Swedish Cavalry Standards Sheets


Nyland Cavalry Regiment's m/1686 standards

A typical Swedish cavalry regiment consisted of 1 000 men distributed on eight companies. Just like the infantry each cavalry company had their own standard with a pattern that was the same for the entire regiment, except for the colonel's company which had a white colonel's standard with the Swedish coat of arms in the middle and the regimental symbol in the upper inner corner. The pattern of the standards and been established in a regulation from 1686 and any standard made in accordance of this is called m/1686. According to this the company standards were to have the regimental symbol (the coat of arms of the province in which they were recruited) as the motif on one side and the Royal cypher on the other side. Because cavalry standards were more durable than infantry colours most cavalry regiments retained older standards than m/1686 all the way through the battle of Poltava. The older standards differs from m/1686 by having the regimental symbol inside a laurel wreath and numbers in the corners (showing the year the standards was made).

I have made the following standards sheets for my own miniature figures and they are free to be used by everyone.

m/1686 Colonel's standard	Livregementet till häst, Vadsbo Company (1679-1709)	Livregementet till häst Södermanland Company (1710-1718)	Adelsfanan (1710-)
Östgöta (1676-1683)	Östgöta (1684-1709)	Östgöta 1710-1712	Östgöta (1712-1731)
Liv-dragoons (1700-1709)	Västgöta (1674-1703, 1713-1723)	Västgöta (1703-1713)	Bohuslän Dragoons (1670-1719)
Liv-dragoons (1710-1718)	Småland (1674-?)	Småland (1677-1709)	Småland (1710-1734)
Liv-dragoons (1718-)	Södra Skånska (1691-1709)	Södra Skånska 1712-1735	Norra Skånska (1710-1729)
Åbo & Björneborg (1683-1709)	Nyland (1676-1709)	Nyland (m/1686 which was never issued)	Karelska (1720-1721)

Note that the proportions of the motifs in most cases follow the 1687-88 model drawings of m/1686 by Olof Hoffman. The artistic design of the real standards could be very different from these. Compare for example the following standard sheets, which apart from Hoffmans model drawing is based on real standards made for Småland Cavalry Regiment (unfortuneatly none of the Småland standards made by Ziegler and Schatzberger have been preserved so a different standards by them have been used as a theme)

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