use of oak leaf on Hats

[summsi]

Some troops used them on their hats during WSS/late 17th century. I have seen pictures of german, dutch and even english soldiers having them. And they were some kind of field sign. But I really don't know the sense of using them. Why field sign? They had Flags that were their field signs. Who knows more abaut oak leaf?

[carlos marighela]

In the WSS, grey or white grey (unbleached wool) was used by a number of armies, French, Austrians, Dutch etc which could make identification of friend and foe quite difficult. Quite a few armies sported units with red coats, including the Spanish and French (Irish in Foreign service and Swiss) not just England and Denmark.. A unit's colours might not always be visible or clearly identifiable so additional field signs were not uncommon. Whilst regimental colours tended to be made of silk, even silk requires a breeze for it to fly.

[flags_of_war]

As carlos marighela says, it's most due to coat colours. In Ireland during the Williamite both armies would have had a units with the same coats colours on both sizes. The Williamites used a Sprig of Green and the Jacobites a piece of white paper.

I'm not sure how effective it would have been though at range to stop you firing on some of your own. Even in 1745 it was still an issue. At Culloden the Argyle militia was dressed the same as their Jacobite Counter parts and Cumberland tried to make sure there was no friendly fire issues by taking them out of the main lines of the battle. They even thought of giving them Tricornes in hope of resolving the issue. It was the same for the Irish Piquets dressed in Red coats. It wasn't safe for them to go wandering in case one of the Jacobite troops fired upon them.

[zippyfusenet]

Agree with the above. Use of field signs of course pre-dated the WSS and continued after, into the 19th century. One additional point - in the black powder era, once serious shooting began, visibility on the battlefield quickly became obscured. This led to many errors of identification and missed opportunities. It could be helpful to note that, hey, those guys over there in the smoke all have sprigs of leaves in their hats.

[summsi]

thanks a lot to all of you!