Swedish Infantry Colour Sheets


Livgardet's m/1686 colour

This page contains a collection of colour sheets intended to be used for Prince August's miniature figures (40 mm scale). These are free to be used by everyone, just click on the images and then print out the sheets.

Guard Colours

The Guard (Livgardet) was an enlisted regiment based in Stockholm which at the outbreak of the Great Northern War consisted of 1 800 men distributed to 12 companies which had one colour each. It was then gradually expanded to reach 2 600 men in 24 companies in 1704 (six of these were however grenadier companies which did not carry colours).

The colour sheet to the left is the Guard's company colour m/1686. The two colour sheets to the right are my reconstructions of the Guard's colonel's colour (Swedish coat of arms instead of the royal cypher) which was carried by the Colonel's Company and the special grenadier colours which were issued in 1702 but carried until the battle of Poltava by three regular companies. The grenadier colours were said to have included flaming grenades in the corners but just like the colonel's colour there are no preserved image of them.

Provincial Regiments' and Småland 3-männings' colours

A typical Swedish infantry regiment consisted of 1 200 men in eight companies. Of the provincial regiments it was only Närke-Värmland which had more than eight companies (1 674 men in ten companies). Each company had their own colour which had the same appearance as the other companies in the regiment (except the Colonel's Company) and followed the regulation of 1686, hence called m/1686 colour. The Colonels Company distinguished itself by having a white colour featuring the Swedish coat of arms in the centre and the regimental symbol in the upper inner corner. The regimental symbol was in most cases the coat of arms of the province in which the regiment was recruited in. The exceptions were Jönköping and Älvsborg regiments which instead had the coat of arms of the cities Jönköping and Gothenburg. The regular companies' colours had the regimental symbol inside a laurel wreath. Some variations existed when more than one regiment was recruited in the same province or when the provincial coat of arms had a black or white field.

When the Great Northern War broke out there was a need for additional regiments. This was done by combining the "rotar" (responsible for the upkeep of one soldier) in groups of three to recruit an additional soldier, a so called 3-männing. This meant that an area which maintained a 1 200 men strong regiment had to recruit a further 400 men which were then combined with contingents from other regimental districts to create new full size regiments. These contingents carried colours with their parent regiment's symbol in the upper inner corner in an otherwise plain colour. An example of this is the colours of Småland 3-männing Regiment which carried one white (colonel's colour) and four yellow colours with the red crossbow carrying lion of Småland in the corner and three yellow colours with the coat of arms of the city of Jönköping.

Uppland	Södermanland	Östergötland	Kalmar	Kronoberg	Jönköping
Älvsborg	Västgöta-Dal	Skaraborg	Närke-Värmland	Västmanland	Dal-regiment
Hälsinge	Jämtland	Västerbotten	Österbotten	Björneborg	Åbo
Nyland	Tavastehus	Savolax	Viborg		Småland 3-männings

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