NCO Gray Epaulets

[Trung Si Ma]

Just picked them up today at Vanguard

[Eclipse]

These are the official ones?

[CASH172]

Wow, they almost look like subdued grade meant to be worn on some type of combat uniform. 

[Trung Si Ma]

These are the official ones?

From the "official" source.

The reduced pixel picture does not do them justice, the thread is a very shiny silver thread.  I was surprised how good they look.

[Hawk200]

There's a certain irony in CAP finally able to obtain these after the Air Force phases out shoulder marks for NCO's.

Now if Vanguard would just make a stripes on that same gray background for the sleeves, we'd be good.

[SDF_Specialist]

Ones for the sleeves would be too much sewing, but would be cool. The epaulets are awesome.

[DC]

Why???


Wait, Vanguard, never mind. 

[SSgt Rudin]

Just as a note to any NCO's out there, they currently (as of natl boards) have halted production of anything besides MSgt. MSgt is actully the only one that has been made thus far and at Natl Boards a new design was introduced and will be voted on at winter boards for CAP NCO insignia (replace star with tri-prop).

Question: While at Natl Boards I visited the National Historian's booth and found a SM cap device in a circle that was used for NCO's in the WWII era on the service cover. Just wondering your opinion on this.

Also, if the new insignia comes out, do you think CAP NCO's will switch from CAP cut outs on the service jacket to the circle encased US?

[IceNine]

I sure hope so, there is not nearly enough differences in the NCO VS Officer uniforms in CAP, and with the vastly different programs of the 2 there is a great demand to produce uniform accessories for the NCO corp.

In all seriousness, It's nice that they are taking the steps to produce the grade for NCO's, but I think it should stop there.  No reason to create this big divide, most anyone who has been in CAP for while will be able to "spot the not" from a mile away.

[Hawk200]

at Natl Boards a new design was introduced and will be voted on at winter boards for CAP NCO insignia (replace star with tri-prop).

I hope they don't do that. A tri prop instead of a star would look tacky. Not to mention they are creating a completely new insignia, which requires money to have done. Guess who's paying that cost? Simple solution: Use the Air Force stripe design, make the background gray instead of blue. Existing design, nothing new to spend money on "design commission".

Question: While at Natl Boards I visited the National Historian's booth and found a SM cap device in a circle that was used for NCO's in the WWII era on the service cover. Just wondering your opinion on this.

That device remained in the uniform manuals up until the late '70's. It looked good. Got three of them back home. If they had one for the service cap, that'd be fine, but to keep it easy, we ought to retain the standard flight cap device for all seniors.

Also, if the new insignia comes out, do you think CAP NCO's will switch from CAP cut outs on the service jacket to the circle encased US?

Unlikely. Too similar. If taking the "C.A.P." cutouts back would get us metal rank on service coats, I could go for it. Not wanting to look "Air Forcey", just don't want that clownish looking shoulder mark on service coat epaulet. The concept is tacky.

[RiverAux]

Guess who's paying that cost?

The 50 or so CAP NCOs?  Figure that these 50 are scattered amongst at least 4 rank levels, we're looking at production runs of each rank of about 10 individuals. 

[MSgt Van]

As of last March:
  (18) Chiefs
-         (09) Seniors
-         (12) Masters
-         (08) TSgts
-         (11) SSgts
-         (04) Sgts

[DC]

62. Close enough...

[RiverAux]

50 was the number given out in a presentation last year.  Came pretty close on the number in each level too.

[alamrcn]

Here's an image from the sample batch - a little larger than the previous photo here...



As long as the shoulder mark stays gray with "CAP" on it, I think the idea to replace the star with a tri-prop is not only triple-redundant, it's hideous. I did a little playing in my paint program to create one, and I could see that the concept came out of someone's mouth before it was actually drawn out visually.

But, like was said before - at least someone is giving this subject of an NCO program the needed and warranted attention it needs... Quantity of NCO members be darned!

[Trung Si Ma]

As of last March:
  (18) Chiefs
-         (09) Seniors
-         (12) Masters
-         (08) TSgts
-         (11) SSgts
-         (04) Sgts

+1 MSgt temporarily wearing LtCol

[DNall]

Again with this production run stuff. You can go to the mall up here and have a custom hat embroidered with whatever you want for $10. They got the embroidery equipment at Vanguard, and the blank CAP ep sleeves. They've done some custom ones in the past. It's not a big deal or cost for them to make individual sets for NCOs on demand at basically the same cost they're selling the officer grade ones for.

[Hawk200]

Again with this production run stuff. You can go to the mall up here and have a custom hat embroidered with whatever you want for $10. They got the embroidery equipment at Vanguard, and the blank CAP ep sleeves. They've done some custom ones in the past. It's not a big deal or cost for them to make individual sets for NCOs on demand at basically the same cost they're selling the officer grade ones for.

That is a very flimsy justification for creating something new for the sake of it. We have enough esoteric insignia as it is. We don't need more. Keep the standard design for NCO stripes as is, just make them gray. Standard design, they already have the patterns, the only thing that changes is the color of the cloth.

Besides, any new insignia created has to be written into any pubs that address the insignia. Why bother? Stripes with a "tri prop" don't signify anything different than one with the standard Air Force enlisted star on it.

Second, if people want to "coordinate" colors, there would have to be one of these "special" designs for the BBDU. Grey would work on blues because our officer epaulets are grey, which matches the nametag, that in turn shows solidarity within CAP. On the BBDU, standard Air Force blue ones are being worn, and they actually look pretty good. Being smart about it would allow continued used of the standard AF stripes. Readily available, and if we ask for the standard AF stripe with gray cloth tomorrow, we could have them the day after. A new one requires drawings, samples, approval, then production run. How long have some NCO's on this board alone had to wait for gray epaulets with a standard AF stripe? Sure, ask for the fancy new design. It shows that the majority of us aren't considering the minority.

Change for the sake of change is stupidity in action. It's a habit CAP needs to get out of.

[Eclipse]

But, like was said before - at least someone is giving this subject of an NCO program the needed and warranted attention it needs...

By "needed and warranted" I assume you mean, "thinking it all the way through and being done with it once and for all", right?   

[DNall]

Again with this production run stuff. You can go to the mall up here and have a custom hat embroidered with whatever you want for $10. They got the embroidery equipment at Vanguard, and the blank CAP ep sleeves. They've done some custom ones in the past. It's not a big deal or cost for them to make individual sets for NCOs on demand at basically the same cost they're selling the officer grade ones for.

That is a very flimsy justification for creating something new for the sake of it. We have enough esoteric insignia as it is. We don't need more. Keep the standard design for NCO stripes as is, just make them gray. Standard design, they already have the patterns, the only thing that changes is the color of the cloth.

Besides, any new insignia created has to be written into any pubs that address the insignia. Why bother? Stripes with a "tri prop" don't signify anything different than one with the standard Air Force enlisted star on it.

Second, if people want to "coordinate" colors, there would have to be one of these "special" designs for the BBDU. Grey would work on blues because our officer epaulets are grey, which matches the nametag, that in turn shows solidarity within CAP. On the BBDU, standard Air Force blue ones are being worn, and they actually look pretty good. Being smart about it would allow continued used of the standard AF stripes. Readily available, and if we ask for the standard AF stripe with gray cloth tomorrow, we could have them the day after. A new one requires drawings, samples, approval, then production run. How long have some NCO's on this board alone had to wait for gray epaulets with a standard AF stripe? Sure, ask for the fancy new design. It shows that the majority of us aren't considering the minority.

Change for the sake of change is stupidity in action. It's a habit CAP needs to get out of.

I'm not arguing in favor of the new design concept. Just noting that having 60 NCOs is not a legitimate deterrent cause they aren't going to run these things off by the hundreds anyway.

Making new stripes on a gray backing (regardless of star or prop) would be more costly, but yes probably look good. That's a lot harder to justify.

My thought is ALL NCO stripes on gray eps & get rid of sew on stripes. I prefer the sew on stripes, got no issue w/ them wearing AF stripes, and don't like NCO grade on eps for symbolic officer/NCO reasons. BUT, NCO grade on eps is easy to do for little money & can be worn on blues & CSU.

That leaves you with something for BDU/BBDU. It's hard to justify using other than the standard AF stripes. I'd support the gray background you're talking about, but you need to go recruit 500-1000 NCOs before I think you can justify that. If you tell me you need it for marketing to get there, well maybe, but I'm still really hesitant to see that working. I'm a whole lot more concerned with seeing a functional NCO program/specialty track/whatever it's going to be with your promotion system in place & whatever else. I want to support it, but I want to see a foundation first.

[BuckeyeDEJ]

The enlisted program would get a huge boost if we'd quit handing butterbars to run-of-the-mill people who walk in off the street, get fingerprinted and wait six months. You can't tell me there aren't a lot of Real Air Force people who resent the quality of some CAPers who wear officer grade.

(But I hear Level I is changing, and that's a good thing. A lot of what ECI/AFIADL/HQ AU A4/6 Course 13 gives our membership should be given to officer candidates in the first six months of membership.)

That said, it needs to be more attractive for new members to be enlisted. Maybe membership fees could be a little lower. Maybe the training required for enlisted specialties could be a little different.

Some new members should still be considered for officer grade, like pilots, doctors, chaplains and some other special appointments. Former cadets who reach certain awards get officer grade (though there's no 21-year-old who should be wearing captain's bars, I don't care if they have a Spaatz Award or not). Former military officers should wear their previous grade, as they do now.

But new members should... pardon the pun... earn their stripes. Thoughts?

[Eclipse]

Maybe membership fees could be a little lower. Maybe the training required for enlisted specialties could be a little different.

Define "enlisted specialty"... (in the context of an under-staffed, all-volunteer environment where generals still empty waste baskets, and butter bars command units).

[MIKE]

Lets not let a thread about epaulets drift into another 20 pages about what an NCO program should or shouldn't be... That horse has been thoroughly tenderized.

[DNall]

Maybe membership fees could be a little lower. Maybe the training required for enlisted specialties could be a little different.

Define "enlisted specialty"... (in the context of an under-staffed, all-volunteer environment where generals still empty waste baskets, and butter bars command units).

Sure... most local units are not under-staffed, they are over-assigned. Nowhere in the military would you ever find a unit at the 20-30-100 person level doing all its own support functions. It'd have it's primary task (fixing airplanes, pumping gas, whatever), with a couple support folks to liaise outside, but almost all the support functions would be done outside by a support unit.

In the Army for instance - let me use my unit as an example. We're an Aviation Battalion. We have a HQ Company that contains ALL the support functions for the full BN of 600 people. The line Cos & Maint Co don't each have a PAO, supply, operations, admin, etc... They have a couple people that coordinate support from the HHC shops to take care of the soldiers in their actually functional unit. That's how the military works.

In CAP we expect every line unit out in the field to do all the support for themselves, rather than relying on specialized support shops at the GP or WG level.

So where does an NCO fit in? They fit at the Sq level, cause almost everything that should be going on there is enlisted work, and they fit in those support shops doing specialized work. The problem isn't NCOs, it's our officer side is all jacked up.

Lets not let a thread about epaulets drift into another 20 pages about what an NCO program should or shouldn't be... That horse has been thoroughly tenderized.

And I apologize, that's kind of my fault. Id on't see the point of making a big deal over NCO insignia when it applies to 60 people of a 50k person national org, and when the program isn't defined so shows no signs of massive growth in our future. This thread right here is pretty much more effort than I think the issue deserves before those other higher programming requirements are addressed. I think a simple imperfect compromise solution is fine for the uniform issue until that happens. When they are actually up to speed, then by all means we can have a uniform discussion and make some changes in support of what I think can be a good part of the CAP program.

[Eclipse]

You can't compare compensated services with CAP, or any other volunteer organization.

The compensated services have the ability to assign and transfer people wherever they see fit, or simply not accept them
if the quota for "x" is met.

I'm as committed as anyone, but I'm not going 4-5 hours downstate just because they need my skills down there, that misses the point of CAP, which is local service in uniform.

Most military units don't even present the ability to stick around home, unless you happen to luck out with a base in your city that needs your MOS.