awi uniform experts

[General Lee]

Any awi uniform experts here? I am wondering if the plastic perry brits could be painted up as continental infantry. The plastic continentals are months off and I want to get started thanks in avance

[Cadet13]

General Lee,

I don't claim to be an expert, but everything I have on American uniforms at the time suggest that the Continentals' uniform coats were cut in a very similar manner to those of their English opponents and most regulars were so equipped towards the end of the war. That being said, it really depends on what specific unit you are doing for headgear and such, but a large amount of American equipment was from captured British stocks and the uniforms of Washington's units were often specified to be of British Regimental standards, often times in colors other than blue, and smallclothes (waistcoats, shirts, breeches, etc.) were pretty standard among all armies of the day with only minor differences. However, if I recall correctly American units fighting in the South were more ragged, as there was a higher concentration of militia, meaning there was rarely any regularity of uniform above company level.

So to answer your question, yes, the Perry plastics could work for Northern Continentals, but not really for Southern Contintals.

Again, I'm no expert, and will bow to the wisdom of those who are. For a good book covering the uniforms of the American Revolution I highly reccomend Don Troiani's Soldiers of the American Revolution.

Hope this helps!
-Chuck

[General Lee]

Hi Chuck,

thanks for your response, very helpful! yeah I have Troiani's book but it's more on specific regiments and I was looking for more general information. The anwer was actually in a book that I also own, the Encyclopedia of uniforms of the American Revolution. I scanned two pages and clearly shows that some Virginia regiments wore coats with button lacing. so I'll just have to ignore the canteens and start painting my continentals 

[Kadzik]

I'm quite sure, that Perry's plastics don't have sculpted button lace, so you can just make practically any unit, not only from Virginia.
As far as I know, till 1779 changes, there were some units dressed mostly in British uniforms. American theatre is harsh for uniforms, so any piece of clothes (including bed tickles) is worth including enemies uniform.
Worth to remember is that the uniforms were dyed either in brown or purple. Unfortunately I don't know how exatly this purple looks like (but if it was made with house treatment it could be various even in company level).

So if you want to be 100% pure historical, you could use this brits and paint in brown or purple

[TheWeasel]

Much of the early war American uniform was either based on or made from captured British equipment. Remember, of course, that before the war America was British. Kadzik has the right of it - quite a bit was redyed red coats to brown or purple. The purple would be kind of brownish, since the red dye of the original is a more earthy ochre of a red, which would not mix well into a purple.

Note also that the Brown Bess was copied almost exactly as the pattern for locally-made Committee of Safety muskets.

Some regiments (Webb's is famous for it) actually wore captured red coats, but that led to some confusion on the battlefield.

The Perry plastics do have lace, but it would not be much more work to quickly remove it while you're getting rid of flash and mold lines (if you choose to do so).

Later in the war, the Americans started being supplied by the French, so their equipment changed, most evident in the cut of their coats to the make of their musket.

[General Lee]

well as you can see from the pictures I uploaded, some US regiments had button lace

[TheWeasel]

Yep! May I request you post some pics of the finished (or even WIP) of your figures? I'm always happy to see AWI being worked on...