Minoan shields, chariots

[FierceKitty]

What are people's views (historically, not aesthetically) on uniform colouring within units?

[NickNascati]

I would expect clothing and equipment to be more or less uniform simply because of limited choices.  Most common soldiers would be wearing raw/unbleached woolen or linen clothing.  You'd find colors and variety among the leaders and heroes.  Shields as far as I know were covered in animal hide, so again fairly uniform.

[zippyfusenet]

I happen to have my copy of the Osprey Early Aegean Warrior at hand, and you should get this volume (Warrior 167) if you're building a Minoan army. I think chariots are Achaean, rather than Minoan. In general this book backs Nick up. In surviving Minoan art, ordinary soldiers wear short white kilts, often with colored borders. Bull hide shields are far from uniform, it depends what your bull was wearing.

[LeadAsbestos]

I go for a mostly uniform look for units, just for simplicity's sake. Makes life.easier at game time.

[Irregular Wars Nic]

I've gone for limited number of colours for kilts within a unit (for aesthetics in my army, I've stuck with a mix of blue and yellow). I imagine that unbleached/buff is more accurate. As for the shields, zippyfusenet got it right - it depends on what the bull was wearing. Although within units I tend to go for just a couple of different colour combinations - black and buff, and brown and white, or brown and white and tan and white for example.

I gather chariots also used hide over a wooden frame, so same applies to them as to the shields.

[Irregular Wars Nic]

What scale are you looking at doing?

[MediumAl]

I don't think uniforms would have been a feature as a general rule in a warrior society, where people would be expected to provide their own basic kit. If a wealthy individual was expected to supply warriors from their holdings, they might opt to provide gear for their contingent, but I think they would fight as part of a unit which would be made up of a number of these which would vary. As the other posters have said, any uniformity would more likely be dictated by the availability of cloth and dyes.

From an aesthetic perspective, units often look better with a restricted palette. I altered the shields on my Hittite infantry units when I revamped them to go for cowhide rather than a wide variety of colours and abstract patterns.
Can't say whether it was more accurate to do that, but the units looked much better to me. I don't have a problem with fairly bright colours, despite their almost certainly being less accurate, just I tend to restrict the variation in a unit.

There is a pic in this blog showing my 15mm Hittite chariots - should have gone closer for more detail.
http://www.warfactory.co.uk/wp/2015/08/01/15mm-biblical-command-vignettes-and-sea-peoples/

[FierceKitty]

I always do 10mm. I am pushed towards considering the possibility of uniformity by the facts that the Zulus, another warrior society, certainly used uniform hide shields (when the bull's finished wearing it, the hide can be assigned to units x, y, z), and that bronze age Greek societies could certainly have central regulation of military stores (one of the great disappointments of archaeology in the last century was finding the linear B tablets weren't a treasure chest of lyric poems but a set of inventories from the storerooms).

I am simultaneously led away from uniformity by the absence of evidence for it. The frescoes don't show intimidating ranks of uniformly black-shielded proto-phalangites. But for all we know, those may have been representatives of individual regiments
at a gala of some sort, or even records of what Uncle Ari and Cousin Diomedes wore last time they went to bash the Hittites.

[MediumAl]

2 things which, for me, would not make the Zulus a model for bronze-age greeks. One is that the Zulu state organised its menfolk into age-based regiments and controlled other elements of day-to-day society, which for me infers that it would have taken responsibility for supplying warriors' equipment - do we know if the bronze-age Greek states provided war gear for the warriors?
Another is scale of operation.  The Zulu nation had huge cattle herds - would Greek city states, especially given the Greek climate, have had access to enough hides to be able to pick and choose? Not impossible, given that shield coverings were only one usage for cow-hide, just not sure. Do we have any frescos or evidence that units were uniform in this or any other respect.
Whatever route you choose, I suspect no-one will be able to prove you wrong.

Al

[Irregular Wars Nic]

Not strictly Minoan, but isn't Linear B inventory lists, including weapons and armour, held by the palaces? That suggests they did equip at least household troops centrally.

[FierceKitty]

2 things which, for me, would not make the Zulus a model for bronze-age greeks. One is that the Zulu state organised its menfolk into age-based regiments and controlled other elements of day-to-day society, which for me infers that it would have taken responsibility for supplying warriors' equipment - do we know if the bronze-age Greek states provided war gear for the warriors?
Another is scale of operation.  The Zulu nation had huge cattle herds - would Greek city states, especially given the Greek climate, have had access to enough hides to be able to pick and choose? Not impossible, given that shield coverings were only one usage for cow-hide, just not sure. Do we have any frescos or evidence that units were uniform in this or any other respect.
Whatever route you choose, I suspect no-one will be able to prove you wrong.

Al

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There is evidence for organised storage of dismantled chariots. About shields, not that I've been able to find.

The point about size of herds to select from is taken, though sadly.

[WuZhuiQiu]

Might hides have been traded-for?