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Cap badge
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A cap badge, also known as head badge or hat badge, is a badge worn on uniform headgear and distinguishes the wearer's nationality and/or organisation. The wearing of cap badges is a convention commonly found among military and police forces, as well as uniformed civilian groups such as the Boy Scouts, civil defence organizations, paramedical units (e.g. the St. John Ambulance Brigade), customs services, fire services etc.
Cap badges are a modern form of heraldry and the design of same generally incorporates highly symbolic devices.
United States
U.S.
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Encyclopedia
A cap badge, also known as head badge or hat badge, is a badge worn on uniform headgear and distinguishes the wearer's nationality and/or organisation. The wearing of cap badges is a convention commonly found among military and police forces, as well as uniformed civilian groups such as the Boy Scouts, civil defence organizations, paramedical units (e.g. the St. John Ambulance Brigade), customs services, fire services etc.
Cap badges are a modern form of heraldry and the design of same generally incorporates highly symbolic devices.
United States
U.S. Army
In the United States Army, a Distinctive Unit Insignia(DUI) is worn on the flash of a beret. For service caps, a gilt eagle device is worn. For officers, a large eagle device is worn. For enlisted men, a small version of the officer's insignia centered on a disk is worn on the front. Warrant Officers wear a gold eagle device centered on the cap. For garrison caps, generally the rank insignia is worn, but recent regulations call for the wear of the DUI.
U.S. Air Force
For U.S. Air Force service caps, a large, silver eagle device is worn on the service caps. For enlisted men, a smaller version of the officer's insignia is worn, but inclosed in a ring.
United Kingdom
British Army
In the British Army (as well as Commonwealth armies) each regiment and corps has its own capbadge. The cap badge of the QRL is called a motto by those within the regiment that of the Royal Horse Artillery is known as a cypher and that of the Coldstream Guards as a Capstar. The concept of regimental badges appears to have originated with the British Army. The Encyclopaedia Britannica's 1911 Edition notes that although branch badges for infantry, cavalry etc were common to other armies of the time, only the British Army wore distinctive regimental devices.
Variations of cap badges
Plastic cap badges were normally introduced during a prolonged war (e.g. the Second World War) when metals became strategic materials. Nowadays many cap badges in the British Army are made of a material called "stay-brite" plastic because it is cheap, flexible and does not require as much maintenance as the brass ones.
Regimental cap badges are usually cast as one single piece but in a number of cases they may be cast in different pieces. For instance, the badge of the, now amalgamated, The Highlanders (Seaforth, Gordons and Camerons) was cast in two separate pieces: the Queen's Crown and the thistle in one piece, and the stag's head and scroll with regimental motto in another piece. (see the first picture above)
A regiment or battalion may maintain variations of the same cap badge for different ranks. Such variations are usually made in terms of the badges' material, size and stylization. Variations in cap badges are normally made for:
- Officers: usually three-dimensional in design with more expensive materials such as silver, enamel, gilt etc. Most Officer's beret badges are embroidered rather than metal or staybright (exceptions to this include the Rifles and the Parachute Regiment).
- Senior Non-Commissioned Officers such as sergeants, Colour Sergeants and Warrant Officers: a more elaborate design compared with those worn by other ranks but usually not as elaborate as those worn by the officers
Some regiments maintain a blackened or subdued version of their cap badges as shiny brass cap badges may attract the enemy's attention on the battlefield.
Moreover, regimental badges would often be removed during wartime (and indeed by the modern-day Pakistan Army along the disputed Indian-Pakistani border), to prevent the enemy forces from gathering intelligence about troop strengths and movements.
Wearing conventions
The cap badge is positioned differently depending on the form of headdress:
- Service dress cap: above the centre point between the wearer's eyebrows
- Beret: 1 inch (two fingers) above the left eye
- Side cap: Between the left eye and the left ear
- Scottish tam o'shanter: Between the left eye and the left ear
- Scottish glengarry: Between the left eye and the left ear
- Feather Bonnet: Slightly off the left ear towards the left eye
- Fusilier cap or bearskin: Slightly off the left ear towards the left eye
- Jungle hat: Centre front or between left eye and left ear
Soldiers of the Gloucestershire Regiment and subsequently the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment wore a cap badge on both the front and the rear of their headdress, a tradition maintained by soldiers in The Rifles when in service dress. The back badge is unique in the British Army and was awarded to the 28th Regiment of Foot for their actions at the Battle of Alexandria in 1801.
Additional items that reflect a regiment's historical accomplishments, such as backing cloth and hackles, may be worn behind the cap badge. In Scottish regiments, for instance, it is a tradition for soldiers to wear their cap badges on a small square piece of their regimental tartans. Officer Cadets may wear a small white backing behind their badges. Members of arms such as the Adjutant General's Corps and Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers serving on attachment to other units often wear that regiment's beret or headdress but with their own Corps capbadge.
For a period leading up to Remembrance Day artificial poppies are worn by many people in the united Kingdom and Canada to commemorate those killed in war. When worn in uniform the plastic stem of the poppy is discarded and the paper petals are fitted behind the beret badge where a metal capbadge is worn (On forage caps the paper petals are fitted under the left hand chin strap button).
Canada
Canadian Forces
The Canadian Forces utilize a variety of metal and cloth cap badges on their headdress. (see Canadian Forces Cap badges).
Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as well as provincial and municipal police forces, utilize forage caps and metal cap badges, though it is not uncommon to see modern police personnel on duty without headdress.
Navies
Cap badges used by navies (and merchant mariners) around the world tend to follow the pattern in use by the British Royal Navy: an anchor, or oaccasionally a cockade, surrounded by golden leaf-shaped embroidery, and often topped by a crown or another symbol. For petty officers the leaves may be absent or replaced by a ring of golden cable. The main exception to this is the United States Navy, which once followed the abovementioned pattern, but changed after the Civil War to the current designs, with crossed anchors behind the eagle and shield for commissioned officers.
External links
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