ABU's With Samples of CAP Insignia

[JayT]

Officers and gentlemen, we're not the Air Force. We are barely even the Air Force Auxiliary. We have zero point no reason to wear identical badges and tapes as the Air Force.

[CadetProgramGuy]

Officers and gentlemen, we're not the Air Force. We are barely even the Air Force Auxiliary. We have zero point no reason to wear identical badges and tapes as the Air Force.

You may be 90% accurate however, we are still looking at a BDU shortage issue in the not to distant future.  As responsible members (please no laughter) we must look at what options may be.

When the Air Force went from the OD Greens to the BDU's we followed, it is reason to believe that in 2011 we may follow the Air Force in the ABU as well.

We may be barely the Auxillary, but we still are the Auxillary.

[Hawk200]

We wear a USAF style uniform, not a USAF uniform. That's how it's stated in the regs, that's how we all know it to be. .

Even the manual disagrees with itself on that issue. In Para 1-8. e. it says the following:

"All uniform items must display a USAF certification label."

and

"Each uniform item must have this label sewn or stamped on permanently: "USAF CERTIFICATE NO _______. A sample of this item has been inspected and meets or exceeds the quality prescribed by AF Specification _____.""

If it's not an Air Force uniform, why does it have to have an Air Force certification label to be worn as a uniform item? It's an Air Force uniform, just has CAP distinctive insignia. Painting stripes on a horse doesn't make it a zebra.

I'd like to see us go white letters on midnight blue - it's related to the current AF colors while different enough to be "AF style" instead of AF.  Also, the contrast will make it easier to read.  Finally, it will match the stripes for SM NCO's.

I have suggested this as well. I think it's probably the best bet. You can get a hold of navy blue tapes very easily, and the matching color aspect is important.

Officers and gentlemen, we're not the Air Force. We are barely even the Air Force Auxiliary. We have zero point no reason to wear identical badges and tapes as the Air Force.

Our biggest support is from the Air Force. CAP cannot function without Air Force sponsorship. To eliminate that would require a serious source of independant funding. And I don't know of any organization that would be inclined to fund something like CAP. Let's not discount ourselves, or else the Air Force may believe us, and try to eliminate support to us.

A corporate side of the house lets us handle other missions, and request compensation for those missions. CD is an example. The Air Force has no vested interest in it, so having the option of alternate work and funding is useful.

Something else to consider when addressing the forum at large, we do have female members. Keep them in mind. They're people too. Not implying that you're sexist, but you need to keep the total membership in mind.

[RogueLeader]

Legally speaking, a military uniform is not the clothes.  I can wear Woodland Camo all day long and never be arrested for impersonating a member of the military.  Now, when I put on insignia, branch tapes and name tapes, then it is a military uniform.  Same with the DCU, ACU, or ABU; I can wear those clothes all day and never get into legal trouble.  However, if I were to been seen by a member of the military in plain ACU's, I just may end up tasting blood and teeth, or just catch an earful about how inappropriate it is for me to be wearing them.

[JarakMaldon]

I wonder what the wear policy for CAP will be with the ABUs in regards to patches.  With the AF going with a "nametapes, rank, occupation badge, period" policy, will CAP follow suit and strip off the patches?

I would welcome a "clean" CAP uniform, but I have the feeling that there are many others with deep affinity for their squadron / wing / NCSA / Hawk Mountain / reverse flag patch that may not.

[MIKE]

I wonder what the wear policy for CAP will be with the ABUs in regards to patches.  With the AF going with a "nametapes, rank, occupation badge, period" policy, will CAP follow suit and strip off the patches?

Gawd I hope so... and no [darn]ed org baseball caps.

[LtCol White]

Will be interesting to see. They may authorize patches as another way of making it distinct to CAP. I would not be surprised if a future COS USAF decides to bring back the patches for tradition reasons though.

I have more nametapes coming in different colors and will post the photos when I get them with the ABU shirt

[Trouble]

OK, using a set of ABU's I received, I have put together some actual examples using a mixture of insignia I was able to come up with. Comments?


Current CAP Insignia


Current USAF subdued as on BDU's


White on green background

Number 3 is the winner in my book!

I always though we should have worn the white thread over OD tape on the BDU's too..........  But that would have made too much sense...

but this also is coming from a guy, who as a cadet (during the switch from OG507's to  BDU's and the mandatory orange vest in the field) said it did not make sense to go to camo uniforms just to put an Orange vest over them to reduce one's chances of being mistaken for a deer. And that we should either switch to Dark Blue BDU's.

Or have a SAR specific uniform.

Solid Orange BDU's, with skill badges and Name/Branch tapes on it being Dark Blue over Orange. And all other patches being Full color.  A very Canadian AF SARTech looking uniform. (Pumpkin syndrome would be rampant though)

Yes... I advocated the BBDU's way back in 1990, and as a cadet Airmen too. Who says cadets would not like them, the OG's were not as comfortable as BDU's but they were sharp! The BBDU across the board would be just as sharp! 

Personally I would like a clean uniform too. Too many patches gives me a headache. 
Beside back in my day we did not wear a patch on every square inch of real estate we had, heck there was not even a Ground Team Badge back then, not until 1993, but we still saluted, said YES SIR!, and accomplished the mission. That and the pride of being good at what we did was enough back then.   

Hum.....  cadets that worked for the feeling of accomplishment and not to get a check in some box or a patch to show off......   oh never mind..... my age is going to start showing if I don't step down from my soap box, before I get all reminiscent.

Sorry not intending to high jack the thread.

[SAR-EMT1]

I wonder what the wear policy for CAP will be with the ABUs in regards to patches.  With the AF going with a "nametapes, rank, occupation badge, period" policy, will CAP follow suit and strip off the patches?

Gawd I hope so... and no [darn]ed org baseball caps.

Agreed, but seriously folks, lets ditch nametapes with any white on them. Grey on the Green backing of option 3 above would look ok, but to me, white stands out alittle too much.

[Pylon]

Option 3 - White on OD look really good to me.  I'd love to see it done up with tapes and insignia, too.   I'd also like to see the white on midnight blue version on ABUs.  I think one of those two options would look really great and still offer us tons of distinctiveness comfortable for both sides of the house.

[O-Rex]

Does anyone really think that the organization is going to allow stocks of patches at Vanguard to go unsold?

(I'm not being sarcastic.)

I remember that USAF did the same thing 20+ years ago when it went from fatigues to BDU's.  Give it time: the 'frosting' will come back.

[DrJbdm]

  I have heard rumor from a source at Vanguard that they are pushing CAP to get rid of the ultra marine blue because it is just so difficult to get ahold of these days, no one but CAP uses it.

  I have heard from the same source that a midnight blue is being looked at. Of course this source is nothing more then a senior Vanguard rep that I talked to for a while at the last Wing conference. So ultimately CAP could decide to do anything, including sticking to ultra marine blue. Lets prey they don't.

  I personally would like to see us have OD green tapes, the best option would be for Air Force to allow us to have the same tapes they wear on the ABU, but thats a perfect world kinda thing.

[Hawk200]

I personally would like to see us have OD green tapes...

I really don't understand why people want to put OD tapes on the ABU. We used the Air Force leftover tapes for decades (the white on blue), and now people just want to do it again (only with blue on green). Why the effort to move backwards?

[LtCol White]

I think the best option is OD tapes with white letters. It looks really good, is clearly not USAF, isn't electric, OD matches the green on the ABU well, and doesn't look like you're pretending to be something you're not.

I have some different tapes on the way and will post photos of them on the ABU when I get them this week.

[Hawk200]

It looks really good.....OD matches the green on the ABU well.....

I don't think so, and I'd be willing to bet that I'm not the only one. The ABU is a predominantly grey uniform. It has no actual OD on it. You have one, I'm surprised that you can't see that.

...and doesn't look like you're pretending to be something you're not.

People think we're pretending anyway, any OD colors are going to reinforce that.

On another note, do you think the Air Force will do that? It is their uniform, they have a say in how it's configured. I don't think taking a step back is going to help.

Besides, woven tapes will probably be out soon enough, the newest concept is fabric strips from the uniform material itself. We probably won't get tiger stripe strips, but grey would be easy.

On yet another note, the bright colored patches look surprisingly good. The uniform itself is bright, so bright patches aren't so garish.

[SJFedor]

Perhaps the normal ABU background tapes, with white thread?

I know, I'm being an optimist, but it's definitely distinctive, yet doesn't make us look like we're a bunch of slapsticks.

I know, I know, too late.....

[Hawk200]

Perhaps the normal ABU background tapes, with white thread?

I know, I'm being an optimist, but it's definitely distinctive, yet doesn't make us look like we're a bunch of slapsticks.

I know, I know, too late.....

I don't see that happening either. For one thing, with the brighter pattern, the white might not be that legible. Second, the Air Force gets the willies about CAP members looking too much like them.

We'll probably end up with something completely different that you can tell from 20 paces.

[RiverAux]

Such as ultramarine blue with white letters?

[LtCol White]

It looks really good.....OD matches the green on the ABU well.....

I don't think so, and I'd be willing to bet that I'm not the only one. The ABU is a predominantly grey uniform. It has no actual OD on it. You have one, I'm surprised that you can't see that.

...and doesn't look like you're pretending to be something you're not.

People think we're pretending anyway, any OD colors are going to reinforce that.

On another note, do you think the Air Force will do that? It is their uniform, they have a say in how it's configured. I don't think taking a step back is going to help.

Besides, woven tapes will probably be out soon enough, the newest concept is fabric strips from the uniform material itself. We probably won't get tiger stripe strips, but grey would be easy.

On yet another note, the bright colored patches look surprisingly good. The uniform itself is bright, so bright patches aren't so garish.

I think you need your eyes checked. the uniform is green, gray and tan. And you're right, I have one. Its not predominately gray. The OD on white matches well with it and is distinctive.

[DNall]

There's some old threads I remember with varrious samples for this stuff.

I like the the idea of gray/OD slightly more than white/OD, but color grade on OD is commercially avail for SDFs & such. I do support using OD tapes/backgrounds versus ABU cause it's got a chance of getting approved. Plus, white/gray on a cammo background (lots of gray/tan) would be kind hard to read. Anything to get rid of electric glow in the dark blue though. White/Gray on Dark Blue (coast guard style) is worst case passable, but I wouldn't go to the expense of that change w/o getting to something that looks less embarassing.