Gun Colours for AWI Artillery

[going a-viking]

What colours were gun carriages painted by the various armies in AWI?

I am particularly interested in the British and their German auxiliaries (Hesse-Cassel and Ansbach-Bayreuth) and the French.

I expect that the answer will be complex as usual with AWI.

Apologies if this question has been answered already.

Thanks

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Brian,
Gazza is usually a good source, or try pm-ing AndyMac, he usually has the answer at his finger tips.
Mad Lemmey

[Luddite]

Hmm...good question.  I'm not sure it'd been codified by that period.

In general i think most carriages were simply bare wood.

A quick trawl of various sources and images seems to suggest:

British = light grey or yellow
American = 'French' blue
French = very dark blue or black

However, I'd treat these with a great deal of scepticism.  

Personally i don't think you'd go wrong painting them 'bare wood'.

[Jagger]

Here are some responses on the miniatures page from my question way back when:  http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=199544

American artillery carriages were painted the color of who had them last. Literally.
Those which started out as colonial artillery, or were captured from the British as at Ticonderoga, had gray carriages. Knox hauled the guns on sleds to Boston, but the sleds had the carriages on them too.
After Boston, some may have been repaired or replaced. See below.

The ones we captured at Trenton were Hessian blue gray. BTW, Knox liked these so much, he had the 3pdrs re-bored into 6pdrs.

French supplied guns were red.

Any carriages that were home painted probably used whatever paint they could. Barn red was common.

Some guns had a famous history. A few guns used by Burgoyne's Brunswickers were French guns captured in the FIW, on British carriages. Captured by the Continentals at Saratoga, they were used by the Continentals, captured by the British later in the South, and then finally recaptured. Serial numbers!

-----------British â€" light grey (not blue-grey, this came later on in the Napoleonic Wars)

Hesse Cassel â€" Prussian light blue Hesse hanau â€" light grey (French tubes on British carriages)

France â€" red for Valliere carriages, blue for Gribeauval (only a few of the latter saw service in America, even under Rochambeau)

Spain â€" red

Continental/State â€" red or natural wood

Red paint seems to have been plentiful in the North (I'm not sure if it was yet a standard colour for barns, but it was certainly used on Arnold's fleet on Lake Champlain), but in the South natural wood might have been more likely. Any carriages sent over from France would also have been red; captured British guns would have remained grey for a while, but the Continental artillery was the best supplied of the arms of service and I would suggest that re-painting would have been important from a viewpoint of esprit de corps.

[Jagger]

Also no one was able to answer the question as to what guns used brass or iron barrels.  However I have read that most AWI field pieces were brass barrel as they were lighter than iron barrels.  Due to the primitive American roads, weight and maneuverability was important, so all mine have brass barrels.

[Leon]

Red rings a bell from a previous customer query.  I'll see if I can dig it out when we get back from Triples.

[goat major]

jagger's link to the TMP thread is very good. Any post about the AWI by Supercilius Maximus (aka Ronan the Librarian) should usually be taken seriously - he knows his stuff!

[going a-viking]

Thank you chaps: a good, fast response as usual.

[Leon]

I've just checked our email history, and the info we've had previously is:

British
A pale grey to light blue grey (same colour used from at least 1748 through late C19th)

Hessians & Brunswick
Sometimes used British equipment so the same colour scheme would apply. Some have suggested a grey blue as well but I suspect as they imitated Prussians in many things then a Prussian colour scheme might have been used. This suggests more of a mid blue(?)Note however in the SYW the Prussians were anxious to get their hands on British artillery!

French
Red - reddish brown, later in the war when the Gribeauval system was brought in when a change to a medium blue was underway.

Rebels
Captured or actually owned British ordnance early in the war so the same pale grey applies but later on adopted the French reddish brown (red oxide) as it was locally availbale but also fit in with the pre-Gribeauval guns being supplied by the French. It may be that the French only supplied guns and not carriages.

Spaniards
No idea

In general all iron work (hubs, barrels, tyres, bolts, plates etc.) was painted black, only exception seems to have been brass ordnance as that was left in its native brassy hue!

All sides captured guns from each other and would use captured ordnance as the situation demanded. This possibly is more the case for the rebel artillery than the French, British or German auxilliaries.

And a link to a separate thread on TMP: http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=6723


So that all supports the previous posts.