Post
by Greystreak » Wed Nov 03, 2010 9:16 am
Gidday, Scruff, and welcome to the Forum, where a growing number of Kiwis seem to be appearing! (Valleyboy, von Peter, Captain Chook, etc.) I was fortunate to live and work in NZ myself for three years in the early 1990's, and have been collecting/researching Russians for several years as well.
I've looked into your question, for the three specific regiments you've named, and consulted my copy of Opsrey MAA 78, Flags of the Napoleonic Wars (2): Austria, Britain, Prussia & Russia, by Terrence Wise & Guido Rosignoli, as well compared them to the download flags offered by Foundry.
From Wise & Rosignoli's work, we learn that from 1800 to 13th April 1813, the three guard regiments specified carried the same type of colours: 1st battalion - 1 x white (Foundry "Guards White 1800 Issue"), and 1 x coloured (Foundry "Guards Coloured Issue"), while 2nd and subsequent battalions carried 2 x 'coloured' flags (Foundry "Guards Coloured Issue"). All three named regiments had the same flags and distribution scheme by battalion, with distinctions only by the colour of the flag "staves" per regiment as follows: Preobrajenski - coffee brown stave for 'white flag', pale yellow staves for 'coloured' flags; Semenov - black staves for both colours; and Izmailovsky - white staves for both colours.
In other words, you're quite 'safe' to use the Foundry 'download' colours identified above for those three specific regiments up to 13th April 1813, after which it all gets a bit 'messy', with changes on 26th August 1813, and 24th December 1813, for which you'd best consult a copy of the Osprey 78 mentioned above. The other infantry regiments which were admitted to the Guard between 1803 and 1813 took flags of a different scheme--so beware.
Hope that helps!
Bryce