Idk, evading the SWO requires some serious tactical prowess.
And indeed the TAF moved to khaki party because it was useful to wear camo on the ground and also because of the fear of reprisals taken out on downed aircrew by the German civpop
For the avoidance of doubt I am not suggesting we go back to battle dress
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Iād prefer that to the awful GPJ.
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Bring back the Thunderbird Jacketā¦
ā¦and we were allowed to wear it indoors as well 
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Exactly: much better than the woolly pully and GPJ, and more modern looking too.
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And you could wear medal ribbons all year round!
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Mixing used to be a lot more common. Before the GPJ, people wore combat jackets (pre-CS95, when no one called the standard jackets smocks) as an outer layer over No. 2 SD.
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Yeah, lots of my old crusty management post facebook pictures of them as SACs around remembrance etc.
But they are all mostly rotary.
Personally feel how the new kit is arguably better, no need to double hat with shirts and combat trousers.
Army can do their thing, you know, tRaDiatIon.
Just doesnāt work in my opinion, especially on ops and spannering.
I used to see it at Finningley as well (now I am showing my age!)
Itās certainly suboptimal, and practical blues would be a better solution, but in my opinion itās better than no blue at all.
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Short sleeve light blue shirts for summer
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Smocks have to have a hood. We didnāt have CS95 Smocks until 2008ish
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Yes, the first iteration of CS95 combat jackets weee called āfield jacketsā rather than smocks ā I remember now.
Para smocks and Denison smocks never had hoods though.
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Seems like there were hoods available though, just they didnāt connectā¦ Youād look a bit like a tactical nanny.
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They did, they had buttons on the inside of the hood neck, and there are button holes on the neck of the field jacket.
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Yes, but that was I think because they were smocks in the more literal sense, in that the first pattern Denison Smock had to go over the head, as they didnāt have full zips. They changed that in the second pattern and beyond.
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Ah, thatās brilliant. Shame they didnāt retain that in the later CS95s and PCS kit.
I used to have a hood for my Para smock that buttoned on the same way.
Edit: On second thoughts, the buttons were on the collar and the buttonholes in the hood.
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To be honest, they arenāt really a big problem except for the very smallest of pipsqueaks. The biggest problem is the trousers - they donāt work well for the lanky. The longer leg lengths are only available at quite large waist sizes. When you go from 80 to 85cm leg, the smallest waist size available increases by 8cm. When you go from 85 to 90, it goes up 12cm. In the old CS95 days you had the drawstring as a backup if something happened to your belt, but you donāt get that with PCS. I have a cadet whose trousers were 80/72 but too short, so I had to give her 85/80. 8cm/3 inches is a lot of extra space on the waist!
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I wonder who decided that all tall people had to be fat?
Edit: Similarly, I went down a few collar sizes recently and exchanged some shirts: the new shirts have shorter arms as well! Who thinks that losing weight makes your arms shorter?
At AFC Harrogate, we had to have at least 3 pairs custom-made to order for some of the new recruits according to the platoon staff. For instance, one lad looked like a lamp post ā his waist was probably a 28, and his legs almost reached my waist (Iām 5ā11-ish). Obviously the cadets canāt have kit custom-made, so I suppose itās just an oversight under the assumption that funds can be thrown at the issue, which isnāt true.