Evening all,
Quick question regarding the difference between suede boots and desert boots. My Mendil’s have given up the ghost so I’m after something new!
AP states you can’t have desert boots. Does this include suede boots like AKU’s?
I doubt it, given that the Aku’s are a standard boot to be worn with MTP.
I think it’s a badly worded instruction - it shouldn’t talk about materials, but colour. What it means is ‘don’t wear the very pale desert boots with this uniform’, but can’t bring itself to be so obvious.
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Remember that it was written a time when there were basically two types of boots, suede desert boots and standard leather boots.
It made sense at the time.
I always tell people to stick to leather… Stops the triggering of people
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The issue pair of boots are pretty appalling - I got myself a second hand pair of Haix leather boots, they look massive when on (a bit like clown boots!) but they are super comfy and warm.
Yeah I use Altbergs. Love them!
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Fun Sponge 
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Fixed that for you. 
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my experience contradicts this…
a friend at my parent station offered to get me some boots as he was preparing himself to visit stores for uniform and 2 weeks later dropped off a Hiax box, can’t say I have worn them yet (C19) but can’t imagine he got them from anywhere else
There are issue boots and issue boots. You got the latter.
Just buy the set that make you look most ally and are the most comfortable. It’s a secondary uniform to us, they will get battered on firing points and in the field. The expectation of having immaculate boots of any sort should not be entertained where people are paying for their own.
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I had to re-educate a Staff NCO in my old wing for telling a cadet they were not allowed to wear Suede boots. He went on to say that all boots in the RAFAC had to be letter because you had to be able to polish them.
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Is Suede not a type of Leather? Hehe
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Suede desert boots became very popular in the British Army in WW2 among junior officers. (Where they gained the unofficial title of ‘brothel creepers.)’
The late Alan Whicker, a Lt in the Devons, and subsequently transferred to the AFPU was very pleased with his new pair upon arrival to the Western Desert, less so when his batman attempted to bull them to a nice shine…
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As a related aside- I notice that most (all?) branches of the US military appear to wear what certainly look very-much like suede boots when wearing multicam OCP combat clothing (ie their ‘true Crye’ version of British MTP kit).
[Also- as a matter of rare ‘historical’ record: I do remember back in the 1990s just how strangely-popular “desert boots” were, worn with classic DPM greens, by RAFVR(GD) Officers, even right up to the '97 merge with the RAuxAF.
Now that looks seriously odd: far too much of a contrast, IMO. The sight of various regular RAF Warrant Offrs fruitlessly trying to re-educate these pesky part-time (but essential) officers in the error of their ways about these suede boots was hilarious.
I even saw one stubborn Flt Lt during a late taceval getting a pair of (tied-together) new black & shiny 9-hole high-leg combat boots gently placed around their neck by a spluttering WO…the VR Flight Lieuy winked at me afterwards and said, “well, tomorrow I shall just have to wear my No.6 shorts with the desert boots, to make sure the Warrant gets his morning exercise!”]
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Not the hero we deserved. But the hero we needed.
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