The Intendancy, Canada's 4th uniformed service

The Intendancy

history
Since the 1920s, the Canadian government was faced with 2 problems in regard to the armed forces: lack of a centralised commmand structure (all three services operated largely on their own with links being made on a mainly ad hoc basis) and an annual budget that was felt to exceed its actual needs in some areas.

An attempt at unification was made in the 1960s by defence minister Hellyer following suggestion by retired general Foulkes. The first phase was the creation of a Chief of the Defence Staff to replace the formely powerless (and staff-less) Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee. This was done in 1964 with the passing of bill C90. A small cabinet reshuffle however saw Hellyer relegated to the backbench (rumours had it that he had a falling out with the prime minister over policies) who quickly resigned to sit as an independent and start his own party, the Action Canada Party.

The new defence minister, caving in to pressure from upper echelons of the armed forces including some naval flag officers going as far as threatening to resign, renounced going foward with phase 2 which would have seen a full unification of the services into a single one. He did however ended up introducing a bill that saw a partial unification with the redundant branches from all 3 services that were not element specific (cathering, communication, health, etc...) to be grouped into a new operational support service to be known as the Intendancy. By grouping them together into a distinct service, it was believed that none of the other one would have undue access to its resources or control over its branches.

Organisation
Members of the service, the ancillaries (or "Gophers" as they are coloquialy called) are grouped by Branches, Trades and Posts (the basic unit within a branch).

The branches are: Chaplain, Communication, Engineering, Inteligence, Legal, Logistics, Musicians, health, Personnel, Policing, Public Affairs & Training

Uniforms
originaly, 2 classes of uniforms were issued: The Service Dress for clerical duties and walking out and the Fatigue Dress for duties where the uniform was expected to get dirty. Other classes (such as mess and ceremonial) were eventualy authorised after repeated demands from some units with traditions dating back to before unification of the branches. These however were optional and purchased privately.

The Service Dress is composed of a white shirt worn with pants, jacket, tie and headgear in dark purple. The headgear is a purle peaked cap with white band for officers and a fedora-type purple hat for other ranks. The jacket is double breasted for officers and single breasted for other ranks. With the addition of white gloves and belt, it served as a ceremonial uniform until the adoption of pre-unification ones by certain branches. The service dress variant remain the uniform worn on formal occasion by those branches without a sepcific one.

The Fatigue dress is composed of heavy duty dark purple pants and shirt worn with or without an overall and a visor cap in the same colour.

Insignias
The authorities decided to maintain a certain level of continuity by continuing to use already established military ranks and so it was decided to do as had been done with the Air Force and introduce a mixture of ranks based on the other 2 services but in a reverse fashion: NCO ones being based on the navy and officers on the army.

Intendancy officers insignias are identical to army ones except that they are silvery white and worn on purple slides. On the combat uniform, they are pale green with a dark purple outline. Other ranks use a combination of graecian collumns, crown and wreath and are worn on the sleeves.

Following the patriation of the constitution in 1982, a number of measures were taken to make the services more distinctively canadian looking. The only major change to affect the Intendancy was the replacement of crowns with maple leaves and the pips, which formely were shaped after the British Order of the Bath, were changed to the shape of the star of the Order of Canada.
 
officer picture

below is the picture of an health officer without his jacket.

health-officer.jpg
 
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interesting but I would still doubt this would make anyone in the pre-unification military happy. You have just placed practically on regimental bands, the combat &naval engineers, naval and military int into a largely ad-hoc formation. No one service will be happy, if anything more infighting will occur in attempt to justify having separate formation for the above mentioned formations. Not mention the various health and logistical services, that all services will see as above important to the very mission dependability of its formations. Still a interesting concept, this could work however more attention to the "tribal" nature of each service should be noted; good starting ones would be the Military Police, Chaplain, Signals Intelligence, Legal, Public Affairs & Training. Then work yourself up from there, to your other mentioned branches.
 
Still a interesting concept, this could work however more attention to the "tribal" nature of each service should be noted; good starting ones would be the Military Police, Chaplain, Signals Intelligence, Legal, Public Affairs & Training. Then work yourself up from there, to your other mentioned branches.

Not mentioned but I had assumed that the integration would have occured over many years. In OTL, pre-unification, it took 8 years to integrate the medical services and 11 years for dental.

I should also point out that I'm not trying to make the optimal solution to the problem, just a different one (though truth be told, one that can't be worst then the one that occured here).
 
Interesting concept; seems to reflect duties and capabilities like similar branches in Germany and South Africa.
 
Purple is such a jarring colour. Especially that shade. Wouldn't tan/yellow/gold, or grey/silver be a more neutral colour?
 
Purple is such a jarring colour. Especially that shade. Wouldn't tan/yellow/gold, or grey/silver be a more neutral colour?

purple would get them to stand out compared to the other 3 services but the true reason is that in OTL, these branches in the canadian army are refered to as "purple trades".

I'll draw a picture soonish to give an idea of the full uniform but I think purple has a nice effect in any case:

whit_friday_march_uniform.jpg
NEWMENS-Dress-High-Fashion-4-Button-Deep-Dark-PURPLE-Jacket~Blazer.jpg
 
Forgive me, but this sounds like a Really Bad Idea. Logistics and support should in my opinion be as tightly integrated to its customers as possible, so they are able to respond to what their needs.

Trust me, I was a logistician once. :p

Was bill C90 real? I can't find it on Google.
 
Below is the picture of an health officer without his jacket.
I'm sorry but that's just hideous. You know it's going to take all of five minutes for other service members to start refering to them as 'purple helmets' right? And that's probably going to be the polite version.
 
Forgive me, but this sounds like a Really Bad Idea. Logistics and support should in my opinion be as tightly integrated to its customers as possible, so they are able to respond to what their needs.

Trust me, I was a logistician once. :p

As i said, its not supposed to be the best option, just a different one based on some of what happen here. In OTL, most of the operational support services (including logistic) were part of a separate command (Canadian Operational Support Command) from the 3 elements.

Was bill C90 real? I can't find it on Google.

yup, it was enacted on 1 august 1964. try googling "bill c90"+Hellyer.
 
I'm sorry but that's just hideous. You know it's going to take all of five minutes for other service members to start refering to them as 'purple helmets' right? And that's probably going to be the polite version.

"bruised head" ? "choked cap" ?
 
Was bill C90 real? I can't find it on Google.

The Canadian service chiefs knew there was a problem at the top command level and saw Bill C90 as leading to something equivalent to the US Joint Chiefs of Staff organization. They thought it would stop there and were horrified by Hellyer's continuation to full integration.

Without integration I don't think the services would give up their engineering and logistical operations but thery might be amenable to unification of some support services like the chaplancy, legal, public affairs, etc.

Post unification it was found that many of the technical services did not fit well together. A naval electronics technician could not simply be swapped with an air force electronics technician because of the specialization required.

I know that there are "purple trades" referred to in the CF but those uniforms are horrendous. Even in an era that saw the "bus driver" uniforms I doubt that they would be seriously considered. A neutral colour I can see but that is third world doorman uniform bad.
 
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I had a bit of a rethink based on people's comments and decided to go with a grey cloth for the service uniform. I still want to the use purple somehow so I 've kept it for highlights and the non-legacy full dress uniforms. Note that non-legacy in the intendancy context is the common name given to uniforms worn by a unit which for one reason or another does no continue the tradition of a pre-unification one.

uniforms-table.png
 
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