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British Insignia (Again)


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First off, thanks to all those who have been able to help me with this little project; it's coming along nicely.

Now, on to the request...

I have been unable to locate examples of a few patches and am also missing a lot of info on the regiments from the armoured regiments. Here is the list:

“Suffolk” shoulder title

“Lincolnshire” shoulder title

“Royal Warwickshire” shoulder title

“Dorsetshire” shoulder title

“Essex” shoulder title

“Monmouthshire” shoulder title

“North Stafford” shoulder title

“King's Shropshire L.I.” maroon/green flash???

2nd Household Cavalry

1st Grenadier Guards (Motor)

32nd Guards Infantry Bde

11th Hussars

8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars

1st Royal Tank Regt

5th Royal Tank Regt

5th Dragoon Guards

1st Rifle Brigade

Inns of Court Regt

2nd Northampton Yeomanry

23rd Hussars

2nd Fife & Forfar Yeomanry

3rd Royal Tank Regt

8th Rifle Brigade

22nd Dragoons

4th Royal Tank Regt

11th Royal Tank Regt

1st Lothians & Border Horse

Westminster Dragoons

7th Royal Tank Regt

1st Fife & Forfar Yeomanry

141st Royal Arm’d Corps

5th Assault Engineers

6th Assault Engineers

42nd Assault Engineers

Any further assistance would be much appreciated and will help me finish up this project.

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Intersting site, but it's pretty much useless for our needs, unfortunately. The Scottish tartans don't even list what regiment they are for, and there is no listing of regimental titles peculiar to specific brigades/divisions. Unfoturtunately, some regiments had different or unofficial titles for some battalions; the trick is in finding examples of them all rather than the standard clothing issue models.

Thanks for the suggestion, though, the site is laid out nicely. There are many omissions as well - likely the same omissions that Darknight has in his listing?

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Michael is right, the site has some interesting stuff but few examples (I did find a few of the shoulder titles I was missing though). The armoured regiments seem to be hard to find info on. :confused:

BTW Michael, I will send you a working copy of the info I have collated this week (I upgraded my system and was swearing a blue streak most of the week trying to make everything compatible again tongue.gif )...I'm working until Tuesday, so it will be right around mid-week.

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Darknight, I've been interested in this subject for a long time too. You really ought to get hold of 'The British Soldier 1944-45, Vol 1' by Jean Bouchery - its got loads of examples but perhaps not all you want what you want. Also for British armoured uniform insignia - 'Tank and AFV Crew Uniforms since 1916' by Martin Windrow.

Looking at the Bouchery book suggests the whole subject can be very complex. The whole range of shoulder-strap loops, shoulder titles, Scottish regt. badges, formation badges, arm-of-service strips, regimental flashes and badges, proficiency badges and unofficial insignia etc were only supposed to be worn together with 'walking out'/parade dress which is why the best examples seem to be photos of blokes getting medals from Monty smile.gif In cases of some senior NCOs, most of the sleeve seems covered when the rank insignia is included smile.gif

Inevitably these rules seem to have been made to be broken with plenty of examples of various partial combinations seen in the field though the censor unfortunately seemed fond of scratching these out of some photos :(

Volume 2 of Bouchery's work covers organisation and OOB for 1944-45 (NW Europe) and this too is really essential to understand the right combination of insignia (eg the correct regt shoulder title for the formation patch and number of brigade arm-of-service strips at a particular point in time - for example the 3rd CLY (used the unofficial 'Sharpshooters' shoulder title in yellow on green) merged with the 4th CLY in July 1944 and swopped the black rat of the 4th AB for the red rat of 7th AD).

I thinks its just a pity that in CM, Brit AFV crew and infantry share the same sleeve...

Contact me for specifics, if you want.

venatio64ad@yahoo.co.uk

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Okay, the list is getting smaller for those regiments of which I have absolutely no info....and I'm always glad to be given more info on any of the regiments' patch configurations (what goes above/under what).

Here's the smaller list:

“Lincolnshire” shoulder title

“Essex” shoulder title

“North Stafford” shoulder title

“King Shropshire L.I.” maroon/green flash???

2nd Household Cavalry

1st Grenadier Guards (Motor)

32nd Guards Infantry Bde

11th Hussars

8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars

5th Dragoon Guards

Inns of Court Regt

2nd Northampton Yeomanry

23rd Hussars

2nd Fife & Forfar Yeomanry

22nd Dragoons

1st Lothians & Border Horse

Westminster Dragoons

1st Fife & Forfar Yeomanry

141st Royal Arm’d Corps

5th Assault Engineers

6th Assault Engineers

42nd Assault Engineers

Now, for the engineers, I'm only wondering if anything differentiated b/t the battalions...I know how the general sleeve is configured. I have partial info on a few of the armoured regiments listed but it's the configurations that are puzzling.

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working from general knowledge, rather than any specific sources, the engineers would all be configured the same. The Royal Engineers encompassed all the engineers, much like the Royal Regiment of Artillery. The only distiguishning patch should be the divisional patch.

at a guess the sleve would be (from top to bottom):

ROYAL ENGINEERS (Blue on red, curved at top of sleeve)

arm of service stripe

Divisional logo

specialist badges

rank insignia (for l/cpl, cpl, sgt, ssgt)

Regards

Jon

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by JonS:

working from general knowledge, rather than any specific sources, the engineers would all be configured the same. The Royal Engineers encompassed all the engineers, much like the Royal Regiment of Artillery. The only distiguishning patch should be the divisional patch.

at a guess the sleve would be (from top to bottom):

ROYAL ENGINEERS (Blue on red, curved at top of sleeve)

arm of service stripe

Divisional logo

specialist badges

rank insignia (for l/cpl, cpl, sgt, ssgt)

Regards

Jon<hr></blockquote>

Don't forget service chevrons, wound stripes, and Good Conduct Badges!

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<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Darknight_Canuck:

I've already raided these pages for the bits of info that were available. It is truly amazing how little of this info is on the web and how incomplete it is.<hr></blockquote>

Amazing and more than a little sad. Meanwhile, there are probably entire websites devoted to Wehrmacht underwear buttons...

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