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.
