Fussartillerie 18 shoulder boards - why blue piping?

[Naxos]

Here are two shoulder boards from a Leutnant of the Fussartillerie - both with blue piping - I can not find anywhere that Blue was used by the Fussartillerie -

Hardy

Edited February 26, 2010 by Naxos

[Chip]

Hardy,

Prior to 1915 all foot foot artillery units had white, white piped or white underlay shoulder boards. In 1915 the canary yellow color was adopted as you have said. Basically, these boards you have shown are from the Train troops (blue underlay). The problem is the crossed shells, which might be partially explained by the fact that in October of 1917, due to a shortage of replacements, munitions columns began to be manned by Train troops. This Train officer obviously did not want to have to alter his uniform, so he took it upon himself to add the foot artillery insignia to his existing shoulder boards. That is my best guess senario.

Chip

[Naxos]

Thanks Chip, I thought along the same lines. The boards were sewn in - not that easy to change.

Hardy