Russian James wrote:Yes, I understand the differentiation between companies, my question is between battalions.
If ALL regimental colours are similar, how do you tell 1st battalion from 2nd battalion?
I am sorry that I did not read your first post as carefully as I should. But I now realise that you seem to have misunderstood the concept of a "colonels colour". There was only one colonel in a regiment so there was only one colonels colour. It was easy to tell the difference between the battalions since the first battalion carried the colonels colour while the second battalion only carried company colours.
Battalions were in this age only tactical formations and not administrative ones. The companies were numbered as parts of a regiment and not as parts of a battalion. Hence there was no need to show on the colour which battalion the company belonged to. The Swedish army did not do that until 1819.