sensible to UV beams, the darker the colour, the worse. And is still. I remember an old military Tressenbuch in a German castle on show near a window araound 1990 . I spoke with a collegue there but he ignored my advice. Only half a year later he phoned me, he got a lot of trouble, that page was faded, the colours destroyed. A cheap UV protective cover for the cabinet would have prevented that.

Officer's melton cloth is a little more UV resistent but still not to be put on a manequin without special measures, the cheaper qualities are very sensitive. I got a trouser in a lot that had one dark leg and one light one. Too long on presentation near a glass door.

[janner]

Is it not equally dangerous to consider the effect of light from a window on old cloth as a guide to the effects of weather, grease, wear and light on new cloth?

I understand that these figures are for wargaming the Crimea, where I'm not sure uniforms were able to be laundered that often. The photographs I've seen of troops during that campaign indicate that the accumulation of grease may be more relevant than the effects of washing.

Still, the best historical representation of uniforms rarely look so good on the table and most of us make small (or big) allowances.

[Invisible officer]

The soldiers had to clean the tunic if it was dirty. Victorian diaries state the sergeant's attitude to dirt very clear. Out of the trenches they hunted for the grubby Tommy Atkins. Grease and black powder wash out very well. Cleaning my newly aquired antique arms I wear white cotton gloves. Powder rests, rust , grease , dirt and oil give a nice tone but that comes out with ordinary soap and warm water very good.

The soldiers wifes did a lot of laundering there for the units. The units used enormous amounts of colour for the belts and soap for the cloth. Same in Napoleonic time, just have a look into Kinkaid or the Smith diary, Juana Smith was washing the clothes like a privates wife for her husband and his friends.

Rain (and laudering) tend to wash the colours out of the old cloth, remember the 2nd Dragoons at Waterloo with pink belts, the red colour coming out of the tunics under the weather conditions. Wet it looks darker but the moment the cloth dried it shows that it had faded by loss of colour.

The effect of light in a museum or apartment today is not different than 1855. Just a timeless natural reaction.

The old cloth was not dyed as deep into the fibre as with modern colours. Just have a look on mothed victorian cloth, it has a white border on red tunics and light green on 'Rifle green for that reason.
Modern cloth shows a reflection under the UV proof light, a good test to identify cheap reproductions. Good ones use old style colours.

[MiSiO]

Clothes should fade quickly with such frequent washing.

Technical question - Can skirmishing units (rifles) for regular formations like attack kolumn?

[janner]

The soldiers had to clean the tunic if it was dirty. Victorian diaries state the sergeant's attitude to dirt very clear. Out of the trenches they hunted for the grubby Tommy Atkins. Grease and black powder wash out very well. Cleaning my newly aquired antique arms I wear white cotton gloves. Powder rests, rust , grease , dirt and oil give a nice tone but that comes out with ordinary soap and warm water very good.

The soldiers wifes did a lot of laundering there for the units. The units used enormous amounts of colour for the belts and soap for the cloth. Same in Napoleonic time, just have a look into Kinkaid or the Smith diary, Juana Smith was washing the clothes like a privates wife for her husband and his friends.

Rain (and laudering) tend to wash the colours out of the old cloth, remember the 2nd Dragoons at Waterloo with pink belts, the red colour coming out of the tunics under the weather conditions. Wet it looks darker but the moment the cloth dried it shows that it had faded by loss of colour.

The effect of light in a museum or apartment today is not different than 1855. Just a timeless natural reaction.

The old cloth was not dyed as deep into the fibre as with modern colours. Just have a look on mothed victorian cloth, it has a white border on red tunics and light green on 'Rifle green for that reason.
Modern cloth shows a reflection under the UV proof light, a good test to identify cheap reproductions. Good ones use old style colours.

It may be that the conditions in the Crimea did not allow for such fastidiousness by the serjeants. Reading the diaries and looking at the photos indicate that things were very different in the field during the Crimean campaign than in the books.

Sorry, by old cloth I meant cloth that had been around for a long time and new cloth as freshly manufactured, rather than old for 19th and new for modern cloth.

[Invisible officer]

Hmmm, to claim that the conditions in Crimea are so worse to the ones in Spain or other 19th century campaigns need some proof. You name photos? The Fenton photos I know show clean soldiers like all other ones.
The belts perfectly white for line regiments, the white cloth parts exactly that: white. No grease or dirt. Soldiers in a siege have a lot of time and need occupation, to get them away from stupid ideas.

I'm sure you know the famous photo of the 3rd Buffs with the man in Greatcoat. He is often taken out as sample, but even his coat is clean, the shadows are just that, shadows. His belts perfectly white. And the rest of the group looks as smart as in England. Same with the Captain Walker group from 30th or the 68th group. Or the not posed camp group of the 97th.

Where cloth looks grubby it's an effect from the technic of photography, like the famous 1855 photo of Lt.Gen De Lacy Evans shows. The surface has much stronger lights and shadows as on a modern photo. But you can be sure, his uniform for that setting was a s bright as possible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:De-lacy-evans.jpg

The effects of weather and wear destroyed the cloth and equipment, that's what I read in the diaries, but not that they walked around dirty out of the trench.
The average soldier in Crimea spent only a part of his time in the trenches.
Sergeants played the game in every war. The WW I soldier who was a full day out of the trench and met a Sergeant got hell if he was not spotless.

[janner]

I think that you are making some large assumptions throughout your posts and there are alternative views - not least on the Fenton images.

Many elements in the images appear quite white when we can be fairly certain that they were not pristine. In many of the photos the troops look no cleaner than images of working men from the same period - ones in which the supporting data indicates that they were not in laundered clothes or straight from the bath house.

This is not a clean or dirty situation, but of increasing griminess which reached a point at which a garment might be cleaned, but even then, perhaps, not to a pristine level (especially in winter time given the shortages of fuel). Remember that, at times, it was so cold that they didn't change their clothes so often.

There are some great examples here of fairly clean, but hardly freshly laundered uniforms (at least they wouldn't probably get past a peacetime muster): http://allworldwars.com/Crimean-War-Pho ... -1855.html

Few are 'in the trenches' and I'm not sure why you seem fixed on this element. Just living in tents in a field makes normal levels of cleanliness challenging. The conditions were different in the Crimea to Iberia, but again, I think you know that.

Check out the 39th the right hand figure - hardly fit for Queen's Guard and he's the RSM, which does not support your argument that sergeants will be sergeants wherever they are (it also does not fit with my own more recent experience of the fellows, but, whilst it challenges your image of NCOs on operations, it is not relevant here).

Maybe this issue is not as cut and dried as you are making out - it's certainly not as black and white, even if the photos are .

Regards,