My dad is ex-RAF and despite it being many years ago he said there was a method in the mass ness to the endless foot drill, high uniform standards & petty bureaucracy.
He said that all the things that can easily be slacked off when in times of war allowing the troops to divert the energy they had in peacetime to the sole objective of winning the battle.
Without the overall fussy uniform etc you had no reserves of resilience built up & nothing to slacken off & turn a blind eye to to make the troops live that little easier & happier.
So I would take an overly fussy perhaps old fashioned uniform as standard work wear as it sets the right mind & sets from the start the right mindset for percuting a war.
Out of curiosity, have any other of the Queens airforces (Canada, Aus, NZ) changed their working dress? It’s just that I imagine that they have a less traditional mindset & not adverse to updating to what they need.
IMHO, old fashioned, overly fussy work wear won’t attract the next generation of talent. Especially since the traditional benefits of being in the armed forces are slowly reducing.
I would say that an employer that values it’s workforce, and shows it by providing a uniform that is both practical and comfortable for day to day use is far more likely to recruit and keep the standard of personnel it needs to be successful.
I disagree (slightly) with the recruit bit - military service is always initially targeted at the young/school leavers - it has to be on pure pragmatics.
What you state is completely correct for people with experience of the workplace & most importantly for retention - the school leavers won’t have that experience so are still in the “oh shiny” stage & so like a uniform that looks smart & corresponds to the perception of “military”.
I suppose the question is of how you square the circle of something that makes people look so smart & they can take pride but is practical for day to day working.
The all climate style shirts are not the answer (despite what police forces may think).
If push came to shove…I could get behind this one. IF they added a tie! Or wear it open collar. Both Practical and some-what smart. Those cargo trousers better be required to have ironed in creases!
Canada is even more intriguing. From what I can see in the ‘60s? they unified the forces and everyone went into forest green apparently for their No3 dress (our No1s). Then they reintroduced separate uniforms for the 3 branches with an airforce blue suit.
This can be worn with / without jacket or with a jumper.
No4 CADPAT combats is now the standard barrack dress & operational dress (so would replace our No2/No3s, but it seems the RCAF wear their more flexible No3s more than we do.
For a small force the Canadians seem to have a lot of uniform options.
RNZAF seems similar the current RAF uniform, but they have a blue BDU/PCS type working dress as well as multicam combats.
I quite like the idea of a no. 1/2 suit with jacket or jumper options but the problem is if you wore it regularly, you’d end up needing a special pair of trousers for best anyway, and colour match might be an issue. So effectively you’d keep the original suit (jacket + trousers) for best, and have a second pair for everyday wear. Which puts us right back where we started except that the quality might suffer.
I’m not on Facebook but if you Google image search ‘Canadian Air Force uniform’ you’ll find a photo from Facebook of them welcoming an RAF ACM and you can see the uniforms side by side. Theirs looks a bit gash without a belt.
(OT: incidentally that image search also took me to a page stating that the RCAF started calling everyone Aviators in 2014, which may be where we got the idea - they had briefly been privates during the period of jointery)
Silly question perhaps, and this may have been discussed elsewhere in the thread above but what is the reason for the review?
I see the mock up uniforms and all I can think is, but it isn’t broken…why does it need fixing?
And if money is such an issue there are three money saving options.
Remove blues entirely and move to No3 uniform as a “working dress” with No1s for anything formal.
Adopt to the RN blue MTP design
Like 2 but in an “RAF Blue” if an RAF identity if critical
People wearing suits to work is not uncommon. It might not be common across all working environments, but having a clean footwear, tidy trousers and shirt is not unreasonable expectations for an “office” situation which is the likely place “blues uniform” is worn. Those doing anything else tend to have their own uniform, be it PTIs with sports kit, chefs with their whites, pilots in their grow bags, or ground crew in a version of No3.
When MTP first came in, the Army also tried to encourage the use of a green version of our No 2s, for use in offices and barracks, because it was cheaper than MTP.
It clearly didn’t last long, but showed that MTP isn’t a money saver.
I have never seen the point of Blue Camouflage. It doesn’t work as camo, doesn’t look smart and probably cost more than plain fabric. RAF Blue PCS style uniform is the way forward and keep it one colour, no contrast panels or stable belt style piping. The idea of trousers with optional jacket or pully is much better and cheaper than No1 suit but the supply chain will have to be able to source material of one colour.
As has been said above, when the RAF gets to within 1000 miles of a war zone. Everything goes camo.
