Osprey Men-at-Arms (some kilt errors)

[OC Richard]

I'm a fan of the Men-at-Arms series by Osprey Publishing.

Especially nice are the illustrations by Mike Chappell, which are artistically pleasing and accurate. The one inaccuracy, and one which occurs consistently, is his misunderstanding of how diced hosetops are made, and worn. (The diamonds aren't random, as Chappell shows, but quite regular, and are precisely worn by the kilted regiments.)

Here are the titles I have to hand which have the lovely Chappell illustrations (I've mentioned the kilted figures in parentheses)

British Battle Insignia 1939-45 (Seaforth Highlander)

Scottish Units In The World Wars (9th RS, BW Piper, 6th HLI, KOSB Piper, 8th BW, Argylls, 8th BW, 4th Gordons, 4th Camerons, 6th HLI, RSF Piper, Gordons Piper, BW Brigadier) (BTW the pages of illustrations contain numerous typographical errors such as the consistent misuse of apostrophes Argyll's, Gordon's, Seaforth's, Cameronian's; in addition a Cameron Highlander is listed as being in the "Cameronian's".)

British Battledress 1937-61 (2nd Seaforths)

British Territorial Units 1914-18 (Liverpool Scottish, 6th HLI, London Scottish)

The Canadian Army At War (73rd Battalion CEF, 15th Battalion CEF)

Also nice are the illustrations in

Wellington's Highlanders (illustrated by Bryan Fosten).

The British Army 1965-80 (illustrated by Angus McBride) : These illustrations are quite clear and accurate. The one kilted figure, a Gordon Highlander, has the dicing on his hose-tops incorrectly shown.

Once we leave these books we encounter far more errors:

Queen Victoria's Highlanders (illustrated by Gerry Embleton) : These illustrations are somewhat crude and aren't clear and contain various inaccuracies. Like Chappell he doesn't understand how diced hose-tops are made and worn. Also he sometimes shows dicing on headdress incorrectly. He consistently shows spats being far too tall.

Taking one plate (F) in detail, the cuffs on the BW officer's doublet are completely wrong, with the positions of the piping and lace reversed, and the sporran is wrong regarding both the cantle and tassels. The piper's sporran is wrong and he's shown wearing a Royal Stewart plaid with a Black Watch kilt! The hardware on the waistbelt and crossbelt are both incorrect. On plate G the Seaforth Highlanders' sporran is wrong, the tassels having brass cones (!) and the cantle missing its badge.

Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders (illustrations by Michael Roffe) : His illustrations are often so crude and sketchy-looking that it's hard to tell if they're accurate or not. However his illustrations are fairly accurate as regards the 1960s uniforms. He comes close to getting the hose-tops right. His illustrations have a consistent issue: the six tassels so often seen on the sporrans of the Argylls are shown splaying outward in defiance of gravity! Seems that he's never actually seen a sporran in person, and doesn't realize that the tassels hang down and obey the law of gravity.

On Plate F he suddenly forgot how to draw the red & white dicing as it appears on the Argylls' headdress, and he depicts the doublet flaps wrongly on Figure 1. Plate C has more bad dicing, the piper's doublet missing piping on the cuffs, and it's one of the worst attempts at depicting the Highland Bagpipe I've ever seen.

The Black Watch (illustrated by Michael Youens) : His illustrations are fairly clear. He depicts the spats far too tall. He doesn't understand how Feather Bonnets are made. The diced hose-tops are often fairly close to being right. He often shows the BW ORs' sporrans as having a metal rim and/or metal cones to the tassels (actually all leather) and shows the BW Officers' sporrans with incorrectly-shaped cantles and as having metal cones to the tassels.

Numerous flaws can be seen on two facing pages, plates F and G. The two pipers' and one officers' sporrans should all be the same, but are shown with three different cantle shapes, none of them quite right. The piper's sporran is shown with the tassels having white metal cones, the Pipe Major's sporran is shown with only two tassels! The piper is shown wearing what appears to be a Scots Guards pipers' cap badge, and his pipes have a Royal Stewart cover (should be Black Watch). The Pipe Major's doublet is entirely wrong, being shown red! I think I know where this error came from: there's a widely available c1910 postcard showing a BW Pipe Major; the black & white photo has been retouched with incorrect colours (quite common) and his Archer Green doublet has been painted over with red. On the other hand the Pipe Major's waistbelt and crossbelt hardware was been shown accurately.

Here is the incorrectly coloured vintage postcard from which Michael Youens must have got his wrong ideas about what a Black Watch Pipe Major looks like. Not only is the jacket painted red (it's actually Archer Green) but the kilt and plaid have been painted two different tartans (actually both should be Royal Stewart), the hose dicing is a mess, and why is the top of the kilt green?

[James Hood]

As another most sincere fan of the Osprey series, Men At arms, Elite, Weapons, Warriors, Aircraft Of The Aces, Fortress, Duel...

...(meaning; several thousand dollars have been spent on Osprey subjects over several decades)...

...OC Richard puts forth some exceptionally pertinent and well explained points.

Students of military history are well advised to seek out and study the Osprey inexpensive, short, softcover tomes, which arguably cover a wider array of military history subjects than any other publisher or range, ever.

However, buyer and student beware, regarding them as primers on a subject, not truly authoritative works in most instances, is personally recommended.

Consulting other sources and other artists can reveal a much larger picture of in this instance, Scottish soldiers. When at all possible, compare multiple pictures, drawings, photos of any uniform you are studying. Often the artist-at-the time was not really well versed in the subject, ergo a questionable depiction.

One thing to bear in mind; soldiers "then" and now are often quite different in size, mass, musculature. It has been said, the average infantryman in Wellington's army at Waterloo was five feet four (5' 4") and weighed 125 pounds.

Attending shows and museums where actual period militaria is displayed may leave you aghast at how small the (especially 19th century) soldiers were.

[OC Richard]

Attending shows and museums where actual period militaria is displayed may leave you aghast at how small the (especially 19th century) soldiers were.

Interesting that you should mention this, because I had always thought the same, and when I was out at a militaria show I met a fellow dressed in full ancient Roman legionnaire uniform, and noticing his height (more than a foot shorter than my 6'4") I commented that he appeared to be the proper size for a Roman soldier. He said that that was a common misconception; in fact a large number of Roman skeletons from Imperial times have been measured and these have revealed that the average Roman of those times is the same height as the average Roman of today.

I don't know if that's true! But this fellow seemed very knowledgeable and passionate about ancient Rome.

In my own family my grandfather was 6'4" and my great-great-grandfather's Civil War records show that he also was 6'4". My son is an inch or two shy of that but about his son (if he is to have one) who knows?

[Father Bill]

I remember taking my ten and eleven year olds on class trips to the museum and thinking how impossible it would be to cram them into the medieval suits of armour, so I would have to lean towards your original opinion.

[Hopper250]

OC Richard,

The Roman you met was correct. The average hight of men and women from 2-3000 years ago and today hasn't changed much. When looking at the armor that is on display in museums it is important to remember that most of that armor is doing what it has always done, been on display. Display armor would be made smaller and of lighter less expensive base material. Which allowed for ornate paterning and guilding. The average practical armor looked much like what Heath Ledger wore in "A Knights Tale." Solid, nothing fancy on it in any way, and lightly burnished.

[OC Richard]

About the height thing (which has become its own topic!) I was recently reading an anthropology book which said that when farming was invented there was a sudden decrease in height and life span and a deterioration in health in general: bad teeth, more disease, and so forth. The book went into much detail about the effect of people living in close quarters with each other and with farm animals, and how plagues became common (which were pretty much impossible in hunter-gatherer times when people were spread over a vast landscape in small isolated bands). Also new were famines, which were the result of depending on just a small handful of crops and animals, whereas typical hunter-gatherers ate over 100 different species regularly, meaning that if any one of them was wiped out by some new disease there would be little impact on the human diet. (Think the potato famine, where an entire nation was dependent on a single crop.)

[Father Bill]

OC Richard,

The Roman you met was correct. The average hight of men and women from 2-3000 years ago and today hasn't changed much. When looking at the armor that is on display in museums it is important to remember that most of that armor is doing what it has always done, been on display. Display armor would be made smaller and of lighter less expensive base material. Which allowed for ornate paterning and guilding. The average practical armor looked much like what Heath Ledger wore in "A Knights Tale." Solid, nothing fancy on it in any way, and lightly burnished.

Umm, not at the Royal Ontario Museum where the armour at that time was dented and labelled for who wore it. The mystery deepens!

[David Host]

Back to the inaccuracies of the Osprey books: I love them to death, but indeed they must be taken with a grain of salt (a fist sized grain when it comes to some of their medieval publications, especially the McBride illustrations).

[Farmer Jones]

I am not familiar with the Osprey books, but the subject of historical accuracy, especially with modern visual arts, such as cinema, has often interested me. A majority of people cannot get to places like V&A to see examples of real clothing from an era and must rely on illustrations. The pieces that get preserved tend to be display pieces and upper end fashions. So beyond contemporary illustrations and a few fashion items, the majority of people only see what is interpreted into modern visual art by costumers and illustrators. It takes intimate knowledge to take apart some illustrations and show to an uninformed person all of the licence taken by (and ignorance of ) the artist.

Societal prosperity has not been even throughout human history and while some places had plenty, at the same time others had little. I have personal experience of how war and famine lead to starvation and stunted growth. I also have travelled and seen that despite having enough food, some societies lack some nutrients and tend not to reach their genetic potential. I think the point about the size of soldiers from different societies at different points in history reflects much more their diet and lifestyle than it does any change in genetic potential of humans.

[georgeetta]

I 'd rather read any osprey than most today's outdoor mags written by "college grads" . A lot of their ..illustration are copies of well known photos in other (better more expansive) books ..still has merit. I liked the highland clansman ones ..the y got into oddball pre 1800's tartans as an idea ..so you saw some really odd combos you'd never've dreamt about ..but ..study maurier's culloden for colors ..but look at a "caledonian or jacobite" tartan though authentic ..looks like a modern idea .

I like john prebble book professor was wwii navy intellignece and rated them highly as the way to do historic fictiono ..my frustrated ivy league prof said all history taught was ..hist fiction ! One way or other .

Stature
there's abbc histpory of scotland out 10 parts littel highlands really ..essentially scots traditionally starved ..being overshadowed by neighbors ..dem guys ..

Most black watch soldiers accroding to lt col macculloch i think were 5'-2.5" and even teenage us kids are prolly well past their body fat content ..they prolly had none ..france is the primo nutrition country adn theri bodies deal better with nutrition ..or italians ..being center of world trade for 1500 yrs ..or so. Whne potatoes came to europe survival went instantly up by 30% ..likewise bad potatoe yeasr in scotland about 1700 i thnk made 25% mortality ..look that one up ..what they alluded to in my rob roy book . I have rad there were scots in clans at 6' when bl watch said average young man 17-22 joined, also highlnads were a cattle economy in old days ..like africans were on ..plains travel shows or national georgraphic sticth things together whats' like what ..how's this highland guy in mountains here like a similiar living highlander in 1700 ?? Loo k at civil war in usa pics of soldiers no beer bellies ..5'7" or so ..hard bodies ..no fat ..no money either !! ..stature of highlnader also controlled by mountian travel ..up and down those hills (mountains) ..took calories..cold weather living took calories ..prevented ..heighth growth ..prebbel i think said most highlanders in 1700 before never went more than 3 glens away in their life ..

You'd like a read on "glencoe" by john prebble . Covers 1000 years of highlanders to cover a story about 1 night of history ..

If you wnat a crash course watch the history of scotalnd bbc 10 part ..thta's neat

also macneil ..history english language ..they do some scotland ..

Lt col macculloch's books .

Arygylls ..regimental history

scottish regiments ditto all regiments

mutiny prebble ..

Culloden ditto

listening to my uncles talk about ww2 ..national servic ein malaya ..littel things ..about gear ..bonnets ..details ..rum rations ..punishment ..awol ..paras ..traingin ..barracks ..pipers ..officers ..not in books ..

Sons of the mountains ..lt col iain macculloch ..regiments about time of french indian war in usa ..the lads, food , duties ..albnay ny winter 1755 or such ..new york combat ..pennsylvania combat theaters ..

Roger's rangers had many highlanders in and out ..battle on snoshoes several black watch ..2 father sons 1 son campbell kia 1757 battle ti country club .

Battle of quebec ..prebble ..highalnders s ale cliffs to top plains of abraham and last huge battle -detail prebble ..

History of scotland ront mackie ..history dept ..glasgow unvi 30 yrs ..

Tartan book ..pics of mid 1750's portraits ..and post ..ban portraits ..clearances portraits ..

They also mentioned ..prebble how ..supplier s would cheat the soldiers in supplying them ..originally the soldiers got ..36' of cloth abotu 28" width cut half sewed in middel to make a belted plaid ..5' wide 18' long ..on a guy 5'2" ..as time went on ..rich guys would ..go cheap on rasing a regiment ..then sell as a ready unti to the gov't ready for batt;e and make money ..post napolean period i think ..as they were ..army of occupation breifly ..the kitls were often as in lots ..shown so short frecvnh women got theri eyeful ..male anatomy being mid thigh height ..and a normal kilt not a belted plaid ..

Study the 1850 pics of soldiers in edinburg clastle ..shows very early regiments and how their unifrom was still evolving .

D