Franco-Prussian War era / Victorian uniform sources

[Sinewgrab]

As I am embarking on the scary slope of actual armies now that I have finshed several VSF armies, can anyone assist me with good online sources of uniform colors for:

British Colonial troops
German Colonial Troops/Prussian Colonial troops or the same during the Franco-Prussian War
Artillery, boats, and wagons at this time

There are some great books out there, but I am just in no position to purchase them at the moment, and I want to at least give a passing nod towards accuracy with my armies.

Help me, Lead Adventure, you're my only hope.

[Plynkes]

There were no German colonies at the time of the Franco-Prussian War. The Germans came late to the colonial party and were generally against the idea of colonies until Bismarck did a flip-flop on the topic in the 1880s. In 1870/71 all you have are a few trading and missionary posts at best.

Once Germany did have colonies the colonial troops didn't belong to particular German states the way the normal regiments of the army did, they were an imperial force under the direction of the Colonial Ministry. So there weren't really ever any Prussian colonial troops, I'm afraid. In 1900 some Prussian units of the Imperial Army were involved in mopping up actions in the Boxer Rebellion as part of the Ostasiatische Expeditionskorps, though they weren't colonial troops as such.


If you want to do German colonialism you have to jump ahead to the 1880s, 1890s or 1900s. For this period there is no better website than this one:

http://www.germancolonialuniforms.co.uk/

[Plynkes]

I don't know of any websites that cover your other questions, I'm afraid. My info about such things all comes from books.  

[answer_is_42]

British Colonial troops

A little more specific there? Which period? Which colony? British? Australian? African? Indian?
Examples from the early 1880s:

Indian troops in Egypt (British troops stationed in India were the first to wear Khaki).


The Black Watch during the same war.


Australian soldier.

See the range?

'British Battles' is a good place to start, though like Plynkes I tend to rely on printed matter.
http://www.britishbattles.com/

[Sinewgrab]

A little more specific there? Which period? Which colony? British? Australian? African? Indian?

See the range?

'British Battles' is a good place to start, though like Plynkes I tend to rely on printed matter.
http://www.britishbattles.com/

I am not sure, to be quite honest.  I am doing British and German VSF armies, and I am trying to find a historical grouping of uniforms that would make sense as being stationed on Mars.  I kind of want to stick with red coats, as that is, of course, the 'classic' British uniform, but I have no idea what was worn with what, trim, piping, etc. so I came here to the group mind.  It wasn't until just recently I found out that artillery wore different uniforms - and so I am trying to add this information to what is left of my memory.

[Sinewgrab]

If you want to do German colonialism you have to jump ahead to the 1880s, 1890s or 1900s. For this period there is no better website than this one:

http://www.germancolonialuniforms.co.uk/

This is a great website - thank you for pointing it out!  When I was doing Google searches, I couldn't find any that were in English...

[answer_is_42]

Well, have a dig about here too, lots of good prints:
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgtitle_tree.cfm?title_id=614959&level=2

[Sinewgrab]

Thank you - this kind of assistance is exactly why I came here.

[warrenpeace]

And here's the German part of that Vinkhuijzen collection of images at the NYPL digital library:

http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/dgtitle_tree.cfm?level=2&title_id=750385

[warrenpeace]

For British uniforms, the movies Zulu and Zulu Dawn are a pretty good inspiration. Here's a clip on Youtube from Zulu Dawn which shows infantry, cavalry, artillery, officers, and some native auxilliary cavalry:

[Plynkes]

Does the "during the Franco-Prussian War" part also apply to your interest in the Brits? If so then you may want to bear in mind that the foreign service helmet depicted in the various posts above did not come into universal service until 1877 (though it was seen as early as 1870 in India). In Africa the older crested "airpipe" style was still used until then (in both the Abyssinian and Ashanti campaigns, which are the nearest British campaigns in time to the F-P War, save for some shenanigans in Canada). The uniforms were different too.

[Sinewgrab]

Not, the grand majority of the British figures I have collected have the ubiquitous pith helmets, so I am going to probably be more inclined to use the red coat with them - what threw me off was when I found that Artillery was in dark blue, and there were different colors of pants, and the helmets were not always white, as Hollywood would have me believe (shocking!).  I do believe, however, that I have lost hours and hours of time looking over these websites - they are fascinating!

I asked on the Franco-Prussian war for the Prussians because I was having trouble finding 'colonial' uniforms for them or for German forces, not realizing that they were not strong players in the colonial actions until later in the game, so those were the models I was finding.  I finally threw my hands in the air and went for Seebattalion figures from Pulp figures for a large part of my collection. 

[warrenpeace]

I think it's cool that an army in the second half of the 19th Century can have a mix of uniforms. For example, the British during the Indian Mutiny in 1857 had a variety of uniforms. And the first British invasion of the Sudan in the early 1880's also featured a variety of uniforms. As for those 1877-1878 types, looks like many of those helmets were soaked in tea, or something to take the edge off the whiteness. Really like that the officers and artillery are in dark blue. Also like those native auxilliaries in khaki. Would be good to have a unit like that for VSF on Mars. I would want some Gurkhas too.

For VSF Prussians I think most guys paint up Franco-Prussian War types. Those dark blue coats and pickelhaube helmets just scream Prussia. But I think it would be fun to have those types in pickelhaube along with sailors, seebattalion, and a few native askari. Going to Mars should involve a variety of troop types, just for fun.
 

[Plynkes]

The only problem I see with those Seebattalion figures that are so popular is that to my knowledge, there aren't any examples of them actually ever doing anything in the 19th Century. All their heroic exploits took place during the 20th. That's not a problem if you want to game 20th Century colonialism, but if you are building a 19th Century German colonial force you are slightly barking up the wrong tree with those guys, unfortunately. Unless of course you are doing hypotheticals, in which case it is no problem at all. They existed during the period, just didn't get to see any action.


I bought some of the really nice Copplestone ones just because I liked them, but they remain unpainted because I realised I don't actually have any use for them.