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Tan berets and other CANSOFCOM, JTF, and CSOR fashions [1st split: CSOR]

Remius said:
I’m with Puckchaser.  In fact I’d be worried if they weren’t trying to be different. 

Navy have their whites, army has everything under the sun like kilts, blackened buttons, forage caps, cross belts, chain mail, patrol dress, red unit identifier badges, cabines, red sashes.  The airforce sure likes to wear flight suits when they can and some are advocating for kilts for them...

If anything the CAF is a big salad of everyone trying to be different yet the same.

And after seeing them up close and personal as l did, they get my thumbs up too.  Looks fantastic in the flesh.  At least they're not running around in puffy North Face jackets. 

I hear talk they're going to blow dough putting us all (navy) in high collar white tunics next year too.  Its fashion week everywhere.
 
Personally I'd love to see the Army adopt the bloused high boots that CANSOF is doing, it looks 100x sharper
 
Rifleman62 said:
Garrison Boots???

They appeared to be Corcorcan in style, at least the ones I saw the guys wearing at the parade.
 
Rifleman62 said:
Garrison Boots???
I personally liked Garrison Boots. They were comfortable and looked good. However, we do need to sort out our ‘combat’ boots.


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RocketRichard said:
I personally liked Garrison Boots. They were comfortable and looked good. However, we do need to sort out our ‘combat’ boots.

Why?  Looking good is far more important to the Liberals than being good.
 
Remius said:
… I’d be worried if they weren’t trying to be different. 
Does it worry you that SOCOM does not have a similar need to be different but instead seems comfortable with its members wearing the service dress of Army, Navy, Air Force or Marine?

PuckChaser said:
I guess I read too much into the title when it said "other CANSOFCOM, JTF and CSOR fashions". 
Not sure if you are being sarcastic here, or if you really believe that you can take the full breadth of a threads title and assume that anything said within the thread always applies to that full scope of the title.  But I guess it does not matter.  I now see where you are talking from, and I understand that you want to talk about all the uniforms.

PuckChaser said:
You're going to be really upset when they finally get these guys a SF capbadge, for what will likely cost under $500K.
I thought I’d heard they were already wearing it.  Cap badges are one of the things Bercuson wrote about if you want to go check it out in the book I referenced.  Is that half million dollar price something you invented, or is that based on something you’ve seen or heard?

PuckChaser said:
Good on them for trying to standardize the multicam uniforms I see around base and at CANEX. I think I've seen no less than 3 different versions of the shirts with various velcro or colour patterns. Hardly professional looking, looks like the troops went and bought their own shirts.
You are missing the point.  Canada has been in operational theatres where CANSOFCOM has had on operational requirement to change the disruptive pattern of their uniform, and they did so.  The Army also changes the disruptive pattern on its uniform when the theatre requires.  And CANSOFCOM seems to have determined that the land ops uniform worn by the remainder of the CAF is adequate (because that is exactly the uniform they are getting in a different pattern).

So the concern is not spawned from “minute they try to standardize a uniform” but because procurement documentation openly states the requirement for the uniform is to look different from the remainder of the CAF while falsely implying that each “service” has its own distinct operational uniforms.

I would have nothing to complain about if they could have claimed some operational requirement in the solicitation message, or if they had applied the same caveat as was seen on the CANSOFCOM flight suit that is intended for “where standard Canadian Armed Forces clothing is unsuitable” (of course, that caveat would imply they are not using MultiCam as a garrison dress).

PuckChaser said:
So its appropriate that a Nav Comm who is now a SF Op or CBRN Op (had to OT into the trade), wears their RCN DEU and former trade accouterments? 
Well, I suppose accouterments specific to the new occupations could be designed for each of the RCN, CA and RCAF uniforms.  But we’ve already acknowledge that every other force generating command has a unique dress uniform (hopefully we are not on the slippery slope where CFINTCOMD and the HSS stovepipe also decide they are too good for the existing environments and also in need of a distinctive uniform).

I will admit, I am disappointed that a US Army uniform was chosen as the model for the DEU.  I understand that the SSF wore US Army uniforms in the Second World War, but US Army uniforms they were.  I would have preferred something not ambiguously American and, given that the command includes two units titled as being Joint and a third unit drawn from the RCAF, it would probably also be appropriate that the uniform not be ambiguously Army.  I know there is no good historical uniform that is Canadian Joint.  That just would have required that someone conceive of a design while looking forward and not back.

 
I take it you haven't seen this uniform in person yet? I was sceptical until l saw it that day.  It is somewhat similar to pinks and greens in colour and cut I'll grant it but their lineage goes back to the 1SSF so fair dinkum, l say.  It's tasteful and well done.  BZ to them.
 
I thought that it was rather foolish/pompous at first. If billed as a "service dress" uniform, I still, at least a little bit, see it that way, but now look on it more as "regimental dress" and therefore accept it completely. I have no problem with kilted, bearskinned, and other peculiar traditional regimental uniforms, after all. It certainly presents a more cohesive appearance rather than the usual three-ringed-circus seen everywhere else.

In the good old days when everybody was in green, all qualified members of the Airborne Regiment wore maroon berets, Airborne capbadges, and jump boots regardless of occupation and parent regiment or branch. Today, two of the three coloured uniforms cannot be worn with division/brigade/other patches, which I think is wrong. We wore the 4 CMBG patch in 444 Squadron, and many of us were miffed when we were no longer allowed to do so upon being stuck into light blue.
 
Eye In The Sky said:
Great, I got a new command badge.  What I really needed was a decent effin flashlight so I don't have to buy my own at a PX again...$500k could buy a lot of good, tactical flashlights and decent boots for my Sqn.

Hey, at least you guys get to buy flashlights. We techs are on tool control and have to use the flashlights on the tool board. If they work and we can find batteries.

We could also spend that 500k on training  so we don't have guys sitting around for 2 years waiting on a career course required to do their primary job.
 
Tcm621 said:
We could also spend that 500k on training  so we don't have guys sitting around for 2 years waiting on a career course required to do their primary job.

There's that too! 

I've got nothing against DEUs and all that...I just think all these "only 500k" projects add up and I see where the money could surely be better spent.

If its only a few hundred thousand here or there...they can drop some of it on my Mid-Nov pay!  :sinister:

 
Eye In The Sky said:
There's that too! 

I've got nothing against DEUs and all that...I just think all these "only 500k" projects add up and I see where the money could surely be better spent.

If its only a few hundred thousand here or there...they can drop some of it on my Mid-Nov pay!  :sinister:

Not if it's run on Phoenix!  :skull:        :moose:
 
Oldgateboatdriver said:
Not if it's run on Phoenix!  :skull:        :moose:

Actually, you probably have a better chance of getting that kind of pay under Phoenix...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-overpayments-ottawa-70-million-1.3969455

 
Remius said:
Actually, you probably have a better chance of getting that kind of pay under Phoenix...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-overpayments-ottawa-70-million-1.3969455

"The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency." Eugene McCarthy
 
I'm rather ambiguous concerning the issuing of a special "DEU" for the folks at CANSOFCOM.  Technically, it's not an independent service but a joint service command, so the fact that personnel from the Navy, Army and Air Force are serving in it should be acknowledged.  Everyone had either the tan beret or the tan inserts in the dress cap or wedge cap to mark them, not to mention the command badge on the jacket.

The idea of bringing out a whole different uniform kit for people in CANSOFCOM, atop the waste of money when (as people on this chat and elsewhere have commented on ad nauseam) there are a billion things more vital to worry about, just strikes me as creating some sort of "fourth armed service" visually.  Are we trying to establish our own version of the Marine Corps while refusing to acknowledge where the people who pass selection processes and serve in CANSOFCOM came from originally?  Don't we want to show that our special forces are made of people who come from the traditional service, who are willing to do something new, exciting and vital to the national defence?  The tan berets/cap inserts and the command badge was enough in my eyes.

Ah, well...!

If this is the way it's going to be, let it be so...

It's still a waste of money if you ask me.

But now, I'm putting on my "insignia geek" hat and nitpick?  Since it has been the tradition of CANSOFCOM that personnel get to wear their branch/corps/regimental insignia on their uniforms, how exactly will the rank insignia be displayed?  Will the Navy officers get to have their executive curls?  Air Force personnel wear pearl grey insignia?  Or are the badges going all Army crowns and Vimy stars?  I hope, at least, that the origins and trades of the personnel in the command WILL be reflected on their rank and service insignia.  At least let THAT happen!

Okay, "insignia geek" hat off. ;)
 
Fred Herriot said:
The idea of bringing out a whole different uniform kit for people in CANSOFCOM, atop the waste of money when (as people on this chat and elsewhere have commented on ad nauseam) there are a billion things more vital to worry about, just strikes me as creating some sort of "fourth armed service" visually. 
It's still a waste of money if you ask me.

They are considered a 4th, independent command, not a joint command.

Fred Herriot said:
But now, I'm putting on my "insignia geek" hat and nitpick?  Since it has been the tradition of CANSOFCOM that personnel get to wear their branch/corps/regimental insignia on their uniforms, how exactly will the rank insignia be displayed?  Will the Navy officers get to have their executive curls?  Air Force personnel wear pearl grey insignia?  Or are the badges going all Army crowns and Vimy stars?  I hope, at least, that the origins and trades of the personnel in the command WILL be reflected on their rank and service insignia.  At least let THAT happen!

Okay, "insignia geek" hat off. ;)

Last I saw them, they all wore the same Combats and Berets, but the rank insignia was indicative of their former branch (i.e. the Major I met had Air-Force style rank slip-ons).

That being said, these particular personnel I met were support trades. I'm not sure if it's any different for operators. If, for example, I was to join as Special Operations Assault Officer (lol), would my slip-ons stay executive curl, or switch to pips?
 
Lumber said:
That being said, these particular personnel I met were support trades. I'm not sure if it's any different for operators. If, for example, I was to join as Special Operations Assault Officer (lol), would my slip-ons stay executive curl, or switch to pips?

Duh, it would be just Velcro, along with your name and everything else, because it's tactical.  :rofl:
 
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