2nd Boer War: Royal Arty uniforms

[Bart of the North]

Hi,

Painting up my Royal Artillery figures for the 2nd Boer War.  Some of them are wearing smocks over their normal dress.  Does any one know if these are standard khaki or something else?  I have it in my head that they might be blue but don't know where I got that notion and can't find a reference to the colour one way or another.

Thanks,

Tim

[Luddite]

Its an interesting question as in 1899 the British were in the midst of a wholesale reorganisation of their artillery system with the formation of the Royal Field Artillery, and the divison of previous organisations such as the Royal Artillery and the Royal Horse Artillery.

Added to this is the complication that, at least in the early phase of the war, the British forces in South Africa were disorganised, having been constituted of local garisson troops, troops from India, and freshly raised reservists from Britain.  

British artillery in particular was in a right old mess.  It was inherently outclassed by the Boer Staadtsartillery both in terms of technology, training, and doctrine.  They'd learned nothing from the lessons of the Franco-Prussian War, whereas the Boers had improted German guns and wisdom in how to use them!  The British actually stripped guns (e.g 4.7" naval guns) off their warships and jury rigged them to oxen-drawn makeshift limbers in an attempt to counter the Boer 'Long Toms'.

So British artillery was a real mix, and included naval crews!

Aside from being technically outranged, the British also employed the tactical close support doctrine that saw their artillery deploy within range of Boer rifles.  'Long's Guns' at Colenso show quite well how poor this tactic was.
The British artillery also suffered horribly against the Boer 1lb 'pom-pom quick firing light artillery - a weapon that became greatly feared.
The British also adopted a 'blanket bombing' approach - often out of neccessity as the Boers used smokeless powder from cover and couldn't be spotted well (as i understand, lyddite wasn't used by the British in the early part of the war??).  Conversely, the Boers would spot British artillery and bring down precise pin-point counder battery fire, often with only a single gun, but with far greater effect than the British 'spray and pray' approach.

After the initial debacle though, the British did get their act together and by the end of the war, they had about 37 batteries (20,000 men approx) of Royal Field Artillery in theatre with a mix of heavy (siege), field and mountain batteries.

When it comes to uniforms, its therefore pretty difficult to be clear.  In the early phase it may well have been a mix of khaki, blue and Royal Navy uniforms depending on the gun.

Once the British sorted themselves out, the artillery crews appear to have worn khaki like everyone else.  (Here's a brief reference to the khaki being worn http://www.angloboerwar.com/?option=com_content&view=article&id=582).

The blue you metion is likely to refer to the uniforms of the Royal Horse Artillery (http://www.armynavyairforce.co.uk/royal_artillery.htm), which as i understand were still worn in the field during that period (actually they wore blue with gold braiding and red facings).  Or for the early period it could have been naval gunners adopted off the ships?

Hope that helps.