Sandbags

[Heedless Horseman]

While'st on another forum, had a random thought.
Sandbags are Hessian... so 'normal' sandbag colour. But, has anyone seen 'Dyed' sandbags... say O/D or darker than normal?
Dampness and Dirt would always change colour... but as film set dressing... 'think' not always same shade?
Curious?

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

They were often improvised from domestic bags of a suitable size, such as pillow cases and matteress covers, so a few can be bright colours. Likewise local sacks with comercial logos could be used.

[fred.]

In WWI as part of anti-sniper measures sandbag parapets were encouraged to be made irregular, including sandbags of different colours.  The even pale brown row of sandbags was found to make it much too easy for a sniper to spot someone looking over the trench, or even being a bit too tall when moving.

But with modelling of sandbags the more you stray from the expected standard colours it can make things look a bit odd. A bit like rivers being blue...

[Heedless Horseman]

LK , of course.  But, somewhere in my murky memory, I have seen Military sandbags that weren't 'Hessian' colour.
It 'could' be that I have seen 'fossilised' sandbags, 'greened' with age.. just...

Pretty sure that troops in real world would have shovelled real world dirt over sandbagged positions... but 'movies' or dioramas have such 'obvious' sandbagged positions!
Just wondering?

[Heedless Horseman]

Thanks Fred..Does that mean that there were 'coloured' sandbags?

[paulr]

Certainly some of the sandbags used in Vietnam were green

I suspect they were also in other jungle environments to help them blend in

[fred.]

Thanks Fred..Does that mean that there were 'coloured' sandbags?

I think the intention was to use locally sourced materials - I don't recall reading about central sources - but there were a lot of regimental or divisional level activities going on that probably weren't recorded.

Some of the aim was also just to break up the outlines by not putting sandbags regularly, or by using other materials too.