ASL Veteran Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 Actually, the pictures reinforce my take that the insignia are subdued, not bright and colorful sniper targets as they are sometimes in the game. But, as I said "it's not all or nothing" as you guys keep insisting. You clearly don't watch many WW2 documentaries on the Military or History channels. But, you should as the thousands of hours avalable give a very good picture of what uniforms, insignia etc looked like in battles and it would be a good education for you. You should probably keep in mind that many WW2 photos and video have had the divisional insignia obscured or removed by a censor. Modern US soldiers still wear their divisional insignia on their uniforms, although the insignia is all green and black now instead of multi colored. I don't believe the US Army switched to the green and black divisional insignia until sometime after the Vietnam war. I think the insignia is now attached by velcro, but when the patches were sewn onto the uniforms it was done with a specific number of stitches as per regulations (I know because I had to count them!). The divisional patches were very difficult to remove once sewn on and a determined effort to remove it might leave a hole in your sleeve. I did a quick search through some Vietnam pictures and it appears that the colored divisional patches were phased out sometime in 1967 or thereabouts. It's pretty hit or miss as to whether soldiers were wearing any insignia at all - even with regards to rank. They probably switched to the collar rank insignia about the same time they switched to the green and black divisional insignia. It seems like the 1st Infantry Division were the most consistent in wearing their divisional insignia though - First Cavalry Division was the least consistent or so it seemed from a quick photo search. Here's a nice shot of an infantryman from the Big Red One http://www.pbase.com/d_berry/image/111026576 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjkerner Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 You should probably keep in mind that many WW2 photos and video have had the divisional insignia obscured or removed by a censor. Modern US soldiers still wear their divisional insignia on their uniforms, although the insignia is all green and black now instead of multi colored. I don't believe the US Army switched to the green and black divisional insignia until sometime after the Vietnam war. I think the insignia is now attached by velcro, but when the patches were sewn onto the uniforms it was done with a specific number of stitches as per regulations (I know because I had to count them!). The divisional patches were very difficult to remove once sewn on and a determined effort to remove it might leave a hole in your sleeve. I did a quick search through some Vietnam pictures and it appears that the colored divisional patches were phased out sometime in 1967 or thereabouts. It's pretty hit or miss as to whether soldiers were wearing any insignia at all - even with regards to rank. They probably switched to the collar rank insignia about the same time they switched to the green and black divisional insignia. It seems like the 1st Infantry Division were the most consistent in wearing their divisional insignia though - First Cavalry Division was the least consistent or so it seemed from a quick photo search. Here's a nice shot of an infantryman from the Big Red One http://www.pbase.com/d_berry/image/111026576 My brother was wearing the green and black 1st Cav patch in the Central Highlands in June of '66 when he first got there. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Splinty Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 The enlisted still wore black and green sew on sleeve rank until '68 or '69 I believe. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 That is a very vaid point ASL Vet. However, I do know that in the 40's that sort of touching up would be quite crude and noticeable compared to the magic that can be done these days. I was in the movie biz for many years before becoming a military contractor. So, am used to looking for altered images. The thousands of hours of docs that I have seen do not show that sort of blurring out. And as I repeatedly say, this is not an all or nothing issue. Simply that in the majority of images, insignia are hard to see. I did not say that it is impossible to see insignia in all pictures. Also, the reason I asked the original questions was that in CMBN in particular, many of the uniforms (CW especially) seemed to have sported rather bright "brand new" insignia. Altho' I have only played Axis so far in CMFI, I think the uniforms (esp German) in CMFI are a big improvement on CMBN. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akd Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 Someone should make a B&W film mod replacing all textures with grayscale, blurry versions to replicate how WWII really looked. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ASL Veteran Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 The enlisted still wore black and green sew on sleeve rank until '68 or '69 I believe. Yeah, I was wondering about that. I saw some photos with the sleeve rank but many with no insignia of any type at all. In WW2 the sleeve ranks were probably still yellow chevrons rather than green and black. Most of the Vietnam pictures still have the soldiers wearing the black strip with "US Army" in yellow above the left pocket though so I don't think it's the color that's bothering them. It's probably rank that's an issue because of snipers but a little color on the shoulder probably wouldn't mean that much one way or another if you are running about in the middle of Nijmegen. I once told a Vietnam era medic that since I wear glasses I was always worried about reflections from the sun giving me away. He told me something to the effect of 'It doesn't really matter what you do cause when it's your time that's when it happens. It's completely out of your control'. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mord Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 Well, the ORIGINAL bitch going back many months, was as to whether US and CW guys wore the patches NOT how dirty they were. And I don't think anybody would disagree that dirty unis and patches wouldn't be realistic. I prefer them. But until the dudes saw some major combat and were crawling through mud and death, or had just been issued new unis after being refitted and removed from the line, patches are gonna be clean. I have read at least one account of where US infantry were ordered to remove identifiers because they didn't want the Germs to know who they were up against. But, so what? You can use or not use the mods. That's what this boils down to. Or you can dirty the mods yourself. LOL like you said Erwin, it's not an all or nothing...you have choice...utilize it. This is really a non argument. APOLOGIES to Rambler for the major swing in off topic-ness. Mord. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted September 22, 2012 Share Posted September 22, 2012 People seem to cream when someone duplicates that grayscale look for a CM pic, so maybe... 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mord Posted September 23, 2012 Share Posted September 23, 2012 Somebody did a mod like that for CMBO one time. Mord. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted September 25, 2012 Share Posted September 25, 2012 Rambler, Believe you'll like this Lee Enfield No. 4 Mk1 Service rifle video. Crystal clear, high resolution, and with closeups of all kinds of key parts of the rifle. Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rambler Posted September 27, 2012 Author Share Posted September 27, 2012 Thanks John! Great video. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Kettler Posted September 30, 2012 Share Posted September 30, 2012 Rambler, You're welcome! Regards, John Kettler 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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