British in India 1 - Private, East India Company European Infantry

This is a typical uniform of the East India Company's Bengal, Madras and Bombay European infantry regiments.

Standard features were a red coat and black tricorne with white lace.

Arquebusier de Grassin - pre-SYW, variant 1

I thought I might as well do a variant with buttons on the left side of the coat and with a side pocket so here it is. The pocket is also edged with white fur.

This template is very similar to the Eureka figures.

Arquebusier de Grassin - pre-SYW

This was done as a request for a wargamer painting a battalion of Eureka Arquebusiers de Grassins and even though it's not strictly a SYW uniform I thought others might like it. I find it visually a rather strange and somewhat unsatisfying uniform, with its hussar mirliton and fur edged coat. If anyone has a detailed picture of the inscription on the brass plate on the mirliton, I'd like to see it, please, so I can improve the detail; I had to work from a rather small image to do this initial version. Some illustrations show buttons on the left side of the coat, some do not; some also show a side pocket but again many do not. If anyone has definitive evidence on these features, I would be pleased to know of it. Until then, I've left them off the template, although I know the Eureka figure has both.

Raised in 1744, the Arquebusiers were incorporated into the Volontaires de Flandres in 1749. Initially it was a large unit, with 900 fusiliers, 100 grenadiers and 300 cavalry. The coat was blue with a white fur edging; cuffs black also with white fur; red collar and waistcoat; brass buttons; blue breeches; grey (or black) gaiters; red hussar cap edged blue, with a brass plate, white plume and red and blue cockade. The cavalry had a very similar uniform to the infantry.

French in India 4 - Sepoy of Nellore District 1750-55

Although most French sepoys wore native dress, some wore European-style uniform jackets. The Nellore company wore a yellow coat with green collar, lapels, cuffs and buttons. Sash, trousers and hat were native garb in white.

French in India 3 - Fusilier of Company of Topas, Bussy's Army 1753-4

Another slightly pre-SYW uniform, this was worn by some Indo-Portuguese Portuguese-speaking Christian troops who wore a pink or "buffish pink" uniform with red facings and red buttons. Gaiters were white. Pink hat with red rim, white tassel and white fleur-de-lis. These troops were considered excellent auxiliaries to European troops.

Grenadier, Brunswick Line Infantry

Grenadier, Brunswick Leib Regiment

David Morier's paintings of the late 1740s-early 1750s suggest that Brunswick grenadiers all wore virtually the same pattern of grenadier cap, which was rather different from that worn in the American War of Independence. The cap was something of a hybrid, with a central metal plate in yellow or white metal and the coloured bag showing through around the edges and through gaps in the plate.

Musketeer, Brunswick Line Infantry

Brunswick was a fairly poor state and its uniforms were correspondingly simple, in the Prussian style. The coat was dark blue with lapels, cuffs, collar and turnbacks in the regimental colour.Waistcoat, shirt and breeches were white, with black gaiters.

Musketeer, Brunswick Leib Regiment

This is a diversion back to SYW Europe, prompted by Ed's blog of coloured versions of my templates; we couldn't have Prussian uniforms masquerading as Brunswickers, could we? ;-) I'll do the Brunswick grenadier cap shortly.

The two versions shown here are variants from a) Preben Kannik, "Uniforms of the World In Colour" and b) Pengel and Hurt, "German States Supplement".