French Uniforms in LGDR7

Thanks Louis

I have had a quick look at the website and it is an amazing find! He has clearly put a lot of time and effort into it, as you have with your uniforms, and it is a resource well worth us using.

I know what you mean about British regimental colours (I did some work with the National Army Museum on new exhibitions that required me to do some reading up a couple of years back) and the reasoning behind who wore what left my head spinning.

Of course, playing (other than France) a non-European power means I might need to have a chat with a arty-computer literate friend to see if they can create a similar template that i can use for my other position...but if/when G9 happens I am going to go for a European position so there template will be extremely useful...

I do hope that perhaps some other players might use them as I know a few others have gone into quite a bit of detail on uniforms and it would be interesting to see what they imagine their designs look like.

A point to keep in mind is that in the days before colour fast dyes all uniforms would fade and dyes would run into each other so after a couple of months on campaign even original kit would look nothing like the original uniform.

Plus a lot of it would have been replaced by bought or plundered items of different colour, cut, design etc.

I agree that many RSM'S take a very keen interest in the state of soldiers uniforms, for the rank & file it is/was a lot of hard work to keep the uniform & assosiated equipment clean, tidy & serviceable.

Most replacement uniforms were drawn from the soldiers wages, with either a monthly stoppage or payment on replacement.

A Great coat was supposed to last two years, before replacement. There were no Left & right fitting boots, spare soles were carries & were replaced by the unit cobbler.
Some uniforms were cut in such a way that movement was restricted, quality was also a factor as costs were kept low to ensure that as much of the clothing allowance money went into the pockets of the officer responciable, afterall they had to somehow get the money back from paying for there commission.

One of the reasons for the large amount of irish serving in the English army was that the irish accepted just about anything that they received (clothes, equipment, weapons etc). The English wanted better, and more expensive clothes.

now, that is an interesting point, does re-equipping the army actually benefit your economy?

I guess it depends if you actually produce the equipment required to Re-equip your forces, If you have to buy in from outside then it could have a negative effect rather than a positive.

I saw somewhere that at this time the Swedes had a musket that suited their Ga - Pa tactics. Getting close, fire one volley, charge in and fight hand to hand. The musket delivered a number of musket balls with the one shot. Anyone else seen reference to that?

I have read somewhere of troope cutting their musket balls into smaller pieces, I guess that would give the same kind of shotgun effect.May have caused more barrel wear though.

It was actually quite a common practice to double shot or even triple shot both cannons and muskets but I suspect that due to time and rish of misfire if rushed this was only done prior to battle.

The practice would not do accurracy or barrel life much good but if defending a breach about to be filled with screaming Highlanders/Turks etc I suspect such concerns were secondary to filling the space with as much lead as possible.

Cutting musket balls with a cross made an early form of "dum dum" bullet.....in theory the musket ball would break up of entering the human body making an even larger wound than a normal musket round. Of course if you cut the ball really deeply its liable to break up in flight and the bits would go anywhere. Probably not a problem if fireing at a large target.........unless the firer is in say the 3 or 4 rank in which case more forward ranks can get hit.

It was common practice for artillery threatened by cavalry to doudle load with Cannister & Rounshot . As Stuart implies the danger of a burst Barrel wer increased. But that was secondary to staying alive.

One reason Brass Cannon were prefered to Iron was that Brass Guns would bulge rather than burst like Iron Guns, when double loading was involved.

There are also records of stones & coins being recovered from wounds made by musket fire. It was also not unusual for inexperienced soldiers in the heat of battle to fire off there Ramrods at the enemy.

I have heard of the ramrod-firing before, in Sharpe novels admittedly but I always imagine it might be a bit hard to explain to your CO afterwards...

There are reports of various items being removed from wounds, as well as Ram rods being fired off by ill trained recruits.

There is however little evidence to suggest that bayonets actually caused many casualties, This secondary weapon of the infantry seems to have been more of a deterent than an actual leathal weapon, most people electing to run away if a charge was pressed, or if the defenders stood there ground then many charges were not pushed home, rather the two sides halted & exchanged fire. This is at least the contempurary view on the open Battle field. Seiges etc are obviously a differant situation.