I do not have detailed knowledge about Russian uniforms but I would guess that it was the same there. I do not think the Russian army spent more money on their uniforms than the Swedes. I realise now that neither question in this thread specifically mention the Swedes, but I just assumed that the qu...
There are only a few cases of regiments being issued both tricornes and karpuses, so all privates in a regiment would have worn the same headgear (including grenadiers for the most part since they usually did not have grenadier caps).
There is very little evidence available on officer uniforms since it was up to the individual officer to purchase his own uniform. But the best guess is that they all preferred tricornes since the karpus was regarded more or less as peasant clothing. This is made even more likely because of the fact...
I agree that the Swedish doctrine during this and the previous period was that the pike was an offensive weapon but I would hazard to say that for the the rest of Europe the pike became a strictly defensive weapon used to protect the musketeers from marauding horsemen, that is, until everyone had a...
wasn't this used by roo's at poltava as he wanted to extent the frontage of his line . if i rember correctly it wasn't very effective due to the lack of pikemen. That does not ring a bell for me. As I understand it, the purpose was only to make it easier for the Swedish force to hold their ground a...
... how could concentrating all the company's pikemen in the center of the battalion possibly prevent cavalry from wiping out the flanks? I think you have been fooled by a very common misconception that seems to have a strong influence on virtually all English books on this topic (and possibly many...
As far as i know the Swedish flag at the time was the three crowns of the Vasa family. The swedish flag as we know it wasn't adopted until the turn of the 20th century. The Swedish flag in the 17th century looked pretty much like it does now, and it probably has a medieval origin. However, during t...
No, I meant in my post that the grenadier colours were not issued to the Livgarde grenadier companies as originally intended, but to three new regular companies of the Livgarde instead (as Quindia has noted in the flag sheet). At the outbreak of the war the Livgarde was 1 900 men strong organised in...
just got two books from the Ukraine through e-bay on the battle of Poltava interesting illustrations of four Swedish grenadier caps in it . one is from the dal regiment another from the sodermanlands and also a grenadier cap from the jonkopings regiment. not sure which regiment the fouth grenadier ...
The grenadier companies of the Livgarde did not carry any colours. The Livgarde grenadiers were first organised into three grenadier companies in the autumn of 1700 and three grenadier colours were manufactured for them during the winter of 1701-02 (with flaming grenades in the corners). But these w...
I do not consider myself an expert on the Russian army, but I have not seen any example of Russian grenadier colours from the GNW, so I seriously doubt they had any. The grenadier regiments shown in the link above were regular regiments during the GNW and the GNW colours shown in that site are indee...
I do not know of any information about how frequently Swedish pikemen and musketiers used gloves. All had them of course, but the infantry gloves had smaller collars than the one ones used by the cavalry. So even if only pikemen and not musketiers used them in a battle then the difference might not ...
They could be unhooked, but it would be highly unlikely that the grenadiers had their coats unhooked while the regular soldiers did not. For protection against bad weather the soldiers were issued cloaks or piecoats and you never see illustrations of cloak wearing soldiers with the coat's turnbacks ...
Adding this picture of a Swedish Grenadier mitre. This one illustrates a mitre in Russian keep, taken during the GNW. So it gives evidence to the usage of soft miters, as opposed to the hard brass front plates. Göte Göransson's illustrations are true classics! They are however not without issues an...