Rank Insignia and Uniforms Thread

[Hapsburg]

And swinging back towards combat uniforms.
Staff Sergeant of a Motorised Infantry Regiment.
While personnel of standard infantry brigades wear the white piping traditional for infantry regiments, and are composed of mechanised infantry equipped with IFV's, the infantry battalions organic to Panzer regiments are different. They are considered a part of the cavalry forces, along with armoured troops, and as such are motorised infantry units, with the traditional yellow piping of the cavalry. These units are equipped with motorcycles and rugged APC's to assist in the advance and protection of armoured vehicles.
This soldier is a senior NCO of one such battalion; he wears the cut-down M92 Combat Tunic that became popular in the highly mobile armoured forces, and rides an Z-31A Combat Motorcycle. While seemingly antiquated, motorcycles still have a place in the military as a fast, individual mode of transport for scouting and rapid forward movement; an important factor in armoured strike tactics.

 

[Beedok]

Anyone have any ideas how I can improve the power armour?

 

[Lyly]

Anyone have any ideas how I can improve the power armour?

Lower the head. As it is, whoever is in there must have a giraffe neck to fit. Just get rid of the neck altogether, imo. Also, allow more range of motion in the arms by drawing in an intermediate area between the upper and lower arms. I hope that makes sense. Finally, your legs don't appear to have any joints at all, meaning there is literally no way to walk. Fix that too.

 

[Hapsburg]

Second attempt at a comprehensive catalogue of CGU Army Uniforms. As per advice, only one model of service tunic and the panzer uniform is made to resemble Wehrmacht clothes. As always, I'm open to constructive criticism, and suggestions for changing the appearance of these. If you're doing one, you ought to do the latter as well, otherwise you're kinda standing on only one leg.

Mess Dress is a dinner jacket uniform used for official functions and galas; worn with a sword for officers, ceremonial dagger for NCO's, and ceremonial bayonet for enlisted men.
Parade Dress is, as its name indicates, worn on military parades; similarly with the Mess Dress, it is worn with a ceremonial weapon.
The Walking-Out Dress is an intermediate level of uniform between more formal dress and combat clothing, worn on-base, in offices and meetings, and various other situations, and can be worn with decorations. The Service Dress is similar, but with an open-neck collar. The Summer Dress is essentially of a service dress cut, but using thinner, white-coloured cloth.
The Work Shirt, which can come in white and brown, is worn underneath the walking out tunic and is used for non-combat utility duties. The Barracks Shirt is similar, and is worn underneath service and summer dress tunics, or on-base during hot weather. The Summer Shirt is an extension of that, cutting the sleeves down.
The Great Coat is worn during winter time over service dress. The Service Coat is essentially a cut-down great coat, as a double-breasted cool weather alternative to the service dress.

The M92 Combat Tunic is the standard combat uniform, a four-pocket, wool uniform worm over the powered combat suit. It was followed by the M1 Combat Tunic, which was cut with an open-neck collar. After user feedback, which found that soldiers cut their M92 and M1 tunics down in combat, it was revised into the M2 Combat Tunic. The Tank Combat Tunic follows in this line of revision, offering a cut-down, double-breasted, open-collar tunic for armoured vehicle operators.

 

[Beedok]

Lower the head. As it is, whoever is in there must have a giraffe neck to fit. Just get rid of the neck altogether, imo. Also, allow more range of motion in the arms by drawing in an intermediate area between the upper and lower arms. I hope that makes sense. Finally, your legs don't appear to have any joints at all, meaning there is literally no way to walk. Fix that too.

I was thinking about the neck thing.

As for the intermediate areas I think I know what you mean, but I'm not quite sure.

To comment on the legs, the joint is very high up on the leg so that a human leg can fit in there. It looks weird but I can think of no way to give it more halfway joints as that would be in the middle of the wearer's shin.

Thanks for the advice though.

 

[Akkismat]

I made an alternative flag for A Russian Alaska a while back, so to stay in this ATL: The uniform of a Junior Lieutenant of
The (27th) Grand-Duke of Alyeska's Own Imperial Border Regiment.


I made this as a personal exercise in trying to get into uniform design a bit, so positivo criticism always welcome.

I know that it is a "rough" drawing/sketch. In time when my skills on Inkscape hopefully will become better, I will be able to polish it up more.

 

[archaeogeek]

I made an alternative flag for A Russian Alaska a while back, so to stay in this ATL: The uniform of a Junior Lieutenant of
The (27th) Grand-Duke of Alyeska's Own Imperial Border Regiment.


I made this as a personal exercise in trying to get into uniform design a bit, so positivo criticism always welcome.

I know that it is a "rough" drawing/sketch. In time when my skills on Inkscape hopefully will become better, I will be able to polish it up more.

It actually looks rather nice (and that's as someone who laments the departure from knee breeches and likes late 18th century uniforms better ), although if it's the 19th century the uniforms will have to get elaborate as they go up in rank... I wonder what the colonel will look like - in fact, since it belongs to one of the grand dukes (by that you mean a dynast or simply some russian prince with the title? IIRC there were only Romanov grand dukes at this point but I might be wrong) it would probably be a bit more elaborate; fancy gold braids, more elaborate austrian knots, maybe austrian knots on the trousers as well. Not quite peacock level, but still fancy.

 

[KillerT]

Regarding these uniforms which some of you have produced, a few pointers if I may? Firstly belts. Most belts (cross straps and that sort of thing) from around 1760 to 1890 tended to be whitened (pipeclayed) buff leather. Prior to that they were usually left in their natural state and after that webbing started to be used although Germany and many other countries continued to use leather belts and pouches often boot polished black or brown.
Second point is military fashion. In the eighteenth century Prussian style was a la mode with tight fitting jackets and swedish cuffs. Tricorns tended to be worn by most and were usually black. Cockades would be in national style-black for Britain, white for France until 1792. Jackets were usually red for Britain with a multitude of colours on cuffs and the revers (turnbacks) eg yellow for 10th Foot, blue for 1st Foot, red for 33rd, buff for 3rd, green for 19th and what have you. French in 1700s at first had grey uniforms which steadily got whiter and then come the Revolution saw them copying the National Guard of Paris and wore blue. Prussian uniforms were blue, Portuguese blue, Spanish white (although at one point they had light blue) and so on.
In 1800s British army uniforms were in the Austrian style-single breasted and round cuffs, French in 1812 adopted the Spencer style. Headware was now the shako. French wore a bell topped style shako as did Austrians from mid 1800s on, Russians ditto from 1812 the kiwer shako. British wore the 'stovepipe' shako as did Portuguese although that got replaced by the Belgic shako in 1812 then the Regency bell top in 1816, last shako worn by the bulk of the British Army was in the 1860s and was more like a kepi.
In Prussia the helmet-pickelhaube was developed from 1830s onwards and developed into various types-the lancers or uhlans wore a version of it but with a typical Polish touch, the Kurrassiers wore a nickel plated steel pickelhaube with the Garde du Korps version mounted with an Eagle. The British adopted a cork version of the picklehaube in the 1870s with the USA following slightly later.
1850s and Indian mutiny sees British troops dying their undress whites a mucky brown or khaki colour. Gradually khaki begins to replace gaudy full dress uniforms. It takes the mud of Flanders to take the ceremonial multi coloured swop shop away for good-the French turning in theire garance red trousers, the Belgians their jagers hats...
I can bore you all more later if you want more info....

 

[Akkismat]

Regarding these uniforms which some of you have produced, a few pointers if I may? Firstly belts. Most belts (cross straps and that sort of thing) from around 1760 to 1890 tended to be whitened (pipeclayed) buff leather. Prior to that they were usually left in their natural state and after that webbing started to be used although Germany and many other countries continued to use leather belts and pouches often boot polished black or brown.
Second point is military fashion. In the eighteenth century Prussian style was a la mode with tight fitting jackets and swedish cuffs. Tricorns tended to be worn by most and were usually black. Cockades would be in national style-black for Britain, white for France until 1792. Jackets were usually red for Britain with a multitude of colours on cuffs and the revers (turnbacks) eg yellow for 10th Foot, blue for 1st Foot, red for 33rd, buff for 3rd, green for 19th and what have you. French in 1700s at first had grey uniforms which steadily got whiter and then come the Revolution saw them copying the National Guard of Paris and wore blue. Prussian uniforms were blue, Portuguese blue, Spanish white (although at one point they had light blue) and so on.
In 1800s British army uniforms were in the Austrian style-single breasted and round cuffs, French in 1812 adopted the Spencer style. Headware was now the shako. French wore a bell topped style shako as did Austrians from mid 1800s on, Russians ditto from 1812 the kiwer shako. British wore the 'stovepipe' shako as did Portuguese although that got replaced by the Belgic shako in 1812 then the Regency bell top in 1816, last shako worn by the bulk of the British Army was in the 1860s and was more like a kepi.
In Prussia the helmet-pickelhaube was developed from 1830s onwards and developed into various types-the lancers or uhlans wore a version of it but with a typical Polish touch, the Kurrassiers wore a nickel plated steel pickelhaube with the Garde du Korps version mounted with an Eagle. The British adopted a cork version of the picklehaube in the 1870s with the USA following slightly later.
1850s and Indian mutiny sees British troops dying their undress whites a mucky brown or khaki colour. Gradually khaki begins to replace gaudy full dress uniforms. It takes the mud of Flanders to take the ceremonial multi coloured swop shop away for good-the French turning in theire garance red trousers, the Belgians their jagers hats...
I can bore you all more later if you want more info....

Hi, thanx for the info. I really find it usefull, but I don't grasp all the
concepts you mentioned like "(pipeclayed) buff leather", "webbing", "swedish cuffs", "Tricorns", "(turnbacks)", "Austrian style-single breasted and round cuffs", "Spencer style", "bell topped style shako", "kiwer shako".

If you don't mind "boring" me more with some info, I would be thankfull.

 

[archaeogeek]

On head gear: there were short periods where the french wore the tarleton helmet and the bicorn; the americans also adopted the bicorn. - both were phased out during the consulate and a bit before (the bicorn was still partially used, though, and a smaller form of the bicorn is still part of the engineers' dress uniform in France) to be replapce by the shako in line infantry; they also were both revolutionary era, replacing the tricorn.

(I otherwise suck at dates; also, for those who want to try their hand at navies, naval uniforms begin for officers first; Napoleon's attempts at making uniforms universal in the navy was a failure, and iirc the first navy to have enlisted uniforms was the american one, probably in part because the navy was built from scratch because the cutter service was deemed insuficient for defence (duh) - anyway the enlisted uniforms adopted in most navies were merely a formalized, uniformized form of the type of clothes enlisted sailors would have worn).

For uniform plates of the late 18th century/early 19th, http://www.napoleon-series.org/ has a lot of interesting info (including some statistical and economic data for the main european belligerents of the period)

 

[Akkismat]

For uniform plates of the late 18th century/early 19th, http://www.napoleon-series.org/ has a lot of interesting info (including some statistical and economic data for the main european belligerents of the period)

I searched the site for the uniform plates you mentioned, but can't find them. Would you mind giving a direct link to these resources. Thanks!

 

[archaeogeek]

I searched the site for the uniform plates you mentioned, but can't find them. Would you mind giving a direct link to these resources. Thanks!

http://www.napoleon-series.org/military/c_organization.html

That section - the articles are in english, french, german, and I think some spanish.

 

[Zor]

(Commonwealth of Democratic Worlds) Commonwealth Joint Army CA-10 Power Armor system (affectionately known by it's nickname of Sowy (Polish for Owl) among the commonwealth's military due to the helmet design). The primary power armor system of the Commonwealth of Democractic Worlds, it is a fairly high end system and is more ressiliant, stronger and has a longer battery life than it's Imperial Counterpart. This comes at a price however, as it costs more to produce and mantain each individual suit is about 60% more expensive to produce and mantain and it weighs about 40% more, although the fact that it is a hot military export item covers expenses somewhat.

(Novan Empire) An Enlisted Spacer in the Novan Imperial Navy in duty uniform, designed more for utility than the elaborate officer's uniforms. As with officer's uniforms there is no diference between the dress uniforms between the genders (male, female or other). A version with Epaulets, a necktie and jackboots (with, like enlisted boots, magnetic bottoms in case of gravity failure) is available for officers when they want to dress more casually. Among the ranks of the Novan Imperial Navy is a debate over hats, with ships crews being divided over weather they wear Baseball Caps, Ushankas or Both. Occasionally officers get involved and ban the wearing of one or the other hat among their crews or requiring rotation between the two.

 

[Hapsburg]

That guy has a huge thumb. Genetically engineered to have Orangutan-like hands, I presume?

Cool, though. As always.

 

[Petike]

Second attempt at a comprehensive catalogue of CGU Army Uniforms. As per advice, only one model of service tunic and the panzer uniform is made to resemble Wehrmacht clothes. As always, I'm open to constructive criticism, and suggestions for changing the appearance of these. If you're doing one, you ought to do the latter as well, otherwise you're kinda standing on only one leg.

Pretty good showcase. I have one question : Do the CGU armed forces have some World War One influenced uniforms as well ? Most of your artwork of the regular CGU infantry shows predominantly designs similar to either WWII or present day uniforms. So, I'm wondering if there are any WWI-esque ones as well...

 

[KillerT]

Ok

Pipeclay- in the 18th century and well into 19th century military belts were all made from natural tanned leather (vegetable tanning process). These belts to keep them serviceable often were pipeclayed-pipeclay is a very white soft clay and would be mixed with water to make a paste which was then applied to the belts therefore whitening them. Have a look at www.85eme.org for example phots.

These leather belts were suceeded in the British Empire forces and USA by an innovation by using cotton twill and creating cotton webbing-this is a very strong and robust material-its also a damn sight cheaper than leather. This led to modern webbing in use from the 1890s.British patterns included the 1908, 1937 patterns (also worn by postwar Belgian, Dutch, Italian and many many many other nations armies) and 1958 patterns. These were suceeded by developments using nylon and other manmade fibres which again offer more advantages such as lightness, better weathering, etc.

As regards uniform development camouflage has always been with us in one form or another-the German jagers fighting in the 7YW in the 1750s wore green coats, often with red cuffs and lapels. In the AWI American riflmen often took the field wearing buckskins and by the Napoleonic Wars the British army had several battalions of green jacketed riflemen- the 60th Royal Americans (later on the Kings Royal Rifle Corps) and the 95th Regiment (later known as the Rifle Brigade). This was fairly basic camouflage though and its only well into the mid and late 19th century that khaki starts to come through.

Right boring bit over.

My pet project is here:
Kingdom of Hesse.
The Kingdom was reformed in 1814 following Napoleons removal to Elba. The 2 Kingdoms of Hesse have been combined along with a few sequestered territories thus creating this new barrier kingdom.

The army thus created has an Austrian style in its uniforms with Austrian belltopped shakos, single breasted jackets and crossbelts (one with ammunition pouch and one with bayonet). The cavalry also has an Austrian look to them. Regarding weapons -bit of a mix of British supplied, and ex French.

Cavalry:
Lieb Garde Regt zu Pferd (Life Guards). Black helmets, white coats, red facings, gold lace, red surcoats in full ceremonial dress with Guards star. White buckskin leather breeches. Straight sabres (Kiegenthal type) 4 squadrons. (rarely if ever takes the field)
Gens d'Arms (Gentlemen at Arms). Same helmets, same uniforms but blue facings and gold lace.4 squadrons, sabres, 2 pistols, 12 carbines per squadron.
Kurrassier Regt (Curassier Regt) as above-no surcoats, wilver lace and red facings.4 squadrons
Karabiniers Regt(Carabinieers) pale staw coloured uniforms otherwise as Kurrassier Regt.4 squadrons. Karabiniers have a rifled carbine as well as sabre and pistol.
Uhlanen Regt (Lancer Regt) -provide light cavalry to the Heavy Cavalry brigade. Wear a red schapska with black leather visor, red/white plumes. Blue kurtka with red plastron fronts, piping and cuffs. Red trousers in full dress with blue piping otherwise blue overalls. Carry a lance, carbine, pistol and sabre (6 squadrons)
Dragoner Regts (6 regiments) All wear the cavalry helmet (Austrian pattern). Single breasted blue jacket, white belts, white buckskin breeches or overalls, straight sabres, all carry a carbine and pistol.
(4 squadrons per regt) Facings and lace- 1st (red and gold, 2nd red and silver, 3rd yellow and silver, 4th green and silver, 5th pink and silver, 6th sky blue and silver) (4 squadrons each)
Jager zu Pferd (Mounted Rifles) same uniform as dragoons 1st Regt with red facings and gold lace, 2nd regt with black facings and silver lace. (4 squadrons each)
Chevau Leger -same uniforms as dragoons 2 regiments have light sabre

more later...

 

[Hapsburg]

Pretty good showcase. I have one question : Do the CGU armed forces have some World War One influenced uniforms as well ? Most of your artwork of the regular CGU infantry shows predominantly designs similar to either WWII or present day uniforms. So, I'm wondering if there are any WWI-esque ones as well...

Well, the Army parade dress is more like a WWI period tunic; the Weaponised SG has almost Napoleonic dress uniforms for parades and formal affairs.
As usual, the Navy's all over the fucking place since they incorporate Space, Sea, and Marines forces.

In a similar vein, here's the main character of my story once again used as an example. Major Alexander Strobol in the aforementioned M92 Combat Tunic with low-visibility grey metal buttons, and an M3 Field Cap, typical of officers in the field. As an infantry officer, his shoulder boards have white piping.

 

[Zor]

The Novan Imperial Gendarmerie is one of the largest Law Enforcement Agenties in the Terran Sphere with some 500 million sworn officers across the breadth of the Novan Empire. It is also notable for being over a century older than any branch of the Novan Military, being first created in 1320 AT by Queen Haruhi-I when the Novan Empire was mearly the Kingdom of Nova Australia. The Imperial Gendarmerie is responsible for policing and mantaining order on the Planets (and other territorial assets) conquered by the Novan Empire. This officer is a typical beat officer, however the Gendarmerie also employs a variety of tools including powersuited special intervention teams, armored vehicles including countergrav APCs, Bladewolves and (in a few areas) Tanks and even employs about a thousand corvettes. By tradition, the Gendarmerie is known to be of the Common People. The Nobility tends to look down upon the Gendarmerie and few Nobles are employed by it, with those that do mostly being commoners which have received Noble Title for their service to the Empire. She is armed with a Truncheon and a Stun Pistol.

The unusual spelling has to do with the fact that Gendarme is not the Novan Pronounciation of the word, only a fool would think that in 2300 years time people would still be talking the way as they did in the first century AT.

 

[Hapsburg]

Showing some of the variation in formal wear.
Lord Maximilian is shown in in the uniform of a cavalry officer, in the colours of Union administrative personnel and with the insignia of the Dictatorial office. Aside him stands his adjutant and youngest brother, Lieutenant-General Geoffrey William Alaric Compton, in the standard Staff dress uniform for Army Air Force general officers; Geoffrey Compton had previously had an illustrious career as an Air Squadron Commander and later as a general in the 31st Air Warfare Division.

 

[Hapsburg]

Security Department officer performing a so-called "extrajudicial execution", the shooting of a civilian political dissident. Or a suspected one, at least. The early part of Maximilian's administration saw a great many of these as he commissioned three-man groups of SD personnel to root out and destroy "treason" and dissent.