Uniform Insignia Forum

UK Space Command was established as a joint command, but currently resides with the RAF. Given the limited size of the UK space mission, I can't see this being likely to change and I think it's extremely unlikely ever to become an independent service in its own right. https://www.raf.mod.uk/what-we-...

Hello All!

Seasons greetings and very best wishes for the New Year!

Miklós!

Hi, hope all is good with you my friend!

I’ll take a look and see if I can find them — I should be able to access the originals.

If re-posting looks like too much hassle then I’ll email them to you, although I don’t really regard them as my best work... (!)

Seems fair enough to me! smilies-15 It was quite a few years ago but, if I remember correctly, the concept was that as this was effectively starting from scratch, the patterns of the uniforms wold be based on the same generic design but with differing base colours for each service and rank markings ...

Yep, that's why I mentioned it...

Yeah, I get that -- I just don't see that creating a separate service adds anything beyond what they're already doing. It just sounds like someone is empire-building. A central co-ordinating bureau with assigned staff from the all branches, rather than each branch re-inventing the wheel (or competin...

Ah, all things come round and around... Just leaving this here for your perusal (page 1 in particular is relevant to this thread): [url]http://forum.uniforminsignia.org/viewtopic.php?f=125&t=5363[/url] The original concept was, as I noted at the time, a hypothetical civilian NASA-based "Uni...

Yeah, that seems reasonable -- and if you think of the way that successive European conflicts like the Wars of Austrian Succession and the Napoleonic Wars played out, that's pretty much what happened. As a side question, your mentioning of the Mediterranean made me wonder: how would a Roman navy fit...

I'm thinking about it... I have ideas jostling for position inside my head but it'll be a while yet before I have the time to sit down and lose a few hours drawing them -- and the first attempt always ends up being refined and updated. I can't think of anything I got totally how I wanted it first ti...

Very nice! Is Lee Majors the first Komissar? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0QVJOEwXac Ha! Guest General of the week...! I think his armoury was rather more impressive than I had in mind for a fun and child-friendly diversion but there's only so much the Elf Defence force could achieve with toy s...

The attached images are complete but don't fully display in this forum setup; if you right-click (or the equivalent) and either open in a new tab or download you'll get the full image!

Ha! I'd forgotten about these again (thanks, Miklós...!)

Seasons greetings and best wishes to you all!

Hi Mark -- yes, that's pretty good! I like the parallels with China and the idea that there would a sense of a general cultural identity that would be separate from allegiance to whichever actual political entity (or entities) happen to be the nation state (or states) at any given time. Depending on...

Allegedly it was haute couture for triumphal parades in about 100 BC...!!

(OK, maybe not for now though...)

The all-conquering armies of mighty Rome wearing short leather skirts with studs and feathers on their heads. Could be an interesting look...

You do make me laugh...!! smilies-15 Sorry, my friend -- it's going to be a while before I get to this in any meaningful way. Just because I don't have time to sit down in front of a computer and do detailed drawings, it doesn't mean I'm not thinking about it! I'm very interested in the discussions ...

Oh, believe me, when I'm not on-call for a big ICU, I will totally have a go at this...!!

This is a great one....!

I could have SO much fun with this!!

Wow...! Hey, I remember those -- Flashback!!

I'm sure that thread is still kicking around her somewhere...

That's a pretty neat concept -- I like that and I think it would work well.

Oh, and I wonder if they would have avoided the Eagle as an emblem, because of the links to the US arms...?

Maybe some specific choice of a bird from the Southern states...? A falcon or hawk of some sort...?

Assuming that a hypothetical Air Branch wouldn't come into existence until about 1910 (-ish) and thinking of the uniform styles and variants around at that time... The use of propellers with varying numbers of blades is an obvious alternative to the naval-type enlisted insignia. One thought that cro...

Yep, much like what happened in the UK with the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service before their eventual merger into the Royal Air Force. I guess whether a subsequent merger happens (or how it happens!) has as much to do with politics and personalities as it does with practicalities....

There are two immediate thoughts for a "CSAF" -- the first is that the obvious solution, which most countries used when their Air Forces were formed, is to pick either the Army-pattern or the Navy-pattern and essentially use one of those, either directly or with minor modifications; the se...

Given the nature of the role, I didn't think there would be much need to worry about identifying grades at a distance. If one was being pedantic, one might suggest that the General of the Space Force should probably have the Arms of the USA above the five stars, as do the formal versions of the insi...

Actually, I rather like Marc's original designs...

considering we were using the same source material, I say that was pretty much unavoidable. Indeed...! Great minds think alike... smilies-15 (By the way, I've added a few details to the post above so feel free to have another look.) I like the whole design, especially the fairly elegant way the sub...

I developed these without realising what Marc had already posted -- any similarity is entirely coincidental...! smilies-23 I've also realised that it looks a LOT like the insignia the Canadians are just getting rid of...! Oh well... (!). smilies-16 smilies-24 smilies-15 OK, my take on a merged UK de...

Actually, given my background, I really should do the combined Medical Service first (!) but I'd need to think about how that might have actually worked (not to mention the likely political shenaningans around the process of merger and who got what job...!) before ploughing into producing concepts f...

Stop it! I just don't have the time at the moment...!! smilies-09 smilies-15 That aside, just a few questions: What sort of time-period did you have in mind...? Amphibious: wouldn't the RM already cover that...? A lot of those concepts are very, erm, "un-British" and sound more like the se...

I have a lot of background reading to do if I'm going to be able to contribute to this -- I don't know the source material at all!

Do you have any quotes or references from the series?

Hello...

I'm guessing you mean the topic markers on the left hand side of the index pages for the various sections of the forum? Pavel can probably give you the definitive answer as to exactly what they all are but take a quick look and you'll notice that the top-level index differentiates threads with new p...

I guess it's all a question of history and tradition -- and these will, of course, vary from country to country. Most ranks and roles will date back to the origin of regularised standing armies with formalised command structures. Contemporary ranks will undoubtedly have changed somewhat from those e...

Nearly forgot:

The star of the Order of the Thistle in bronze as a rank insignia (Scots Guards regimental pattern if I'm not much mistaken):

: Thistle star bronze.jpg (2.91 KiB) Viewed 23053 times

Your big picture of CC House is still his former Strathclyde uniform but it definitely gives you a clear view of the "thistle" gorgets. You mentioned "St John Ambulance" -- this is a actually non-statutory voluntary organisation. The statutory National Health Service provider for...

OK, here are a few pics I've trawled from that interweb thingie... It's worth bearing in mind that some of the older pics showing the thistle-type gorgets will be from the separate pre-amalgamation regional police services across Scotland. I'll try to illustrate what I mean about the style of the th...

The catalogues from Firmin, the uniform tailors and accoutrement manufacturers, list navy blue gorgets embellished with silver thistle leaves for Scottish Chief Constables alongside black gorgets with silver oak leaves for the rest of the UK. I haven't found any decent pictures though. Given how muc...

If I remember correctly, yes, the Chief Constable gorgets used thistles of a similar style to the peaks.

I'll try to find some pics.

Just for reference... Some current versions of the Thistle Star (albeit used as collar badges and so on, rather than specifically as rank badges): Thistle Star.jpg Thistle Star 2.jpg Also, the Police in Scotland specifically use Thistles as peak embroidery for senior officers in place of the usual o...

Nice work, Marc -- like those a lot! smilies-15 The historical claymore longsword would work too but I rather like the basket hilt broadsword just as you have used it. It's distinctive appearance and well-recognised connection with Sottish troops make it a great choice. It occurred to me that the st...

It's likely to be an academic question only; at the moment, the polls are broadly 30-35% who say they would vote "yes" to independence for Scotland and 55-60% who say they would vote "no" to independence. I have not yet heard a cohesive argument for what currency an independent S...

Justin, that's exactly the kind of generic pattern that I was thinking of! The pattern I was playing with was slightly different but the principle is completely what I had in mind and I really like your sequential approach to the progression of insignia. Nicely done! Funnily enough, it reminds me a ...

Some interesting ideas but this sounds to me like one of those discussions where we need (if we can) to leave our pre-conceived ideas behind. Things like rank markings inevitably have social, cultural and historical contexts: is there a form of social "class" distinction that separates an ...

But had you noticed that those were by Marc Pasquin, regular contributor here...?

Ha!

Yes, that might be delving a little *too* far into historical tradition to be practical with contemporary uniforms!

Time for plan "B"...

All fair points! I guess to those of us outside Canada and Quebec there probably is a tendency to either over-play or perhaps mis-assign the significance of the historic French cultural connection. Regarding the style of epaulettes for the hypothetical insignia, the bottom line regarding the insigni...

Surely that's the whole point about a hypothetical question like this: it's all one great big "what if...?" We're not asking what the likely reality would be, we're speculating about how things *might* evolve under one particular set of circumstances. I did wonder about how things might pl...

one small correction: it should be Maréchal du Québec, not de . "de québec" means "from quebec city". D'ohh... my French is a little rusty. Close but no cigar, huh....?! smilies-15 I'll correct it with any updates. Who would bear that title anyway ? Honnourary title given to a d...

OK guys, this is just a first pass at what I was describing above. Ignore the cap badges as they are really only intended as place-fillers for appropriate regimental badges. Having said that, I guess the basic concept could work for general officers / senior staff officers; alternatively the generic...

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