Per Mare Per Terram

For many years I have had an interest in military uniforms at various times in history, particularly British history, and over the years I’ve acquired a fair number of sources and information on a wide array of things that are very useful when building historically accurate minis for war games. Obviously, the minute details such as the engravings on buttons are not relevant for most scales of wargaming, but the general look and colours are so I thought I’d start creating some reference guides for others using my knowledge.

I decided to start with the Royal Marines due to family connections to the organisation which includes, notably, my great grandfather, G. H. Gill, GM. While I still haven’t managed to get a copy of his medal citation, I do know that he was awarded the George Medal for saving people from an ammunition laden ship that was ablaze at the time. Sadly, I never knew him myself but I was very pleased to learn that his medals were given to the Royal Marine Museum which, at the time, were based in Eastney near Portsmouth. Importantly, I am going to make sure that I cover all of the branches of the Marines when and where they crop up, so I will not be focusing purely on the line that leads to the famous Royal Marine Commando units that are often best known.

In 1664, the long history of what would become the Royal Marines began with the formation of the Duke of York and Albany’s Maritime Regiment of Foot. Alongside the Holland Regiment (that later became a line infantry regiment), they were paid for by the Navy and used as sea-borne infantry which basically consisted of fighting on the ships during naval battles, but also assisting in landings, and the like. This is also a during a time where Regiments of Foot were sometimes ‘borrowed’ by the Navy to augment their Marines in times of need, such as the Battle of Solebay during the 3rd Anglo-Dutch War. If you look into it yourself, the term used for such units is that they are employed as Marines, or something similar. For now, though, let’s focus on the Admiral’s Regiment (the name the Duke of York and Albany’s Maritime Regiment of Foot became known as…you can understand why…

The colours only go so far when trying to find miniatures, however, so when looking out for a mini you can use you really want to think about the uniforms the British Army were wearing at the time, and the equipment they were carrying. An important note on weapons is that standards of the time were very different. A colonel of a regiment was responsible for outfitting his men so a certain degree of variation across an army would have been common. This was a practice up to as late as 1745, but for the Admiral’s Regiment the most likely weapons would have been matchlock guns with the possibility of some flintlocks creeping in as time went by.

The next question is minis. This regiment existed from 1664 until James II was deposed in 1689 and places them in the ‘Pike and Shotte’ era of wargaming, albeit the tail end of this period. While I don’t doubt that there is a company out there who make purpose built minis to represent these chaps, my ‘readily available’ would be the New Model Army era minis as they will be readily available. Warlord, for example, makes a set of them in, I believe, metal, but there may be a company somewhere that makes plastics. With modification you could use some of the Marlborough’s Wars Grand Alliance Infantry from Warlord, but you would need to find the right headgear and, in general, it would be too much of a faff to do it without it becoming more trouble than the metal minis.

This is a very short bit on the Earl of Pembroke’s and Earl of Torrington’s Marine regiments that existed for a short time and took part in the landings at Cork in 1690. I know very little about them, but including this one piece of artwork I have found may be useful to someone covering ‘That One Time the Bastard English Wouldn’t Leave Ireland Alone Part 56’.

When you are really proud of a Battle Honour, you put it on your Regimental Colours, when you are exceptionally proud of it, you put it on your badges. For the Marines, this is Gibraltar, an Honour they wear to this day, so it makes sense to cover it here.

The most important change by this point is that the Marine regiments were wearing the red of the British Army. In fact, almost all of the uniform patterns between the Army and the Marines were identical due to the nature of raising and re-designating regiments over time. For example, Villier’s Regiment were raised as Marines, then later re-designated as Line Infantry and becoming the 31st Foot. In this way, Marine Regiments were not permanent and raised to requirement.

While I only found very poor quality pictures of such, as these regiments were much more of the Army style, the facing colours are of importance and, as with the Army regiments, were a way of telling each unit apart. The yellow in these images would be indicative of Villier’s regiment rather than just meaning ‘Marine’. Other regimental distinctiveness would be far too small to show up in gaming scales, so I won’t worry about it. It should be said, though, that the taping of the second image, opposed to the lack of such in the first, is quite possibly artistic license and I would suspect that the lack of taping around button holes would be the more accurate.

As for model suggestions, it goes without saying that the War of the Spanish Succession era British, or Grand Alliance, infantry are the way to go. Warlord does a plastic box set, though I am sure others do as well. The only complication would be headgear. I am am correct in my assumption of tri-corns, then the box would be fine as is, but the grenadier mitres used in the box would not be correct to those in the artwork I have presented here. So I would suggest sticking to tr-corns of the era unless you could find a source of those particular mitres from another company.

In 1755, the first permanent Marine force was created with stations at Portsmouth, Chatham, and Plymouth. This force very closely mimicked the army in appearance, including all the changes as time when on. This included headgear for grenadier battalions and also some of the, sometimes short-lived, changes of light infantry battalions, as the introduction of those forces carried on. The early permanent Marines were very much an extension of regular infantry units serving on ships and used for landings and such, but also more extensive land combat. It should be noted, though, that the primary purpose of these men was the defense of land stations and as security and discipline aboard ships, and to fight from the decks while in naval combat.

Whereas before, each regiment of Marines could have whatever colour their Colonels chose, all Marines of this new force were assigned the colour white. This is because they were, less and less organised into the same regiments as the army. In fact the initial force was 50 companies within 3 divisions (one each for Portsmouth, Chatham, and Plymouth). This actually makes marines of this time very easy to replicate in miniature form as you can very simply pick up a box of regular army units of the time and simply paint the facings white.

This period includes The Seven Years War and The American Revolution, which are mostly likely to be the more popular areas of wargaming here, but luckily you could very easy supplement the same basic British Infantry in as Marines, just remember the white facings and, if you really wanted to go an extra mile, maybe paint one of the officers of a regiment (in massed combat systems) as a Naval officer as it wasn’t until 1771 that any Marine officer was promoted to the rank of Colonel because the Naval officers felt that their ranks were honorary anyway. I know that Warlord and Perry Miniatures have some plastic infantry of these types, though you may also find that Victrix do as well. I would say that this is still a time where Marines are better suited to Skirmish games, but it was Major Pitcairn’s Marines that took the redoubt at Bunker Hill, so there are moments of larger engagements.

During the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars, you have Nelson’s great battles such as The Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar and in all these battles and many of the landings that occurred throughout you would find Marines. Copenhagen is also the 95th (Rifles) premiere where they acted as Marines to add their accuracy to the rapidity of regular musket fire, but that’s for another day. There are three notable changes during this time; facings, headgear, and a new type of Marine.

Having blue facings was very much an honour in the army, due to the connection to royalty. In fact there are many extant regiments of the British Army that have royal connections in their names with many of them being carried over from antecedents. The second thing you will notice there is the hat. While I’m not entirely sure when this particular hat came into use, it is very distinct to the Royal Marines of this time and I can find evidence to suggest that it was not in use in, definitely, the early years of the French Revolution. I would summise that when the army changed to shakoes, the Royal Marines switched to these dapper top hats quite possibly for practicality of maintenance at sea, but I don’t know for sure. The hats do have a hackle on them (the fluffy bit sticking out the side) and those were in the traditional Battlaion colours of white over red.

In 1804 the Royal Marine Artillery was formed, mainly to operate the heavy weapons on bomb ships, but were also trained in other types of gunnery. While the were initially supposed to wear the same uniform as the regular Marines, they quickly made attempts to switch to the traditional blue uniforms of the regular Royal Artillery and the Admiralty eventually relented when it became clear they were doing it anyway. As far as I am aware, they wore the same headgear as the ‘red’ Marines, however there is a lot of artwork surrounding their use on land during the War of 1812 to suggest that the ‘Belique’ pattern of shako was worn, but I’d say that for a model perspective it could easily be a headswap, or just leave them in the shakoes; quite useful, actually.

I think it is an important distinction, though, to say that the hackle may have remained the same white over red, which would serve to distinguish from the regular Royal Artillery, who had pure white hackles. Saying the word ‘hackles’ is fun, you should try it.

Again, these chaps are best suited to smaller games, but there are times where they were used in force, quite often with large sections of the Ship’s Company. Particularly in the War of 1812, where most soldiers were tied up in the Peninsular War and other conflicts, Marines were often borrowed for other duties.

As for miniatures, these chaps pose the largest problem due to the hats, however there is a ‘conversion kit’ out there that works with almost any plastic Napoleonic Infantry. The sculpts have been know to move around companies, but for the moment you can find them here. I really ought to get my set at some point…

http://brigadegames.3dcartstores.com/BG-NBR313-Napoleonic-British-Marine-Heads-and-NBR040-British-Marine-Command-Figures_p_3319.html

With those little extras, though, you can easily build your own Marines, just remember that you won’t need the Ensigns (flags) from a regular regiment or the wings of the flank companies. You can save these to make a Light Infantry regiment and the spare Ensigns could be used to change around some other regiments you have painted (switch between the yellow faced 6th and 100th foot, for example). This does mean that Marines will cost a little extra, but due to the nature of marines, you would probably only need a single unit so it’s not so bad.

After a brief exploration into haberdashery, the Royal Marines returned to the regular army headgear following the Napoleonic period. In the run up to the Crimean War the Royal Marines and Royal Marine Artillery continued to emulate their regular army compatriots with no colour changes as time went by. They also began to adopt a few more embellishments, alongside the army, to their hat such as brass plates, but in general the details on these are too small to worry about for wargaming. This real difference here is remembering that the Royal Marines have no colours (in the sense of flags) which is an easy way of battlefield identification during this time.

During the Crimean War, two things happened. One, the army realised that tight fitting waist high jackets with long tails were a bad idea for soldiers (that took them way too long…), and in 1855 the infantry component of the Royal Marines were named to, first, the Royal Marines Light Infantry and then Royal Marine Light Infantry (RMLI). The navy then began organising Naval Divisions for landings over time and used the RMLI as an initial force meant to take a beach and secure a perimeter while the Navy landed more sailors trained in infantry roles. This would continue throughout the 1800’s with the Royal Marines following the uniform patterns of their army contemporaries. As the 1800’s rolled on, the changes in army uniform were adopted by the Royal Marines as well, with some exceptions for specific campaigns as time went on. While the red and blue were maintained for ceremonial purposes, it seems silly to include those elements for wargaming…

And so, once again, for miniatures, the Marines can be very easily played using regular army miniatures from any of the ranges. Once again, though, remember that they carried no colours and operated very much as skirmishers towards the latter half of the century, but many companies have plastic kits for the Crimean War, the Zulu War, and many others of the period.

Entering the 20th Century you’ll find the Royal Marines more difficult to identify as all armies moved towards drab and camouflaged uniforms to better protect their men from the new ‘modern’ warfare. An important not, however, is that along with ceremonial dress uniforms, the early part of the 1900’s has a type of uniform refereed to as Home Service uniform that we will not cover too much simply because it is not a ‘battle’ uniform that is important for wargamers.

Throughout the war the RMLI fought as light infantry and the Royal Marine Artillery manned the big guns for the division and would switch from the more conspicuous blues to the less visible khakis of the regular army. As will become commonplace in combat after the Great War, the Marines will be commonly recognised by Corps symbols on their uniforms that are typically not viable at smaller scales and simple decals at larger ones. If you wish to do the Naval Division, as a whole, for this conflict then the non Marines part of the division do have a fair number of differences that you could look up.

In the aftermath of the war, the British Government looked to try to save money on it’s war spending and so in the the years following peace the Royal Marine Light Infantry and the Royal Marine Artillery were merged together with the Royal Marine Artillery losing their purpose and requiring the Corps to rely on Royal Artillery units for support (a system that sort of still stands today). While it’s not relevant to minis, this is why the Royal Marines have the dress uniform they do; they kept the blue of the artillery branch and kept the red for the Officer’s Mess.

As it going to be typical from here on out, Marines can usually be represented by the standard infantry with very few exceptions, though if you wished to represent the Naval Division at the onset of war you will have to look for some specific minis that may be hard to find.

The Second World War and the advent of the Commandos pretty much sets the look of the Royal Marines as many of us would recognise them. At the outbreak of war, the uniforms of the Corps were near, if not completely, identical to the standard Battledress of the Army. Again, the differences here are badges that are very easily replicated with decals. The major change here comes in the role they played, and still do, to this day.

At the start of the war, Royal Marines acted as amphibious troops grouped into the Royal Marines Division and took part in many landings throughout the war but when the Commandos were formed from the Army, the Royal Marines followed suit and were soon integral parts of the Commando Brigades (with the 4th such brigade being entirely formed from Royal Marines. The prized badge of these Commando units was the Green Beret that is not synonymous with the Royal Marines and the Special Boat Service (SBS) that also grew out from the war. When the war ended, all other Commando units were disbanded except for those of the Royal Marines 40, 42, and 45 Commandos who were formed into the Commando Brigade (being the only one left) and maintaining their elite role and training as combat specialists and amphibious infantry. The SBS remained as the ‘elite of the elites’ and now operates along similar lines to the more famous SAS of today.

While the Royal Marines are, to this day, as part of the Royal Navy, they more often fight alongside the army on land with much of a ship’s security being done by ratings on board the ships themselves. This has also meant that they have acquired other units to form their modern brigade including Artillery and logistics, the former of which was taken away from the Corps following the disbandment of the Royal Marine Artillery after the Great War. From this point in history on, the Royal Marines have followed the patterns and equipment of the army with some variations as time goes on. For gaming, they are an elite force that has been used in many conflicts including the Falklands War, the First Gulf War, and the War in Iraq and Afghanistan. While weapons and kit have changed, the green berets have not and stand as a bright marker of a Royal Marine and while many wear more practical headgear in combat, the beret is a sign of pride and skill to this day.

For miniatures, there are lots of options for Commandos during WW2, and those will usually work well enough for the Korean War, as well. Due to the popularity and recognition, I suspect that purpose built minis for the Falklands are available and even beyond into the modern era. Remember, though, that most of the time you can easy use a regular British soldier in place of a Marine, just make sure you paint any beret he may have on his person in the green colour. Also take into account certain combats. In WW2 and the Falklands, for instance, the Marines carried what they needed with them, so small packs are not all that accurate. The Warlord kit for WW2 definitely have the right rucksacks, and I suspect any Falklands minis are going to be modeled after men on The Yomp. And if you’re thinking of building a Marine force for any reason (and there are lots of fantastic reasons) there’s usually not too many of them, because a few go a long way!

That’s older than Canada! Hopefully this has been of interest to someone wondering what the Marines would look like for their chosen time. Bear in mind that I have presented very much an overview here, and it is always a good idea to check colours for very specific conflicts, though I imagine there’s an Osprey book for it…there’s always an Osprey book for it. As a final hurrah, I will leave with a group of images I have borrowed from the Royal Navy, some of which I have presented already, but the whole story in a few pictures is a good way to end this, I feel.

I will also link to the source of these images from the Royal Navy article on Royal Marine Uniforms.

https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2014/october/20/141020-royal-marines-uniforms

*As of 2020, when this project was created