If you could redesign the uniform, what would you add to it?

Everyone Uniform and Drill
351

Exactly: much better than the woolly pully and GPJ, and more modern looking too.

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352

And you could wear medal ribbons all year round!

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353

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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354

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 doesn’t work in my opinion, especially on ops and spannering.

355

I used to see it at Finningley as well (now I am showing my age!)

It’s certainly suboptimal, and practical blues would be a better solution, but in my opinion it’s better than no blue at all.

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356

Short sleeve light blue shirts for summer

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357

Smocks have to have a hood. We didn’t have CS95 Smocks until 2008ish

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358

Yes, the first iteration of CS95 combat jackets weee called ‘field jackets’ rather than smocks — I remember now.

Para smocks and Denison smocks never had hoods though.

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360

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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361

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 didn’t have full zips. They changed that in the second pattern and beyond.

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363

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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364

To be honest, they aren’t really a big problem except for the very smallest of pipsqueaks. The biggest problem is the trousers - they don’t 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 don’t 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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365

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?

367

Of course, if our uniform cost to MOD was reduced - but simply piggybacking onto the general MTP contract,we could argue (along with the ACF) for some additional, smaller, sizes…

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368

Indeed there are smaller sizes in the system now. But because they are fairly new and I guess in limited circulation they haven’t filtered down to the surplus trade.

Now if we could order through our parent stations, that would be fixed.

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369

Money no object - No 1s for all

More realistically - 1 SD cap for cadet SNCOs, Sqn number below the TRF on MTP, like the EAW patches.

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370

When I was a cadet, CWOs and SNCOs wore SD caps anyway (with ATC cap badges: which was easier at the time as they had eyelets for beret badges) and the CWO wore a short sleeved shirt with no brassard (but with a yellow lanyard, which had a slightly different meaning at that time).

Then again, everyone in the continuity drill squad had No. 1 SD jackets (but with no badges and worn with No. 2 SD trousers and without belts, which weren’t fitted at the time).

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371

Daft question, but as kids grow so quickly, including their heads (while leather beret bands are constantly trying to shrink), should we be considering some sort of crazy clothing that allows greater flexibility to grow with them?

I don’t know what that looks like, and it would cost a bit more, but if it was made well…

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372

You mean moving back to the idea of polo shirts & baseball caps that’s been on the cards on-and-off for a decade or more?

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373

I wasn’t actually thinking that, as I don’t think it’s necessarily better. A bit baggier with polo shirts, but I’ve seen many cadets in baggy shirts.

PCS-style tops left untucked would do that job.

So perhaps it comes down to trousers with a crazy band design and trousers which can roll down as you grow? :joy:

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