Every miniature wargamer loves his painted castings. The gamers who don't have long since gone to board or computer games. Most of us want our castings to be both historically accurate and visually interesting, but this is something of a compromise. Most of the participants in the Napoleonic Wars seem to have had three major uniform issues and a host of minor variants. No one will paint up a British Army with Queues for Egypt, another with white pants for Maida, Rolica and Vimerio, a third with gray trousers for Salamanca and a fourth with Belgic shako for Toulouse. Nor is his opponent likely to paint up an army in blue coat and bicorne to invade Egypt, another in blue coat & helmet to invade Syria and a third in a variety of colors and helmet to defend Egypt. Naturally, some of us build a regiment or so of each-individually accurate, but not so edifying taken together. Others try to maintain visual interest by painting obscure units: 'Yes, they look like Russians, but they're actually Conde's Royalist French/Russo-German Legion in Prussian service." I'll plead guilty to both offenses from time to time, but over the years I've become more interested in telling the armies apart, and in distinguishing the units within an army. Coat colors and headgear might distinguish an army, and facing colors the regiments for example. In the larger scales, though, this can be fairly dull: 36 identical castings in white coat, shako and red facings next to 36 identical castings in white coat shako and green facings and so on. How does one make a unit look interesting within these limitations? Well, I tried to draw on my own experience and what I'd read on the subject, as follows:

I've worn uniforms of one description or another for just about 30 years now. At least, that is, I've worn the authorized clothing of the United States Army, the United States Air Force and the Boy Scouts of America. The Cub Scouts at least had adult supervision, but none of them had any notable degree of uniformity. I think the high point was reached years ago in a staff meeting I attended with SOCLANT (Special Operations Command, Atlantic). Between the different services represented and the variations within each service, no two men at the table were in the same uniform. Our boss, a wise old Colonel, looked around the table and said 'This would drive a man nuts, if he were the sort to worry about it.'

The truth is, units are seldom as uniform as one might think: as an example, let me hold an imaginary in-ranks inspection of a modern US Army unit. (A moment please, while I prepare the imaginary troops for inspection: BATTALION, 'TENN-SHUN! OPEN RANKS, MARCH! DRESS RIGHT, DRESS! READY, FRONT! Okay, now.)

Watch the boots first: most of the young soldiers in ranks are wearing 'quit boots"-- the new speed-lace pattern issued to them in basic training. Some of the fancier dressers have gone to the Cochran II, with a similar lacing, but a reinforced heel and toe--easier to spit-shine. Most of the NCOs are wearing the Cochran Its. few are still wearing out old 'jump boots with reinforced heel and toe, but without speed lacing. Men who've done time in Panama or Fort Polk are some of them wearing 'jungle boots' with leather heels and toes and canvas sides. The older boots have green canvas and the newer ones black. A very few NCOs are wearing the older pattern 'quit boot without speed lacing. Then we hit individual cases: Corporal Tentpeg is in gym shoes because of shin splints--well, at least they're black. The battalion commander is armor branch and proud of it: no mistaking those tanker boots. The First Sergeant of HHC is wearing--what are those, First Sergeant?--ah, the experimental no-polish "brown boot, given him for testing purposes in the Sinai. He's dyed them black, and he's going to wear them out. In the field, please, First Sergeant, NOT during an in-ranks. The XO was on court-martial duty. He's still wearing his Class B uniform with low quarters. So is SSG Snuffy, who just had his official photo taken, and is in his Class A uniform. And over in the S-2--no, those aren't old 'quit boots. Just what are those SFC Piepenbrink? Letiover Air Force boots from a prior enlistment, that won't strike sparks on a runway. I see. And SOT Harris, on orders for Korea, is trying to break in his new Matterhorns with Gore- tex and Thinsulate. Must be nice to have money...

Look up a little: except for the two wearing low-quarters, everyone is wearing the Battle Dress Uniform, and the Sergeant-Major said sleeves down, but some of them are in winter-weight and some in summer-weight (you can see the checked pattern of the rip-stop nylon) You can see two distinct 'cuts' in the summer-weights. And there's a huge difference in the colors. The youngest recruits are almost factory fresh, of course, but there's more variety among the NCOS: everything from equally bright and dark to so faded as almost to seem like desert pattern cammo. At least for the most part the tops and bottoms match. The First sergeants made sure of that after the last time.

Most of the lower enlisteds are wearing "pin-on, rank insignia-cheaper and easier to change when promoted. Most of the senior men expect to hold their present rank for several years, and have had cloth distinctions sewn on. The junior enlistedsmay also have the hideous painted-on name tape and US Army tape given them in basic training, though most ditch them at the first opportunity. A few of the senior men have had to buy new uniforms but economized by using tapes off older uniforms. A few purchased tapes in Korea or from Korean tailors: a different weave, and a different shade of green background.

Headgear is the "BDU ballcap" throughout, except for the XO in his Class A round hat and SSG Snuffy in his garrison cap. But the ball caps aren't uniform either. Mostly they're darker than the uniforms: being impossible to clean properly, they're commonly replaced when badly stained. Most are the winter-wear pattern and fabric, but a few of the soldiers in summer-weight BDUs have purchased summer-weight caps to go with them: lighter fabric, ventilation holes and no flap to fold down. There's a nondescript medium crush to most of the caps, but a few of the men have been "blocking" them with cardboard, and others have forced the interior down into a nice imitation of the shape of a Civil War kept. The bills range from perfectly flat to something more appropriate on Donald Duck.

All told, not too bad. A few years ago there might still have been a few olive green field jackets in the connation, and a little before that a few of the actual old fatigues. When e "Fritz, replaced the old World War II helmet, we tried to do it all at once, but there were always those three or four men per company on temporary duty who had to be dealt with later. And this, mind you, in the lavishly-funded army of a modern industrial power!

Years of studying military history and painting miniatures has led me to the conclusion that this is normal. Uniform regulations exist, and the miniatures painter ought not to ignore them, but they are not absolutes. Instead, they serve as a basis for variants in some well established patterns, and these patterns both make painted castings more realistic and add visual interest to an army. I'd like to outline a few of the more common trends:

First the wearing of obsolete uniforms. The further the soldier is from the depot, in time and space, the more likely he is to be wearing an outdated uniform. Obviously only the richest of the modern indistrial states convert all uniforms in a very short time, and even they don't do it instantly. New uniforms tend to begin with new recruits leaving depots and the wealthier of ricers, and spread gradually out from there. Modern volunteer forces, where the existing personnel have to buy new uniforms, establisher "wear out date' by which the old soldiers must wear the new uniform. Old soldiers tend not to wear the new uniform until that date since they want to wear out the uniforms they've already paid for. A few really stubborn old soldiers may refilse to convert even then. I remember a formation of about 1,000 airmen in their newly-issued light blue over dark blue Class "B" uniforms, with a single old COO-4 still wearing his old sun tans. Technically, it was a court-martial offense, but who was going to do that to a soldier a few months from retirement? I went on wearing the old-style Army windbreaker a year past the wear-out date simply because I hated the expensive (and ugly) replacement.

Sometimes this is done to make a point of some sort. During the Napoleonic Wars, Blucher wore the uniform of his beloved Red Hussars after they were disbanded, and severe pressure had to be applied to some of les blancs during the French Revolution to make the enlisted men of the old Royalist Army give up their old white regimentals. During the Vietnam draw-down, the Ninth Infantry Division was withdrawn, except for one Brigade which was reassigned to the AmericalDivision. The soldiers involved, however, refused to accept the new allegiance, and continued to wear their treasured 9th ID patches, even leaving them behind as they rotated so that new soldiers could sew them on. Solzhenitsen describes Soviet Cossacks in 1944 still wearing bits of Tsarist uniform, but it isn't clear from context whether this was politics or shortages.

Old uniforms also linger off the main supply routes until fairly recently, and even today in times of supply shortages. The US in World War II converted to the round helmet very soon after Pearl Harbor, but of course the soldiers and marines of Bataan and Wake Island never saw the new issue. Colonial garrisons are often an issue or so behind.

So too can be militiamen, mobilized reservists, or other old soldiers recalled to active duty. In the Napoleonic Wars, for instance, discharged or disbanded of ricers and NCOs were recalled by Prussia and Hanover in 1813, and by France in 1814, all three times in the midst of severe uniform shortages. I would expect many of them wore uniforms about 10 years behind the times. In 1944, France had re-mobilised regiments disbanded with the fall of Vichy. Some World War II expert can confirm or deny, but I would expect them to have at least begun their service in the uniforms of 1940.

Another place to look for outdated uniforms is on allies. The Napoleonics buff can see obsolete British stovepipes on Netherlands and Hanoverian troops, and some of the white uniforms of Napoleon's satellite states look suspiciously like white uniforms he was unable to make the French Arrny adopt. I recall personally how the ROK Army of 1984 looked like the US Army of 10 or 20 years prior.

And, of course, pieces of old uniforms may linger on. French line grenadiers continued to wear bearskins long past the formal adoption of the plumed shako, and Grenada caught the US Army all in the new Battle Dress Uniform, but only partly in the new 'Fritz" helmet. This can result from shortages of the new item, from a stubborn loyalty to the Obsolete" issue, or simply from a reluctance to issue new until the old has worn out.

On the other hand, we sometimes also see soldiers in uniforms not yet of ficial. This is more rare, but it does happen. The general principle is that either the troops or their commander should have money, and that light troops are most likely to set new styles. The British light dragoon regiments made into hussars by their colonels, largely at the colonels' expense are one example. A few old-timers may recall the post-war US 'pinks and greens,- never official, but widely worn nonetheless. In the post-World War II era, American soldiers and the Department of the Army have waged a silent struggle over the wear of berets, which is always more extensive than authorized. Changes in authorization have generally acknowledged an existing condition. In times such as the latter 17th Century and much of the 1 8th, where cut of cloth was at least partly a matter of fashion, one could expect some of the young officers, at least, to be a few years ahead of official changed of uniform. 'Demonstration' units and 'troops of show" could also be expected to be right on the sartorial cutting edge. !

Another thing for the miniature painter to keep in mind is fade and wear out: they hit older soldiers first, and go from the soles of his feet up, Prior to good chemical dies, fade was Sometimes ghastly, and it can be pretty bad even today. Go to a basic training center, and you can immediately sort out instructors from trainees simply by how washed out Me instructors' uniforms look next to the newly-issued BDUs of the trainees. A really badly faded set of the BDUs is known colloquially as 'cook whites," and these are sometimes banned from parades or changes of command.

As with fade, wear out tends to be trousers & footwear first. Miniaturists painting American troops from about 1825 through the Indian wars will no doubt remember that the trousers are a lighter blue than the jackets. That's still the case in the Army's 'dress blue" uniform. Soldiers on fatigue details commonly wore only a shirt, not a coat or jacket, but all; ilys wore trousers, so that they were always more faded. Eventually, the War Department diode it official. Photos and narratives show the same trend: soldiers wearing captured enemy trousers and footwear or local substitutes--brown cloth in the Spanish Peninsula, for instance--but still wearing their issue jackets.

Two general principles should be kept in mind; first, the tendency of units with high esprit du corps to want to look distinctive. The Civil War historian *ill remember the black hats of the Iron Brigade and the green facings of the Irish. Those of the Korean War may recall Marines keeping their distinctive leggings. Soldiers will not easily give up something they see as an indicator of their membership in an elite unit whatever a distant king or war department might dictate. Lutzow seems to have spent much of 1813-14 keeping his soldiers Tom wearing 'death's-head" insignia. I doubt he had much success, especially with his jaegers and hussars.

Soldiers also, however, have a strong aversion to being shot by their own side, and both sides have been known to modify their uniform or the wearing of the uniform to clarify sides. Sashes predate uniforms, but together with field signs served the same critical purpose of telling the sides apart. Both go into sharp decline in the latter half of the 17th Century as the concept of a national uniform--or at least coat color--spread. Nonetheless, practically throughout its existence, the Austrian Army maintained the "field sign, of an oak leaf in the headgear. Not always enough, of course: Prussia's adoption of white plumes for their cuirassiers during the Seven Years' War was because of the strong similarity between their uniforms and the Austrians'. (I suspect the authorization lagged considerably behind the practice: like Wellington and Stonewall Jackson, Frederick the Great was not greatly concerned with uniform detail, but did like to tell sides apart.) Armbands are another approach, most notably the Allies' white armbands of 1814, which Prussia and its allies would also adopt in 1866. In western Germany in that year the even more various Austrian allies almost universally adopted a yellow-red-black armband to contrast. The choice of uniform options can also help here. Prior to uniforms one sometimes sees soldiers fighting with white shirts over or instead of coats as the Imperialists at Pavia, or the Royalists in some of Montrose' battles. During the Napoleonic Wars the French frequently (though not universally) wore overcoats into battle. The British never seem to have done so, and the commander of the red-coated (in French service) Legion Hannoverienne argued unsuccessfully against going into battle without overcoats lest this be mistaken for British. During World War II US soldiers almost never wore overcoats in combat, at least partly to distinguish themselves from Germans who frequently did. Ought one to mention in this context Stonewall Jackson's proposal to strip his men naked for a night attack so they could be told from the Federals? A 'what-if scenario for which very few players have appropriate castings!

So how does all of this fit together? A gamer painting up, say the 52nd Foot for Vittoria could look up the appropriate uniform for the year 1913 and have done, but he could also a) stain and drybrush most of the uniforms to reflect dirt and fade, the cleaner brighter ones representing recent replacements; b) replace a few of the issue grey trousers with brown local cloth or French white, and some of the shoes with Spanish clogs or even bare feet; c) put a few of the volunteers from the militia in the old style pack and d) give some rich subaltern the unauthorized but common pellise. These last two might be among those with cleaner brighter uniforms. Their French opponents might have a few men in overcoat, some with bonnet de police instead of shako, and some of the grenadiers still in bearskin. The blue coats would be in a variety of shades, and there might still be an NCO or so in the 1807 white. One or two might have rolled-up blankets in place of knapsacks. Trousers and footwear would, as with the British, be a mix of of ficial, Acquired" and locally-purchased. By contrast, the colonel and the drummer might be impeccably turned out! If not overdone, and if the castings blend properly, the result is a regiment which tells us something about the officers and men and the history of the unit. Go ahead and give it a try!