Arelak below had it right: cheap dye. The British military used madder root, the cheapest dye available until chemical dyes were developed. Most soldiers didn’t have scarlet coats. Madder was more of a brick red. Officers could afford bright red cochineal dyed wool, made from crushed insects. An observer could tell an ordinary soldier from an officer at a distance just by the color. Red coats were not a relative hazard because the muskets of the time (and pikes before that) required massed men in line to be effective. A soldier couldn’t hide anyway.

Also they chose red because it was the cheapest dye available for the new model army. It stuck.

Fun fact is it was not originally scarlet red, it was madder red sir! Only Officers wore scarlet red! It wasn't until during and after the Crimean War that all UNITS adapted Scarlet Red as standard!!!

Red is more difficult to count from a distance for enemy spotters..

@95DarkFire

Жыл бұрын

How? And how does it matter?

@SR-ol6xm

Жыл бұрын

@@95DarkFire becuase thats why it was chosen and is recorded as the reason as far back at the English civil war red was used due to is cost and the interesting fact that its difficult to count from a distance... therefore fwd men that we tasked with counting troops front-lines often misjudged.

@95DarkFire

Жыл бұрын

@@SR-ol6xm But why would that matter? Why would you need to count individual men? Wouldn't you just guess? And couldn't they have just counted hats, heads, crossbelts, or muskets?

The Napoleonic war is just the European version of Bloods vs Crips.

Thought it also made it hard for spotters to count the number of redcoats as the bright colour made a blurring effect.

@veranya2074

6 жыл бұрын

Mr ward I thought the green color has the best camouflage effect.

@95DarkFire

Жыл бұрын

How?

@mrward6510

Жыл бұрын

@@95DarkFire Blurs the image so it's hard to tell how many ranks there are.

@mrward6510

Жыл бұрын

@@veranya2074 depends where you are.

@95DarkFire

Жыл бұрын

@@mrward6510 You can just count hats, crossbelts, bayonets, etc. Besides, how does the exact number of soldiers matter? What matters is the frontage.