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Guardsman wears turban

No it’s not!
It really is. A turban is not used because it's more efficient than a helmet, but because it's a requirement of faith. The fact that it may be more dangerous to wear a turban than a helmet is beside the point.
 
Wouldn't it be funny if she just got up and wandered off inside.

I remember my grandad telling me about prince phillip visiting during the war. Everyone was lined up to welcome him. Phil just walked round the back of everyone and said not to bother with all the bollocks.

They lined up to welcome a teenage midshipman from a junior branch of a minor Balkan royal family?
 
... Uniform is uniform.

Except it isn’t. Everyone who wears a uniform tries to make it a little bit different* don’t they. Extra kit acquired along the way, pushing the boundaries with badges even keeping older kit- (along with the boots did you have a pair of washed out trops?) If you look at any group in uniform after they have finished training, you’ll be hard put to find two the same.

* I admit the household division in ceremonial kit might differ slightly, but I bet there was a whole raft of inappropriate tee-shirts on under the red during this.
 
If they never changed the uniform, British soldiers would still be going into combat wearing bright red, which would be almost as stupid as the RAF painting targets on all its planes.

You can't really blame a traditionalist like Sasaferrato for being nostalgic about the uniform of his days as a boy soldier, out there serving Queen Victoria and her glorious Empire.

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I doubt they were as effective at stopping bullets.
I think both turbans and bearskins were surprisingly effective at stopping sword slashes from cavalry men though. And for the same reason, multiple layers of cloth and the multiple hair fibres work quite well at stopping edged weapons. It’s the principle behind Kevlar, although those fibres are much stronger, which is why it’s good with bullets too.

People in the past weren’t idiots.
 
If they never changed the uniform, British soldiers would still be going into combat wearing bright red, which would be almost as stupid as the RAF painting targets on all its planes.
they were red with a white x on them so the officers could shoot the conscripts who ran away easier. Possibly.
 
As to the turban... wrong, simply wrong. It is not up to the army to suit the individual, it is up to the individual to suit the army, or simply not join. Uniform is uniform.

Explain how any of this affects anyone's actual life and why they should care.

Controversial I know but I reckon society could get along just fine without any of these silly tosspots getting paid top dollar in public money to prance about like, well like silly tosspots. If they love prancing about so much they can do it for fucking free and get a real job in the meantime like everyone else.
 
36 years ago yesterday I was getting bombed. I was listening to the screams of the dying, whom I could do nothing to help.

Terribly sorry to hear that old bean but what does that have to do with people in silly outfits strutting about a decidedly not-being-bombed London wearing hollowed out bits of animal? Is that what you were getting shot at to defend? Strutting about? Because no matter how much you love all that shit it's not worth dying for. It's certainly not worth forcing people who are as idiotically loyal as any other squaddie to abandon their religious observances in order to join in with the strutting about. Isn't that what you lot supposedly fight to defend? British values like the right to freedom of worship and respect for cultural diversity?
 
It's not even the army suiting the individual, it's the army accommodating a demographic it has recruited from heavily in the past and wants to recruit more from in the future. Been doing that since the Highland regiments at least.
 
If they never changed the uniform, British soldiers would still be going into combat wearing bright red, which would be almost as stupid as the RAF painting targets on all its planes.

Roundels. They're there for communication with other aircraft. A Blue ring with a red circle in the centre means 'fellow British aviator here what what, be a good sport and don't shoot me down or I'll never hear the end of it back at HQ' while a red ring with a blue circle in it means 'I surrender'.
 
Except it isn’t. Everyone who wears a uniform tries to make it a little bit different* don’t they. Extra kit acquired along the way, pushing the boundaries with badges even keeping older kit- (along with the boots did you have a pair of washed out trops?) If you look at any group in uniform after they have finished training, you’ll be hard put to find two the same.

* I admit the household division in ceremonial kit might differ slightly, but I bet there was a whole raft of inappropriate tee-shirts on under the red during this.

in any of the more quality Regiments its a standing order that if two Officers find themselves wearing the same uniform, the junior is to return to the Mess and get changed.

in the old days it was dayglo tropics, a battered and sun-bleached windproof smock, jungle boots in the summer and Yeti gaiters in the winter, 38 pattern water bottle pouches on the belt-kit and the oldest bergen you could lay your hands on. old is ally, and ally saves lives.
 
The really brightly coloured uniforms come from the days when battlefields were wreathed in gunpowder smoke and the effective ranges of guns were crap, so distinctive uniforms were an advantage, allowing units to easily tell friends from foes.
 
The really brightly coloured uniforms come from the days when battlefields were wreathed in gunpowder smoke and the effective ranges of guns were crap, so distinctive uniforms were an advantage, allowing units to easily tell friends from foes.

Whereas nowadays we have shit loads of technology to prevent the yanks bombing their allies by mistake. :thumbs:
 
Sikh's are more British than most flag waving plastic patriots...

After the victory at Gujarat, Lord Dalhousie annexed the Punjab for the East India Company in 1849. For his services the Earl of Dalhousie received the thanks of the British parliament and a step in the peerage, as marquess.

The Sikh Wars gave the two sides a mutual respect for each other's fighting prowess. The Sikhs would fight loyally for the British in the Indian Mutiny and in many other campaigns and wars up until Indian Independence in 1947.


Second Anglo-Sikh War - Wikipedia
 
Whereas nowadays we have shit loads of technology to prevent the yanks bombing their allies by mistake. :thumbs:

to be strictly fair to the septics, apart from a few egregious examples, the rate of blue-on-blue that the US is responsible for is mainly because they provide the overwhelming proportion of CAS. they do most of it, so when it goes wrong they are more likely to be holding the smoking bomb rail than anyone else.

the less well visited side of the coin is the dangers faced by ground units because aircraft (or ground based fires) won't engage, or take so long to engage, due to procedures put in place to get it right/avoid bad headlines*.

*delete as appropriate
 
to be strictly fair to the septics, apart from a few egregious examples, the rate of blue-on-blue that the US is responsible for is mainly because they provide the overwhelming proportion of CAS. they do most of it, so when it goes wrong they are more likely to be holding the smoking bomb rail than anyone else.

the less well visited side of the coin is the dangers faced by ground units because aircraft (or ground based fires) won't engage, or take so long to engage, due to procedures put in place to get it right/avoid bad headlines*.

*delete as appropriate

A friend of mine was in a Warrior that got shot up by American aircraft in GW1 He bore the pilots no ill will for the mistake but was pissed off he didn’t get so much as a letter or card saying sorry.
 
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A friend of mine was in a Warrior that got shot up by American aircraft in GW1 He bore the pilots no ill will for the mistake but was pissed off he didn’t get so much as a letter or card saying sorry.

the legal environment in the US means that saying sorry is an admission that you deliberately did something wrong - they would take the view that by saying 'shit, sorry mate, didn't mean mean it but hope all are ok..' they are writing 'please destroy my career, sue me personally and take my house and my childrens college fund..'.

and someone would. so they don't, whatever the personal feelings of the individuals involved.
 
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