painting gun carriages
Struggling to find the correct colour for gun carriages. Reference books often have them coloured as green, modern photos at museums etc. are often grey which i suspect is more about preservation. Were they just plain wood ? can someone point me in the right direction please.
Re: painting gun carriages
Struggling to find the correct colour for gun carriages. Reference books often have them coloured as green, modern photos at museums etc. are often grey which i suspect is more about preservation. Were they just plain wood ? can someone point me in the right direction please.
I think the "official" colour was given as olive drab in the US Army Ordnance Manual of 1861. Olive drab woodwork will fade out to a grey green colour over time. The US ordnance Manual was essentially copied by the CSA - they also captured quite a few guns over the course of the war. Additionally, I believe some of the guns the South bought from the UK were in the pale grey used by the British Army. I've also seen gun carriages painted in a mustard colour. I think there would also be shade variations between paint batches further complicating things.
So I guess the answer is just about any of the above colours would be okay depending on what force you were building!
Thanks Littlearmies that gives some variation and means a small amount of repainting on my old models but at least now it will be right.
If your doing the CSA, the palmetto Light arty had red carriages
If your doing the CSA, the palmetto Light arty had red carriages
The carriages were painted red to distinguish them from the heavier "regular" 12lbers - visually there was little difference between the "light" guns and the normal calibre artillery. But I'm not entirely sure whether this was a standard practice or not so would hesitate to paint other light artillery pieces in a similar manner.
Malc