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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 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.
British Army
In the British Army (as well as Commonwealth armies), cap badges are
extremely important, with each regiment and corps having its own. In some
regiments, officers and other ranks have different cap badges. When a
soldier is assigned to a regiment or corps, it is known as being
capbadged to
that organisation.British cap badges are commonly made of the following
materials:
- copper
- bronze
- brass
- silver
- plastic
- cloth
- white metal
- bi-metal
- staybright
- blackened brass
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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.
A regiment or battalion may maintain different variations
of the same cap badge for members of different sub-units within the same
regiment. Such variations are usually made in terms of the badges' material,
size and stylization.
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The bi-metal cap badge of the Bermuda
Regiment, an amalgamated unit, combines the field gun of the
Royal Artillery badge with the Maltese Cross of the Bermuda Volunteer
Rifle Corps |
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In most British and Commonwealth regiments, variations in
cap badges are normally made for:
- Officers: usually three-dimensional in design with more expensive
materials such as silver, enamel, gilt etc.
- 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
- Pagri (turban) badge
- Members of the regimental band and
pipes and drums: usually a larger version of the other ranks' badge for
the musicians' pith helmet or the pipers' feather bonnet or glengarry
headdress
Some regiments, mainly the infantry ones, maintain a
blackened or subdued
version of their cap badges as shiny brass cap badges may attract the
enemy's (especially snipers') attention on the battlefield. There are also
cloth or
embroidered versions for officers or for wear on the jungle cap.
Wearing conventions
The cap badge is positioned differently depending on the form of headdress:
-
Service dress cap: the centre point between the wearer's eyebrows
- Beret: 1" (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 or boonie 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. Knowledge
of this honour encouraged the soldiers of the Gloucestershire Regiment in
the defence of Gloster Hill during the
Battle of the Imjin River in April 1951 during the Korean War
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 piece of
fabric behind their badges.
Members of the Adjutant General's Corps who are attached to a Scottish
infantry unit may
be seen wearing a Scottish tam o'shanter with their corps badge instead of
the Scottish regiment's badge.
Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers soldiers attached to regiments
likewise often wear that regiment's beret or headdress but with their own
Corps badge.
The Royal Highland Fusiliers prefer to wear their white
hackle instead of
their cap badge with the Scottish Tam O'Shanter. Similarly, in the Black
Watch (Royal Highland Regiment), only the pipers and drummers wear the
regimental cap badge with their glengarries and feather bonnet, while the
rest of the regiment wears the red hackle with their blue balmoral
and tam o'shanter.
For a period leading up to Remembrance Day artificial
poppies are worn by many people in Britain and Canada
to commemorate those killed in war. When worn by service personnel in
uniform, the plastic stem of the poppy is discarded and the paper petals are
fitted
behind the cap badge. (On forage caps the paper petals are fitted under the
left hand chin strap button.)
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