question 1980's British Soldier Equipment

[JakLomas]

Hi,

 

Can anyone tell me what equipment would be carried by a platoon signaller in addition to CEFO?

 

and

 

What kind of rank and trade badges would be on the combat jacket and jumper?

 

Regards,

[Bob Grundy]

A infantry platoon signaller would carry a Sterling (SMG) and from memory no badges referring to him being a signaller would be on his jacket. Rank chevrons would of course be on jacket, heavy jersey wool and shirt. I must qualify the above as it refers to early 1980's.

[JakLomas]

This might be a stupid question but what kind of rank chevrons as I saw in a training film a corporal had the no 2 dress kind but with the white blacked out, was this done regularly or were there different kinds

 

Thanks,

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Bob Grundy]

In the mid to late 1970's rank identification be it chevrons, crowns, pips were in black on a dark green square piece of nylony (sic) cloth and much smaller that previous. At the same time a name badge was introduced in the same fashion. Blacking stuff out was done at sub unit level and not with official sanction.

[JakLomas]

So would blacked out no2 chevrons be ok for 'in the field'? and would they be used on the heavy jersey wool

 

Regards,

[Bob Grundy]

So would blacked out no2 chevrons be ok for 'in the field'? and would they be used on the heavy jersey wool

 

Regards,

They would be on the pullover but left white, but as I have said 1980's the combat rank thingys would be stitched on. Help! some clothing expert come on and give this chap the correct names, 'thingys' will not do.....

[JakLomas]

I think I know what you mean now I did have a pair of coveralls with some on but I think they got took to car boot by my mum ,but I've got a GS Shirt with some like this on

Would they have just been used on the shirt GS or other things?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[AlienFTM]

Hi,

 

Can anyone tell me what equipment would be carried by a platoon signaller in addition to CEFO?

 

and

 

What kind of rank and trade badges would be on the combat jacket and jumper?

 

Regards,

 

Bob covers it in the first reply.

 

My two penn'orth.

 

If you really really want something different, for Ex Spearpoint 80, all Colloquial and above German-speakers (that would be me, the Linguist, then) where issued a strip of six Bundeswehr roundel cockades, meant for their forage caps but worn by us on the left sleeve a stated distance from the shoulder. I forget now, but it meant that on a Combat Jacket it ended up sat on top of the upper arm pocket. It was mounted square, not diamond like the Bundeswehr.

 

This allowed the public to identify people who could give them any sort of answer. There was never an instruction to remove the badges: I wore mine on combats right up until the day I left in 1989. I still have an 85-pattern that bears the last one.

 

In the late 70s we started to get rank badges in black on green squares to be worn on combats. Some, who bought brassards with rank badges, wore combat rank badges on the brassard. Others wore No2 style. I always wore the latter with overalls. Which badges to wear on brassards (and whether brassards were allowed) came down to unit policy.

 

In NI prior to the issue of combat rank badges, No2 badges were worn on combats and normally blacked (or blued if that was the only ink you could get from the NAAFI) out. Newly-promoted Lance Jacks might leave their chevrons clean to emphasise to the Troopers that they were now in an elevated position (I had a troop Lance Jack like that). In the field, if you had No2 style rank badges, there was no compunction in our regiment to change them, but if you were promoted or replaced your clothing, you put your kit into the regimental tailor and it came back in accordance with policy.

 

In units where I served (15/19H, 12 Armd Wksp and RAPC Computer Centre) locally-made rank badges for shirt sleeves came in white, probably made up from condemned bedsheets. The chevrons on the shirt in the pic may have been approriatein the Light Infantry or light infantry or other units as per local custom.

[JakLomas]

Alien

 

What colour would the brassard be would it be OG or DPM?

 

Jak

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[AlienFTM]

Alien

 

What colour would the brassard be would it be OG or DPM?

 

Jak

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Take your pick mate. You were buying this as a private deal between you and the regimental tailor (seamstress) or maybe the PRI* - it was over 30 years ago. The grown ups would tell you what was and was not allowed on uniforms in the individual unit: green or DPM, camouflage or No2 dress tapes. However, the tailor / seamstress had a living to make and sold whatever sold. When attached personnel were posted in (atts and dets were normally on trickle postings and didn't tend to move around on the Arms Plot that dictated which regiments went where, as a body, so they literally trickled into and out of the unit) we might sometimes see camouflage tapes or DPM brassards. Whether their arms were twisted into buying our unit's brassards depended on whether they could keep out of the grown-ups' bad books. If a VM was posted in from an RTR regiment, he could be expected to exchange his black overalls for green for free, but since the brassard was self-purchased, there was good cause for them to hold back from buying new. The legend that was JC, my last cavalry RSM, now sadly RIP, made sure he saw everybody by the simple expedient of introducing an RSM's parade every Wednesday.

 

Since in a cavalry regiment we had camouflage tapes on our combat jackets anyway (brassard not to be worn on combats for guard duty), the function of our brassards was to allow us not to have to send our (green) overalls off to the dhobi with tapes on and get someone else's back without. We might reasonably expect to get our own overalls back, but this could prove optimistic. Hence all NCOs wore brassards with No2 rank badges on the right arm with overalls (it wasn't unknown for troopers to wear them without rank badges, to give them an extra pocket and some pen holes).

 

This book:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/15th-19th-Kings-Royal-Hussars/dp/1855630044

 

(written by my first troop leader, unusually a staff sergeant, later curator of the 15/19H museum within Newcastle's Discovery Museum, now retired) contains a picture of what I am certain is the back of my head while the front of me was being inspected by my troop sergeant. It should, if memory serves, give a good shot of such a brassard. Zero Alpha on my Domestic Command Net (the household's senior control station, aka my wife) stumbled across the book at a huge discount at a Southampton Balloon Festival a good few years ago but I haven't seen it in a long time. It must be knocking around somewhere: it isn't something that would go in the annual clearout to the Bovington Christmas Fayre.

 

_____

 

*PRI President of the Regimental Institute. Strictly speaking the PRI was the crusty old staff sergeant who ran the PRI's Shop, where you could buy:

 

 

• accoutrements to be worn with uniform including:
  • regimental blue scarf worn with combats and on exercise

  • regimental belt worn with No2s and by duty personnel with barrack dress

  • stable belt worn by others in barrack dress (later replaced by an issued nasty plastic green web belt)

  • brass cap badge

  • red felt to sit behind the beret badge (or cut the shape out of the cover of the Regimental Journal in an emergency)

   

   

  [*]Regimental journal (if you lost the one they made you buy anyway and you really wanted another)

  [*]Regimental books (Ralphy Thompson's book above would be a classic example but it was only published three years prior to amalgamation to become the Light Dragoons)

  [*]Anything with a regimental badge on

  [*]civvy kit approved for wear with uniform, for example a nasty bright-green waterproof (later thankfully replaced by DPM, then issued

  [*]anything else where the regiment felt it could separate squaddie from his beer tokens.

   

 

[JakLomas]

Alien

 

So if I were to wear:

 

 

• 85 Pattern Smock
  
• OG Brassard with No. 2 Style chevrons
  
• Lightweights
  
• Heavy Wool
  
• Shirt GS
  
• 58 Pattern Webbing
  

 

 

Would that be ok for a basic Mid-1980's BAOR look?

 

Also what radio would have been used guessing 351/2 correct me if I'm wrong?

 

Regards,

Edited April 8, 2014 by JakLomas