Why did the British wear red coats in battle?

This pre-dates Armstrong on moon and even Clangers on moon.

It may even predate the Moon itself.

Norman ships spotted off Hastings

will there be a battle?

Harold will keep his eye out for it

wasn't there a study that showed sports teams who wore red kit had a slight statistical advantage?

mind you, didn't do pool or manure much good last season

I think that the inference of cowardice against the French is absolute purile crap. It is the kind of insulting slur bandied about by people who have never taken the time to actually wonder whether their statement is accurate, or not.
The French soldier is probably in the top echelon of fighting men and always has been.

wasn't there a study that showed sports teams who wore red kit had a slight statistical advantage?

The proposition might well have some merit but the study was a complete joke in terms of sampling. I'd fail it as Maths GCSE coursework.

Think it was in the mid 00s, and I remember thinking, hang on a second.

I think that the sample was Premier League teams from 1992 inception (or whenever it was) until whenever the study was done.

Arsenal, Liverpool and Man Utd all play in red, and all are good. Chelsea the only team in blue that have come close. Therefore red is better than blue. Apparently.

Honestly that study was one of the worst examples of a correlates with b, therefore a causes b nonsense that I've seen.

With respect to redcoats, camouflage was as good as irrelevant in all but guerilla campaigns until the Boer and Zulu wars.

QI that we get guerilla from Spanish and camouflage from French. Sabotage from the French too.

I suspect the answer may be 'cheap dye' - although I don't know.

A Roman legionaries' tunic would often be red for that reason and a returning legion, knackered after a long campaign, could well have marched in in a fetching pink.

Pink used to be for boys, cornflour blue for girls. I'd say 'fact' but then I'd have to kill myself repeatedly.

Camouflage was around a century before the South African conflicts, History Maker. Well, at least among the kinds of troops who would have benefited. E.g. the Rifle Corps (Sean Bean's mob in the Peninsula).

Having accurate, rifled barrels instead of muskets, they were trained to fight as skirmishers, looking for cover and positions for sniping. The red coats of the rest of the infantry, who stood in line and fired volleys from muskets, would have been no good.

cheese eating surrender monkeys

Think Michael Caine was responsible for starting the trend.Now, not a lot of people know that!








I'll get me tunic

The brightly coloured uniforms of the various troops also made it easier for the Field-Marshal ot see identify his own troops from those of the enemy. Apparently, the 'Fog of War' was a reality after a couple of cannon and musket volleys and he couldn't see a bloody fing!

One can never leave chitchat without learning something in a day!

the red coats covered up the blood of the enemy. since logistically their wives were very far away, there was no nearby 'friendly' kitchen and wife to do the washing

History Maker --
Arsenal, Liverpool and Man Utd all play in red, and all are good. Chelsea the only team in blue that have come close. Therefore red is better than blue. Apparently.

Honestly that study was one of the worst examples of a correlates with b, therefore a causes b nonsense that I've seen.
=======================================
Arsenal, Liverpool and Man Utd all play in red, and all are good.

NO ----THAT'S ^^ the worst correlation I've seen

The Minister for War at the time decided on the Red Coats --
Lord William Butlin

I'll think you will find that the Generals Wife by accident slipped in a pair or two of red socks in a boil wash with his tunic and it came out red.

The reason behind red coats was if you got shot and were bleeding the enemy wouldn't know as they would not see the blood. Later it decided it was better to be hidden from the enemy rather than to hide wounds hence cam gear. You're welcome!

Can't accept that, No Pain. The idea of dirt-coloured (khaki) uniform was irrelevant until weapons got more accurate and ranges increased. Musket volley fire would occur at very close range, due to the innacuracy of the smooth-bore weapon. The men would form ranks and blast away at each other. Sadly, the 'black powder' of the time created huge amounts of smoke. After a couple of volleys you would no longer be able to see your enmy.
However, the battle director, perched on high ground anhd using a telescope, could just about make out where he might need to send reinforcemnts.
This, course, also explains why other nations troops wore different colours...because THEIR Generals had the same problem!
Which is why Liverpool and Manchester United are not allowed to play each other in red.

Sorry. I meant to add that I could be totally wrong. The above logic is just the way I figured it out.

The French soldier is probably in the top echelon of fighting men and always has been.

I'd never have the French as "top fighting men" not now or ever.They are however historically better than many of their euro cousins.They rolled over terribly in WW11 and Napoloeon is an overrated troop sacrificer imvho.That said their modern day army is bloody well drilled and not short on toughs.The belgiums are no mugs either suprisingly.

The british soldiers rep was built on the ability to fire 3 rounds a minute in any conditions,keep rank,and show often remarkable bravery/stupidity in the face of the enemy,not to mention forming square.Still sa remarkable fihghting force as well(even without me!)

no pain no gain
25 May 12 13:11

The reason behind red coats was if you got shot and were bleeding the enemy wouldn't know as they would not see the blood. Later it decided it was better to be hidden from the enemy rather than to hide wounds hence cam gear. You're welcome!



...because the screaming body curled up in the foetal position on the floor with a lump of lead shot torn through him was no give away?

I thought the French government had surrendered in WW2. The soldiers were beaten by the new tactics of 'Blitzkrieg'. That, and the fact that they could only fight a defensive war due to manpower shortages (hence the Maginot Line).
The German strategy of a diversionary assault through Belgium (the anticipated route) followed by the advance through The Ardennes Forest (not suitable for tanks!!) saw the main German advance wih a clear run at the French heartland and capital city. It also meant that the German army now surrounded the French.
Things might have been different if the Maginot Line had been a proper fortification and gone all the way to the coast, but that would have appeared unfriendly to the Belgians.

And let us not forget the the British army fared no better. We were saved by the dalliance of Hitler and the prescence of an escape route...the Channel!
So, I maintain that the French were beaten by outdated strategy against new tactics, and not by any display of cowardice. Unless you agree to apply that to the British and Russian armies, as well.

France had the biggest army in Europe at the outbreak of WWII, if not the most powerful in the world.

Germany got round the ⁱMaginot line but nipping through Belgium and Netherlands, as you say, and avoiding the fortifications.  Like going into another sovereign state was beyond the ethics of Nazi Germany..

The fact that they gave up so easily and half of them even tried to ally with Germany is rather embarrassing, I'd say.

But yes, statistically speaking, the French have done rather well in the outcome of their wars.

In fairness Naydam,they (the french) had terrible leadership,outdated tactics,they were still obsessed with defence,utterly bizzare in modern warfare.They did also take horrific losses in WW1 1 million +.It's just a huge country like Frances complete capitulation which suprised people.They just hid behind the river and didnt even bother to mine or booby trap the ardennes.

I dont think the French quite realised who theyd surrendered to as well,this wasn't the Prussian old school anymore.

They executed their finest General in Marshall Ney 120 yrs previous,descibed as "the bravest of the brave" Napoloen would be a footnote without Ney,the silly judas feckers.

ther was one turning point in the war that decided the fate of Britain, and that was the invention of radar. Had radar not been invented Britain would've been pumelled to the ground

We were bloody good at inventions and innovations.  And still are, according to international characteristics indexes.

We had to be good at inventing really we had a terribly equipped,pretty unprepared army that had neevr really recovered from WW1,we did thankfully have a decent navy and a brilliant RAF (with help from the allies as well)and the Spitfire.

Pencils and Brylcream were our mainstays for our boffins,though the treatment of one such brillaint boff Alan Turing was one of the disgraces of modern times.

Indeed Vivian.

And before someone says so, the Apple logo is not a tribute to Turing.

Going back to the French..they didn't "give up so easily". Their Government agreed to terms of surrender and thatr is it. All soldiers are ordered to surrender. It is the same with all armies. I find it insulting that accusations of cowardice etc. are levelled at soldiers who do not deserve it.
Were the British soldiers also cowards in France...they were easily  defeated. What about Singapore? How about the Yanks in the Phillipines? Viet Nam?
What abouit all the Russians who surrendered? What about all the Germans who surrendered? Were they all cowards? Of course they weren't and they do not deserve the abuse that many of today's population see fit to hurl at them!

The notable exception is the poor Japanese soldier. He was just like anybody else until indoctrinated that surrender was dishonourable and would bring shame on his entire family. I'd guess they also were well brain-washed when preferring their son to die rather than be taken prisoner.

i thought the red sports kit advantage study was done for 1 on 1 sports. i tried to google it but when i typed in "red sports" it then prompted "bra" which distracted me and i never got any further.

Butlins

The French fought bloody hard in World War Two in Syria and Lebanon, where they were fighting British, Australian and Indian troops.

The French lost about 6,000 men in that campaign in summer 1941, including a thousand dead.

Yet it's virtually never discussed, either at the time or since, presumably out of embarrassment at the ferocity with which Frenchmen when they found themselves allied with Nazi Germany.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria%E2%80%93Lebanon_Campaign

* ferocity with which Frenchmen fought when they found themselves allied with Nazi Germany

Also, it's no more than a popular British myth that radar was a British invention.

During the '30s scientists in Germany, France, the US and the UK all independently discovered that very short pulses, when reflected off a target back to a cathode tube, enabled you to recognize where the target was. As Len Deighton described in Blood, Tears and Folly:

"It was not advanced technology, and it certainly wasn't a British invention. Even the Russian armed forces were equipped with radar by the time the war began. ... At the start of hostilities, German radar was more accurate and sophisticated than that of any other nation. The first radar success of the war was on 18 Dec. 1939 when a formation of 22 RAF Wellington bombers was detected 70 miles off the German coast. Only ten of the bombers returned."

So many strands.  Red coats said we are here and look out. OK until you met a sneaky guerilla enemy.  French great fighters - no fun living next to Germany (anything to avoid another Verdun?).  We sort of won WW2 due to superior intelligence, heavy bombers, the navy, some US input and not invading Russia.

And wearing red does add a measurable advantage.

Cavity magnetron, sfbw?

Ah, now that was a vital British invention, bodil, I'll grant you: a compact, portable, short-wave centimetric radar that enabled you to "see" a surfaced U-boat, even at night.

If you accept that the Battle of the Atlantic was the one campaign which might have led to a Nazi triumph in Western Europe, then you could claim that was the one British invention that saved the world.

Sometimes I wonder if the present would be much different if Germany had won.  Better BBQ sausages, no gypsies selling lucky heather as you go to the Derby, a bank holiday on Hitler's birthday.  A lack of Woody Allen movies. No Israel-Palestine problem so no Al Queda.  Whitewashing of the mass murders - but they would have been blamed on the old guard.  We do tend to justify the past with imaginary presents.

think of all the typos there would be though, with all those concatenated german words.

Bloody Hell, Erse. I'm going to have Google that! At half past five in the morning, too.

Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän

Think how many typewriter ribbons he got through when communicating with the Donau­dampfschiffahrts­elektrizitäten­hauptbetriebswerk­bauunterbeamten...

I tried saying that. I came round on the floor with a bump on my head!