Richard I remember a scene in ''Master and Commander, the far side of the world'' movie with Russel Crow.... He is the captain of a British ship during the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) and i do remember that he saw the captain of the French ship he was chasing and the french captain wore red....the american war of independence took place between 1775 and 1782....while nelson lived between 1758 and 1805... so i dont think uniforms changed significantly during this time period...and if you look at army uniforms in general at that period, blue and red colours seem to overlap....
Panos, as you may already know, naval (and army) uniforms were slow to change even after the orders went out for everyone to adopt the new uniforms. There were several reasons for this:
1. Mail was very slow in those days (especially if you were on the "far side of the world").
2. Getting the new uniforms made, shipped and delivered could take months (even years).
3. Reluctance on the part of officers and crew to replace good uniforms with something different.
4. And, I'm sure that there may have been some other reasons that I can't think of ...
The Playmobil blue "Royal Harbour Guard" were probably styled after the French of that period. The flag has a "fleur de lis" and the figure on the far right in set 7587 certainly looks like a French naval officer. And, let us not forget those French moustaches ...
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