tortuga french

[Lowtardog]

Found this list of uniforms for Spanish troops and where they were stationed from the early 1700s

[warrenpeace]

The New York Public Library has a great digital collection of uniform plates:

http://www.bronzeagemin.com/miniatures_html/25MM/historical/Pirates/28mmPirate-set-1.htm

Click on Collection Contents and go from there.

And KeyanSark, that's a fantastic weblink that you posted!!!

Dan Schorr sells CD uniform information and color plates.  CD #8 is Spanish Armies of the War of the League of Augsburg 1688 to 1697:

http://www.northernwars.com/Hall%20CDs.html

[PeteMurray]

Lowtardog, that is a truly excellent resource! Thank you!

[warrenpeace]

The main period of piracy in Tortuga seems to have been the 1640s to 1670s. For the earlier part I would recommend some Thirty Years' War or English Civil War miniatures.

I agree with Mad Doc Morris that Thirty Years War and English Civil War minis would work best for the historical buccaneer period from about 1640 to 1680.  From 1680 to 1705 it would be better to use miniatures for the Monmouth Rebellion or the War of the Grand Alliance (also called the War of the League of Augsburg or the Nine Years War -- 1688 to 1697).  Dixon makes some great miniatures for this period:

http://www.dixonminiatures.co.uk/dixoncatalogue.asp?maintype=11

Also Foundry's Marlburian lines have "early" Marlburians in the "informal tricorne" (basically a floppy hat not yet crisply turned up on three sides):

http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/collections/MARLBURIAN/index.asp

Packs from the first and third collections work for this late 17th Century period.  The ones with matchlocks and bandoliers are particularly good.

The troops with formal tricornes are historically better after about 1705, but that is really the time for Hollywood pirates.

[warrenpeace]

If you are interested in Spanish flags, check out this site:

http://www.banderasmilitares.com/todas.php

There are more Spanish flags which you can print out from this site:

http://www.warflag.com/flags/wss/wssspain.shtml

While you are at warflag you could check out the pirate flags too:

http://www.warflag.com/flags/pirates/pirate.shtml

If you are interested in Spanish infantry over several centuries, check out this site:

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/8745/infanteria/historia.htm

[warrenpeace]

That's a great color plate, Lowtardog!  Where did is come from?

There are similar color plates for the French just after 1700 at this site:

http://pagesperso-orange.fr/gbfwss/

In the late 1600s the French also had a bit more variety in coat colors, though not as much variety as those of the Spanish army of that period.

The uniforms from the color plate posted by Lowtardog are for the late 1600s, when regiments first adopted uniforms, until about 1705.  In 1706, if not a little before, Philip V was reclothing his regiments in white coats with variously colored cuffs.  Philip V picked white to distinquish his troops from the French who mostly wore grey coats.  The Spanish regiment which provided companies for garrisons in some of the Spanish ports in the New World wore blue coats with red cuffs.  

Also note that the Spanish had three regiments named "Armada" in the late 1600s, which were basically the Spanish marines.  Armada Viejo (Old) wore blue coats with red cuffs.  Armada wore yellow coats with blue cuffs.  And Armada Nuevo (New) wore white coats with red cuffs.  This is per that uniform CD#8 that I bought from Dan Schorr and from a booklet by Hinds on the Spanish Army of Philip V.  That is different from the "Viejo Armada" and "Nuevo Armada" in the color plate posted by Lowtardog.  It can be difficult to track Spanish regiments as they changed name and location multiple times during this period.

[Justin Buck]

Just found this thread and thought to add my 2 cents.  If your still looking for figures Old Glory has some nice ones.  Under historicals, 1600's to 1700's, The Wars of Marlborough.  They have an extensive line of different uniforms.  I don't work for Old Glory but I do buy a lot of their figures.  Also these figures paint up nice, I have a couple units of generic government troops.



Some more pictures at my photobucket site.  Hope this helps,

Justin
http://s233.photobucket.com/albums/ee130/jbuckvb/

[warrenpeace]

Just found this thread and thought to add my 2 cents.  If your still looking for figures Old Glory has some nice ones.  Under historicals, 1600's to 1700's, The Wars of Marlborough.  

If any of you are interested in doing Spanish in the early 1700s (about 1700 to 1720) the Old Glory packs to use are MW-13 and MW-18 from this page:

http://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/products.asp?cat=210&pg=2

Those have the ribbon or cord on the right shoulder that the Spanish used until sometime between 1715 and 1720 when they quit using the ribbon or cord (dragonera).  They also have the right belly box (for cartridges) that the Spanish adopted after 1700 based on the French one.  Paint the cockade red as Justin Buck did, because that was the characteristic national cockade color for the Spanish (black for the French during war and white for the French at peace).

The MW-24 grenadier pack on the next page has the right Spanish grenadier hat (cloth front, semi-stiff bag, and fur edging around the bottom).

[Florin]

wonderfull! just ask and you get all the information you need... got to love this forum. I think after christmas I'll go to work on the projekt.

[Lowtardog]

That's a great color plate, Lowtardog!  Where did is come from?

I will post the link when I get home, it has a poor band width so locked me out last night. It covers the Tercios form the 16th up until the 18th C and I think is form George Gush or some one.

[Gluteus Maximus]

That's a great color plate, Lowtardog!  Where did is come from?

I will post the link when I get home, it has a poor band width so locked me out last night. It covers the Tercios form the 16th up until the 18th C and I think is form George Gush or some one.

They are fantastic! You couldn't design more outlandish colours for an imaginary 18thC army. I was considering having my forthcoming government troops in boring grey or white, but some of these uniforms....  Wow! :love:    

[Lowtardog]

Here is the link on Tercios guys, as I said the bandwidth is limited so you may not get much of a chance each day to look at the site

http://www.geocities.com/ao1617/TercioUK.html?20075

[PeteMurray]

This is my favorite thread of the week.  :love: Everytime I come back I learn something new.

[Lowtardog]

Here are a couple of more useful links

short work on Spanish Marines

http://personal.redestb.es/esz/ipasado.htm

This site has shed loads of plates on uniforms

http://www.military-historians.org/company/plates/images/Platesto400.htm#aa

example French Marines

http://www.military-historians.org/company/plates/images/673.htm

[warrenpeace]

If the War of Spanish Succession is of interest, check out this link:

http://www.spanishsuccession.nl/

Or this site in Spanish (I think- not sure):

http://www.webpersonal.net/moria/

If you need French flags for this period try this French site by clicking on France and Ancien Regime (note that most of the regiment names in the first section are based on the names as of 1789):

http://www.drapeaux.org/Accueil.htm

If you want to see masses of WSS figures and flags in action, check out the pictures on this site about the big Blenheim game in 2004 (some of those units are mine):

http://www.warflag.com/blenheim2004/enfilade.html

We also did Ramilles in 2006, but the only picture is of the French guard:

http://www.warflag.com/blenheim2004/ramilles/index.html

I know I'm getting a bit off the topic of Tortuga.  But the great seige of Vienna,  Monmouth's Rebellion, the Nine Years War, the Glorious Revolution, the War of Spanish Succession, and the Great Northern War, all this from about 1683 to 1721, is a great period for Swashbuckling intrigue.

Also, these wars had a big impact on what was happening with pirates.  The Nine Years War from 1688 to 1697 and the War of Spanish Succession from 1701 to 1714 was an extended period of full employment for sailors, as navies and privateers hired or impressed all the seamen that could be had.  The fact that Spain and England and the Netherlands were all allied against France in the Nine Years War put a virtual stop to piracy in the Carribean.  This coincided with a crackdown on piracy in the Carribbean.  The main arena for piracy shifted to the Indian Ocean during the 1690s.  After the War of Spanish Succession ended, many sailors were thrown out of work and the last major flare up of piracy in the Americas occurred about 1715 to 1725.

Then again, why stop with Totuga.  Somebody in the group could work on a French base in the Carribbean, another could work on British Jamaica, another on a Spanish base, another on a Dutch base, and another on a Danish base.  Just for inspiration, here are some plates of Danish uniforms in the 1670s:

http://www.northernwars.com/DaInfSK.html

http://www.northernwars.com/DanInfPlt.html

And some flags and history, including a flag of the Danish naval battalions at Lund in 1676:

http://www.northernwars.com/DanInf.html

For a comparison with Danish infantry from 1699 to 1712, this:

http://www.northernwars.com/DaInf.html

The Danes were in the Carribbean from 1672 at St. Thomas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_West_Indies

And click on the link to the US Virgin islands from there for more pictures and maps.

But, to go back to Tortuga and the French, here is a link to the French uniform plates at the New York Public Library's Vinkhuijzen collection:

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgtitle_tree.cfm?title_id=614958&level=2&tword=

And for the Spanish:

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgtitle_tree.cfm?title_id=614973&level=2&tword=

And for the Netherlands:

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgtitle_tree.cfm?title_id=614966&level=2&tword=

And, last but not least, a link to the Wiki article on Tortuga:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortuga

Perhaps the Tortuga scenario should start in 1645 when the acting French governor imported 1,650 prostitutes to try to get control of the buccaneers!