Are the British knapsacks wrong for the time period?

[Gewehr98]

Hello all,

I am working on an accurate skin for my regiment (87th Prince of Wales' Irish) and trawling through some Osprey books I discovered knapsacks that are totally different from the ones the British soldiers in NW are wearing:



The 27th Foot one is the NW version, but I am seeing more and more references that say that the one the 88th Foot soldier is wearing is what soldiers would have been wearing during the Peninsular Campaign (the 87th captured an Eagle at Barossa).

I believe this "envelope" knapsack is the model that British soldiers should be wearing instead of the "Trotter knapsack" which most likely never existed.

My questions are:

1) Am I right?
2) Has anyone ever altered the mesh to get the envelope knapsack to replace the Trotter knapsack?
3) Can #2 even be done without horrifically corrupting the game?

[Millander]

See I could give you an answer of Civil War accouterments but Napoleonic isn't my specialty. However I do know all the units ingame are done in their parade uniforms which was done to make them look cool although it would not have been worn in battle.

This is what the French generally would have looked like in battle.

[Gewehr98]

I would like to get this right for my regiment, and also add some stuff our training map on our server like barracks jackets and stuff like that.

[Millander]

I like you eye for accuracy man. I could only speculate that there were variation in Knapsack designs in the BA at the time.

[Gewehr98]

I sent an e-mail off to an expert in the field, and here's what I got back:

Many thanks for your email message.

Unfortunately, when it comes to British Army equipment during this period, almost all that manages to get into print is unsubstantiated folklore either repeated and repeated from a previous time when authors didn't really put much effort into research, or inaccuracies that make for 'a good story'. In order to get to 'accurate' you will have to forget (or at least cast a very jaundiced eye over) just about everything you have seen in Osprey booklets or even Chartrand's recent disappointing work.

As far as is known, no knapsack from the 87th survives from this period, so any attempt to reproduce it will have to be extrapolated from other artifacts and other written references.

In regards to green: I am presuming this is based on a belief that knapsacks were painted in the regimental facing colour. This does not in fact appear to have been a common practice at all. While I believe it is Cuthbertson who advocates some regimental items in the facing colour (I think trim on tents, and the camp colours, if I remember) back in the 1770s; the actual practical instructions of the Army administration in documents from 1780 was that items supplied to regiments be painted in red. Obviously once received by the unit these knapsacks COULD have been painted any colour they wanted overtop, but as there is no evidence for such repainting it sits in the realm of conjecture rather than evidence. The vast majority of surviving knapsack designs from the 1790s and 1800s are, indeed, painted red (specifically red-ochre), which to me indicates that the majority of regiments were content with the 'army' colour of red for their knapsacks.

By 1811, the Army administration were advocating one single pattern of knapsack for the entire army, of one uniform colour -- black. How early black knapsacks began to be used is uncertain at this point, but a black knapsack is shown in use by the 3rd Guards regiment in a Dayes print from 1792.  The Dayes prints are also interesting in that the three Guards regiments are shown with yellow (1st), blue (2nd), and black (3rd) knapsacks, which shows that even among the Guards the concept of having 'facing'-coloured knapsacks was either not known at the time, or not strictly followed. If we look at the sum total of every knapsack, every reference, and every print which details the colour of a British knapsack during the Napoleonic period, facing-coloured knapsacks occur in less than half of those circumstances. The 2nd Guards in the Dayes prints above being the only visual reference I can think of off-hand, and the 97th knapsacks in yellow being the only artifacts. The Royal Artillery knapsacks at the NAM, being painted red ochre could be considered facing colour, or could be considered just standard national red, depending on your view. Likewise the 97th knapsacks could also be co-incidentally the facing colour of the regiment, yellow ochre being the third most popular knapsack colour, from my research. In fact, it appears all 60,000+ knapsacks sent by Britain to help the Prussian forces in 1813 were painted yellow ochre, so it was still in use as a colour even that late.

Sorry to pile a lot of what is probably all new information on you in a few cluttered paragraphs, but I wanted to show that there is little actual evidence for using facing colours for knapsacks. the 1809 dating that you are looking at is probably a transition point, with black beginning to be used more. If I had to try to make a statistical guess as to the colour of the 87th knapsacks at that point, I would say:

- Most likely, red ochre
- Second, Black
- Third, yellow (possibly a higher chance if the 87th were drawing on replacement equipment in Lisbon -- there is some suggestion (long boring bit omitted...!) that the pattern knapsack sent to Prussia in 1813 was the same general design sent to Portugal and Spain in previous years. Until more hard evidence turns up, I would still leave this as less likely than either red or black)
- Fourth, some other colour (green?)

As to decoration: The 1780 instructions I mentioned describe a GR cypher and crown inside an oval cartouche. This exact same design is painted on the three knapsacks in the Durham Light Infantry Museum and is probably, like the red ochre colour, the 'default' army design.

There are several other variations and designs known from extant knapsacks, and rather than try to give an overall rule it might be easier for me to send a few pictures showing the variety of patterns. Generally speaking, the designs on the black knapsacks were simpler, and in fewer colours than on the earlier knapsacks.

The light infantry bugle does appear on knapsacks of some light infantry REGIMENTS, but I cannot recall such a distinction showing for a light infantry company of a regular regiment. Again, we have a very small artifact/ document pool to work from, so having a line company knapsack and a flank company knapsack of the same unit to compare just hasn't happened. The knapsack of the Royal Bristol Volunteers does include "Grenr Compy" in the cartouche, but it did belong to an officer, so may or may not be typical.

Anyway I hope this has managed to give you some information to assist you. As I said, we are more or less in the region of what is likely and what is probable based on the small amount of actual information we have.

Please feel free to contact me any time, and I would be very interested to see your final work on designing your new unique skins for your characters.