Of Finnish and Swedish uniforms of 1808, plastrons, officers’ rank insignia etc.

Anyone who has ever tried to understand Swedish army uniforms of the war in Finland of 1808–1809 knows that this is a very diffcult subject indeed. Shortly before the war, uniforms were changed several times in rapid succession. At the same time, old uniforms were still in use. It is therefore not easy to know how a particular unit would have been dressed at any given time.

Portrait of Henrik Gustaf von Qvanten, ensign of the Björneborg regiment, who died at the battle of Lapua in 1808. This portrait is particularly interesting because it is so detailed: we can even see the bears (the emblem of the regiment) on the buttons. It is a rare depiction of a Finnish uniform of the 1808 war. It confirms that the plastron had been removed by this time. The number of buttons (10) and the light grey shade of the jacket identifies it as the m/1806.
Preserved uniform jacket of the Åbo regiment, with buttons showing the regimental emblem (the Finnish lion, as seen on the present day Finnish hockey teams’ jerseys!). Note how the the number of buttons (10) is the same as in the portrait above.
Jackets of the m/1807. Left: NCO’s jacket; right: officer’s jacket. Note the dissimilar shade of grey and number of buttons. Both jackets have belonged to men of the same regiment, Jönköpings. The 1807 was meant to be darker than the Finnish grey uniforms, but apparently the exact shade seems to have varied (one must of course also allow for some fading with time).

It used to be commonly assumed that the uniform of the 1802 model, which featured a plastron with two rows of buttons over the chest, was still used by many, of not most regiments in 1808. Indeed, there are a number of old illustrations of this uniform which give this rather misleading impression and they also circulate widely around the internet. The 1802 uniform jacket was blue with yellow, red and white facing colors, in different combinations for different regiments of the Swedish army. For example, the Hälsinge regiment had all white facings, while the Västerbotten had red collar with white turnbacks, plastron and cuffs. Södermanland had all yellow facings, while the Jönköping regiment had yellow turnbacks and plastron, but red collar and cuffs. The Finnish regiments wore grey uniform jackets, with different facing colors in parallel to the Swedish regiments, so that Björneborg had light blue turnbacks, cuffs, collar and plastron. Örjan Magnusson has provided a more than excellent overview of these uniforms here, including photos of the official model drawings for the uniforms (highly recommended): https://tacitus.nu/karoliner/kallor/1802.htm  

However, when the war started in 1808, some things had obviously changed. The difficulty lies more in trying to establish which new regulations were carried out in practice, and when. In early 1806, it was ordered that the jackets should have just one row of buttons and the plastrons be completely removed. In late 1806 it was ordered that all jackets be grey (Swedish as well as Finnish), with different facings for different regiments, but in January 1807 this was again changed to grey with dark blue facings for all regiments. This latter, standard uniform model is called the m/1807.

In theory, all Swedish infantry (with the exception of the guard) should have worn the 1807 model uniform in 1808. However, as often happens, this was certainly not the case. It is sometimes said that m/1807 was an unpopular model among Swedish troops, because of its unglamourous grey color. Indeed, it was abolished soon after the revolution, in the summer of 1809. However, it seems that several regiments wore this uniform at the battle of Sävar in August of that year; we know for certain that the Västmanland regiment received it late in 1808 and there is a preserved example belonging to an officer of the Jönköping regiment, for example. The author and participant in the war Ljunggren describes how and when the new uniform arrived to his regiment (Västmanland). He seems to have appreciated it, if nothing else because it was sorely needed as a replacement for the sad remains of a uniform that his regiment had used for almost two decades by that time, repaired and re-sown several times. Apart from Västmanland however, it is not clear (as far as I know) that any other regiment wore the m/1807 in Finland in 1808. On the contrary, for most regiments there is clear evidence that they had not yet received it yet. In one sad case, the Södermanland regiment, we know that their old uniform was so worn out that it was unsuable. But because there were no new uniforms available, they seem to have had to fight wearing a simple fatigue uniform at the battle of Sävar in 1809.

An officer of the Svea artillery regiment, miniature portrait dated 1808.

In recent years, it has been clearly shown (by Martin Markelius at the Armemuseum in Stockholm, among others) that the most common pattern in 1808 was the m/1806, i. e. a uniform jacket with blue main color and the older variable facings, but without the plastron. Markelius studied the archival sources of the regiments of the Swedish division which arrived in Finland in August and subsequently participated at the battle of Oravais and other engagements. He found letters in which the removing of the plastrons from the old uniforms is explicitly mentioned for some units, and that it can be reasonably assumed that the same was done for the others. The color of the uniforms is confirmed by the eye witness (and keen uniform buff) Ljunggren. In other words, we are now largely agreed that most regiments wore the old uniform jackets, resown to the new standard (commonly called m/1806). This is also, thankfully, the model worn by the Perry miniatures Swedes, although at that scale, it is indistinguishable from the 1807, so that the figures can easily represent either variant.

Gustav Magnus Adlercreutz, miniature portrait dated 1809. This is a very rare example of an officer depicted wearing the despised m/1807 uniform – I think…

Some uncertainty remains. I have only seen few references to the situation with the Finnish regiments. There is some conflicting evidence: there is a color drawing by another eye witness, Adelborg, who was himself an officer in the Nyland dragoons. He depicts one particular soldier who looks like he could belong to the Björneborg regiment (light blue facings), wearing a plastron on his jacket. However, it is not clear what the date is for this drawing. It may have been drawn from memory at a later date. It is not certain that this is a representation of a scene that he witnessed, it may rather be an idealized illustration of the magnanimity of the de facto commander of the Finnish troops, Adlercreutz. It may portray an event some years previously – I dont know.

This blog entry https://kaponieeri.blogspot.com/2018/11/suomen-sodan-sotilaspukuja.html gives an example of a preserved Åbo regiment uniform with plastron, which is in a Finnish museum. I dont read Finnish, but as far as I can tell by the efforts of Google translate, there is no exact date given. However, by biographical data I was able to surmise that the man who is supposed to have owned the jacket was discharged from the regiment as early as 1802. As a side note, I learned that automatic translations from Finnish leave much, indeed very much, to be desired, despite recent supposed advances in that field…

Being of a curious nature, I have been doing some digging after sources for Finnish uniforms myself. This will hardly be revolutionary, but I have looked at a source which is not so often mentioned in the literature, but is very interesting: portraits (mostly miniature portraits). There are a great number of miniature portraits from this period by great artists, such as Gillberg. They tend to depict officers, but sometimes of relatively modest ranks. This way they can tell us something of the uniforms as actually worn – and the artists often seem to have captured many fine details. On top of that, they are often dated by year, which is also very useful.

While searching various museum databases and auction catalogues, I have found that the model 1806 uniform is easily identifiable in many portraits from the years 1807 and 1808. I have not found a single example of the 1802. However, examples from the Finnish regiments are fewer (prestigious Swedish guard regiments are very much over-represented though). I did find one interesting example of such a portrait and it does confirm that at least the officers (some officers?) of the Björneborg regiment wore the m/1806 uniform in 1808. This particular portrait, of Henrik Gustaf von Qvanten, is perfectly detailed. I only wished I had access to a color image – as I understand it, the painting is in a private collection in Finland. Nonetheless, we can identify the uniform as m/1806: the color is lighter than the dark grey of the m/1807; we can count 10 buttons, where the 1807 had only 9 buttons. There are also preserved uniform jackets from both the Åbo and Nyland regiments, and both those examples have a single row of buttons. I have yet to see an example, either in a comtemporary image or a preserved jacket, of the Tavastehus, Savolax or Österbotten regiments. From the preserved examples, there seems to be little noticeable difference between the Nyland and Åbo regiments – in theory, Nyland would have had mid-blue facings, Åbo dark blue. Björneborg had a light blue facing color. Eben’s 1808 uniform plates show Åbo in the m/1806 and also Savolax jägers and Finnish artillery regiment wearing the same model (no plastrons). Indeed, from what evidence that exists, there is very a good case for Finnish uniforms being of the m/1806 without a plastron in 1808.

There are a couple of further things one could mention here. First, I would not rule out the possibility that plastrons and single button row coats could have been worn by members of the same unit. In particular, one could imagine that officers would have had acquired new uniforms sooner than the men. Markelius argues against this and he has a point: officers would probably try to see to it that the regiment was as uniformly dressed as possible. Furthermore, there is evidence (JEO Screen mentions this) that officers, especially in Finland, would make orders for new uniform cloth collectively, in order to get a better price. However, one can still imagine that officers and men had different model uniforms, indeed there is evidence of some complaints that officers, as it were, customized their kit quite liberally.

It shold be noted though, that miniatures wise, this does not matter all that much. On the Perry figures, much of the chest of the figures are covered in belts, so that a plastron can be imagined to be obscured. For some units, like Österbotten, the plastron was also in the same color as the jacket, which makes the plastron issue a minor thing, at least on the common soldier figures. As has been stated already, having officers in the 1806 model will hardly be wrong, even if you would believe that the men still wore a plastron.

Finally, it can be worth mentioning that there are a number of reenactor groups who have created their own uniforms, a couple in Sweden and at least one in Finland. The Finnish reenactors, of the Österbotten regiment, actually seem to be wearing a mix of uniform jackets, some with two, some with just one row of buttons. I dont know the reason for this, but one can assume that they have done their homework. The Swedish reenactors who wear the uniforms of the Uppland regiment include Martin Markelius himself, and consequently, they all wear one row of buttons on their jackets. The reenactors of the Västerbotten regiment do the same.

Savolax jäger, Åbo läns infantry regiment, Finnish artillery. Plates from Frederic Eben, The Swedish Army (London, 1808), digitized by Armémuseum (Digitalt museum). Eben does not include any other Finnish regiments.

While I was searching, I also came across something I had never seen before – a portrait which seems to show an officer wearing the m/1807. The portrait is not surprisingly dated to 1809, which as I understand it was the only time when a relatively large part of the Swedish army was actually wearing the m/1807 in battle. Ironically, by the time of the last offensive in Västerbotten, when the new uniforms had actually reached the troops – who surely needed them – this model had already been abolished in favor of a new blue jacket model (subsequently called m/1810).

Rank insignia of officers

Collar distinctions

Captains and lieutenants wore stripes on the collar of their uniform jackets. A captain wore three stripes, a lieutenant two and a sub-lieutenant one stripe. As far as I can understand, these stripes were in the button color (which means that I have painted most of mine wrong).

Generals wore stripes of oak-leaf around the edges of their collars: a field-marshal (4 stripes), general (3), lieutenant-general (2) and major-general (1).

Left: Major general (Cronstedt). Right: Over-adjutant (Nordforss).

Adjutants, who wore the same uniform jacket as generals (m/1801), had straight lines instead of oak-leaves, otherwise in a similar way differentiating between ranks with varying numbers of lines.

Epaulettes

According to the regulations enacted in 1795, epaulettes for officers were distinguished by rank with a system of crowns and stars, and with different quality of the fringes. The color of the epaulettes was according to the button color of the uniform. In some portraits, it looks like silver fringes are worn with gold epaulettes. This doesnt seem to correspond to the regulations, maybe the thin fringes just looked lighter than the epaulette itself and therefore seem silver in comparison.

The lower officers (kompaniofficerare) wore epaulettes of silk, but they had no fringes. A captain wore two stars on the right shoulder, and one on the left. A lieutenant wore one star on each shoulder and a sub-lieutenant one on the right; an ensign wore no stars on his epaulettes.

Regimental officers (regementesofficerare) all wore fringed epaulettes, with fringes made out of silk. A colonel wore three stars on each shoulder, a lieutenant-colonel three on the right, two on the left. A major would wear two stars on each shoulder.  

Generals wore crowns on their epaulettes instead of stars. Their fringes were made from metal. A field-marshal wore three small crowns with a large crown over them on each shoulder; a general three small crowns on each shoulder. A lieutenant-general wore three small crowns right and one large crown left. A major-general wore one large crown on each shoulder. Looking at the portraits above, it is easy to see that these guys wear fringes on their epaulettes together with stripes on the collar, which they really shouldnt have!

I have provided a pdf of this post below. The formatting did not come out very well in the conversion, but I hope it is at least readable.

Of Finnish and Swedish uniforms of 1808Ladda ner

Västerbotten regiment flags

I recently added new flags to the second battalion of the Västerbotten regiment which I have now completed apart from the basing. These flags correspond better to the historical information that I have gathered. I managed to salvage the old flag, which I painted after the old 17th century model. It may come in handy one day, as I do indeed have some appropriate 17th century miniatures in my unpainted pile…

Swedish infantry and cavalry flags for the Finnish war (1808) (October 2025 update!)

Ive been meaning to do this for a long time. As I make my own flags for my Swedish and Finnish figures for 1808, I thought that Itd be a nice thing to share these. Especially since these flags are not available from many commercial outlets, and those that are available do not necessarily have the correct details and do not cover all regiments. Below youll find a few flags I have done recently, the idea being that the collection will grow over time. Feel free to use them in any way you like. I suspect that it could work quite well if one were to adjust the size, and print them with a good color printer on standard printer paper. Then cut them out and mount them onto the figures with PVA glue as you would ready made flags from GMB (or any other maker).

Nyland dragoon regt., company colors (proposal, ca 1725).
Västerbotten regt., company colors, model 1686B
Tavastehus regt., company colors, model 1766
Björneborg regt., company colors, model 1686
Swedish king’s colors model 1766.
Nyland regiment, company colors, model 1766.
Åbo regiment, company colors, model 1766.
Hälsinge regiment, company colors model 1686 variant.

The flags are far from perfect, and I am afraid that the scans arent either. The 1766 king’s color has at least been updated with a better scan. For the rest of the regiments, Ill upload all the flags that I make as soon as I paint them.

Österbotten regiment

Moving forward with more troops for my 1808 Swedes. This is the last of the Finnish regular regiments. I will need one large battalion of 30 or 36 figures plus som skirmishers. Painting six at a time go is a good way of working away at large numbers of miniatures at a reasonable pace.

Having painted around 300 of these Perry Swedish infantry, I have found a few tricks to speed up painting. First, I try to let the shading wash do as much of the work as possible. Highlighting makes figures look better, but it takes time – there is a definite trade-off. So if there is anything that can be done to minimize highlighting, that will be necessary, especially for rank-and-file figures, such as these. At the same time, one does not want to omit those effects that really make the figures look good. My solution to this is to use highlights where they really make a difference, and to leave them out where they dont.

Areas such as the blue of the coat, the dark grey of the gaiters and boots, leather straps, dark leather of the shoulder bag, dark hair, and also the musket wood and all metal fittings, buttons etc, work pretty well without further highlighting. When batch painting, I also do all of one batch with the same color of the hair. Next batch will have light hair!

As for the metal parts, I used to paint these black before painting in the metal color. Ive found that this step is unnecessary if you shade them with a wash as dark as AP strong tone, which is the one I use. For gun metal/steel, I mix the metal color with black. I also add one highlight to the steel of the musket. This is because I actually leave the top of the bayonet unpainted until the last moment. This is simply because I need to hold the figure, putting my finger on top of the bayonet while painting, which will inevitably lead to paint chipping off. So, better to leave that and do it at the very end, so that I dont have to re-paint the bayonet on every figure.

Yellow is a color that really needs highlights to look good, and on these particular figures, that means a large part of the clothing! The skin of the face and hands also look a lot better with highlights and they give the figures a great deal of their character. The black of the hat is also highlighted, as are the light patches on the shoulder bag. Over time, I have tried and tested which areas can do without highlighting, and which cant, but its still a learning process. On these Perry figures, I also paint the eyes, which I dont normally do on their counterparts, the Brigade Games Russians. This is because of how the figures are scuplted. On the BG figures the eyes are pretty much in shade by the hat, but also very difficult to get right. The conclusion is that painting the eyes on them is just not worth the effort The Perry minis have very well sculpted eyes which are extremely easy to paint. Painting the eyes on these six figures probably took less than five minutes. In many cases, the eyes, just like skin tones, contribute much to the overall character of the figures – but that is not always the case.

Model drawing for the uniform model 1802 of the Österbotten regt. The plastron was later removed (presumably) so that the coat only had one row of buttons by the time of the war of 1808. In contrast to the Swedish regiments, Österbotten seems to have kept their disinctive yellow trousers (described by Ljunggren at the time). Perhaps they were somewhat less difficult to keep clean than the white trousers the Swedish regiments used.

Quick painting guide:

After cleaning with a knife, I first primed the figures with Army painter’s (AP) Leather Brown (spray can). The base colors were then painted in. Areas of flesh were painted with Vallejo (Va) Dark Sand before painting the flesh color (it does not cover well). Over the base colors, a wash of AP strong tone was applied. I diluted it somewhat with water over the trousers. After highlighting, the figures were varnished with Winsor & Newton’s Galeria Matt Varnish.

Base colors (with highlights) were as follows:

Coat: Coat d’arms (Cda) Royal Blue

Trousers and facings: Va Gold Brown (highlight 1: Gold Brown; highlight 2: Gold Brown+White)

Gaiters and boots: Va Black Grey

Hat: Black (highlight 1: Black+Black Grey; highlight 2: Black Grey)

Shoulder bag, main color, and hair: Va Dark Rust

Shoulder bag, light patches: Va Dark Sand

Belts: White (highlight 1: White)

Steel: Cda Gun metal+black (highlight 1: Gun metal)

Brass: Va Glorious Gold

Copper water flask: Cda Brass

Musket strap: Va Hull Red

Leather strap: Va Leather Brown

Flesh: Cda Tanned Flesh (highlight 1: Tanned Flesh; highlight 2: Cda Flesh)

Standard for the Nyland dragoons

I have been adding some figures to my unit of Nyland dragoons, to get them up to 9 figures, which will be rebased to a new and more standard format. When doing so I also added a standard. Some literature, Törnquist in particular, claims that the regiment did not carry standards. Illustrations made ca 1804 by Adelborg, who served in the regiment himself, show that this is wrong. However, I dont know exactly what the standard or flag looked like. It may have been a typical dragoon flag (dragonfana, with split tails) or a standard square cavalry guidon. There is a preserved dragonfana for the Karelian dragoons (in the Armémuseum in Stockholm), but it dates to the 1740s and it does not seem to have been used by the regiment – presumably that is why it has been preserved. In any case, the motif is very likely to have been the Nyland coat of arms over a red background on one side and a royal monogramme on the other.

My standard is very much oversized, but so are all my flags! As you have probably already spotted, I missed trimming the fringes around the flag pole. I dont do many cavalry standards, so it was a rookie mistake. And it is unfortunately difficult to do anything about it now… And looking at some actual preserved Swedish dragoon flags, it does seem that the fringes did indeed run all the way around the pole! So maybe it wasnt so much of a mistake after all. And regarding the size: there are certainly 18th century dragoon flags in the Armémuseum collections that are fairly large. I found one example which is no less than 120×140 cm (not sure if that includes or excludes the fringes?). On the other hand, there is the image below, which show a very small standard, guidon or whatever it is should called.

Difficult to make out any details on the standard from this drawing, but it looks like it might be square. And very small… In fact it looks too small. Small dragoon flags of the period measure around 80×100 cm. And there does not really seem to be any fringes, which also seems odd.

The figures are of course by Perry miniatures. The standard bearer is a simple conversion of the NCO figure (the Perrys dont include a standard bearer in their packs).

Gyllenbögel’s free corps

These are my first attempts at making some members of the Gyllenbögel free corps, a volunteer unit composed of various ex-soldiers and civilians. It was created in the summer of 1808 and saw action at a number of battles. The figures are simple conversions from Perry AWI figures and a Brigade Games Canadian 1812 militiaman (if I am not mistaken). The converting and painting on these is very quick and simple and I hope to be able to make quite a lot of these shortly. They will be complemented with Finnish uniformed officers and NCO:s, plus a few uniformed soldiers mixed in. I will need three, possibly four battalions; the free corps will make up the equivalent of a small brigade. Apart from the above ranges of figures, Ill use Perry French (1814 national guard), Norwegian landevaern and perhaps some Spanish and Prussian (Landwehr) figures. Some of them will need no converting at all, such as the many figures wearing caps or no headgear at all as well as the uniformed men. One of the battalions will consist of a larger part of uniformed soldiers, representing the “sharpshooter” battalion, which consisted solely of escaped soldiers.

These figures are great ones to make and paint, each one is individual and one gets to be quite creative in making little changes to make them as heterogenous as possible.

Swedish HQ

This painting portrays a number of high-ranking Swedish officers and some civilian courtiers. These wear various infantry and cavalry uniforms. The two mounted men on the left and the guy on the right with his hand tucked into his jacket are wearing the model 1801 uniform, and are therefore generals. The mounted man second from the left must be field marshal Klingspor, as the gilded decorations on the front of his jacket were only worn by field marshals, and Klingspor was the only field marshal who would have been present at this occasion.

As most of you who are reading this will know, the Perry miniatures range of (very excellent) Swedish figures does not (yet :-)) include generals or colonels. I have converted various figures for this purpose previously, as can be seen in older posts. However, those have been single mounted figures, meant as brigade commanders. In most rules systems, a main HQ or overall commander of the army is represented by a base of a small group of figures. These would correspond to a commander-in-chief with some adjutants or other attendants.

Now, I have been contemplating the possibilities of creating a command base of this kind for a while. A couple of years ago, I came across the exquisite Saxon divisional command set produced by Black hussar miniatures: https://blackhussarminiatures.de/produkt/napoleonic-saxon-divisional-command. These were sculpted, I believe, by the very skilled Paul Hicks, who also did the Russians I use for the 1808 setting. It was immediately clear that these figures wear uniforms which are similar enough to the Swedish model 1801, which was an exclusive form of dress worn only by the top brass, staff officers and a few other categories, but not the regular infantry or cavalry officers. Therefore, the set is well suited for conversion into a Swedish high command group.

There are only three significant differences between the Saxon figures’ uniforms and the Swedish 1801 model. First, Swedish officers generally wore their swords in a waist belt and never used the sash which most other nations’ officers wore. On these figures, the higher ranking officer with the telescope is wearing a sash, but the others wear waist belts, partly underneath the jacket. The sash therefore needs to be removed and some cutting is needed before a waist belt in the Swedish style can be added in green stuff.

Second, all Swedish officers wore a white arm band commemorating the coup d’etat of 1772. This continued until 1809, when king Gustav IV Adolf was deposed. Adding an arm band like this with green stuff is not very difficult, especially after some practice (by now I have done it a few times).

Third, Swedish bicorne hats had a slightly different cockade, which looked more like a rosette. They also had a blue and yellow plume above the rosette.

Otherwise, the uniforms of the Saxon commanders were remarkably similar to those of their Swedish counterparts. The jackets had decorations in gold lace on the collar, cuffs and around the chest buttons, according to the logic of opulence: the higher the officer’s rank, the more gold lace they sported! Epaulettes had, as I understand it, officially been abolished for generals by this time, but as can be clearly seen in the painting which portrays the troop review on Åland in the summer of 1808, some officers still wore them.

The Black hussar set includes some horses and an attendant holding them for the top brass. I may or may not include these, and am currently pondering what sort of figure/figures to include as attendants, bystanders or guards. A Nyland dragoon or Horse Life guard would be appropriate, as these troops commonly performed guard duties at HQ as well as working as messengers etc. But the men serving as adjutants to the various generals were from a variation of different regiments, including some that took no other part in the actual fighting and whose uniforms I would therefore not have the opportunity to paint.

The only problem with using the beautiful Black hussar set is that the main figure, the field marshal, becomes problematic when you consider the fact that command of the army in the field was pretty much never exercised by anyone of that rank. Klingspor, who was the commander-in-chief, was never actually present on the field at any of the major battles. At one of them he was in fact having a cup of coffee at some manor house at a good safe distance away as the battle was being fought! However, I am happy to ignore that in order to make a good looking HQ set for my troops…

Swedish guards (Livgardet, Svea livgarde)

This is how the Livgarde figures turned out. There are some details that need to be adjusted, but this is what the basic figure will look like. It is not catastrophic, but I was more happy with the grenadiers, who where easier to model as well. But I suppose these work OK, especially if I can manage to do some nice looking officers to lead them. But painting these reminded me of why I dont like painting plastic figures that much… I just dont like the feel of plastics (the base figure is from the plastic Spanish box by Perry).

Swedish grenadiers (livgrenadjärer)

These figures are a simple conversion from the standard Perry miniatures Swedish infantry. I am pretty pleased with these and it doesnt seem unrealistic to convert enough figures for a couple of battalions, which is what I would need.

The paints used are: Coat d’arms Royal Blue, Cda Blood Red, Vallejo Gold Brown (sash), Cda Tanned Flesh and Cda Flesh.

These plates are the best ones on the grenadiers. There is much confusion surrounding the uniforms, as they are easily mixed up with the Livregementesbrigadens grenadjärkår, which is a different unit. The weird hat has also caused the artists problems, such as is the case with Eben in the first image, who also has the color of the coattails wrong (should be white not red). (Digitaltmuseum/Armémuseum)

The regiment’s hat was distinctive and as you can see below, it was quite different from the guards’ hats that I discussed in my last post. The good thing about this hat is that its shape is so similar to the standard Swedish infantry hat that its is fairly easy to convert the figures. All you really need to do is remove some of the part on the left hand side where the hat has a fold and brass cordon (which the grenadier hat doesnt have) and then add the plume with a roll of green stuff which can then easily be given some texture with a sculpting tool.

Swedish grenadier hat m/1807. (Digitaltmuseum/Armémuseum)

Livgrenadjärregementet apparently had serious problems with the supply of uniforms in 1809. Not all soldiers had received the new (1806) uniform, presumably some would have worn the older 1792 version, which had a white collar and white trousers. Those uniforms were certainly very worn by that time. A few soldiers had the new greatcoats, as seen in the illustration above. Whether all soldiers had the new hat, I do not know. Some newly arrived recruits and reserves would have worn civilian clothes. All of this means that it might be reasonable to (for example) paint some soldiers with white, grey or brown trousers or even mix in one or two with civilian clothes.

In contemporary depictions, the confusion is no less apparent. Adelborg has a drawn a soldier wearing the 1806 uniform with the 1807 hat. The trousers lack the pattern and side stripe though. Also, that drawing may have been made later (even in 1814). The grenadiers did after all have 6 battalions, in what was in practice two regiments, and these units may well have had different uniforms. This was indeed the case later on (1816), when they were officially divided into the 1st and 2nd grenadier regiments.