neo-confederate insignias

[marcpasquin]

could be for either a surviving CSA or a reestablished one in one of those many "balkanized USA" scenario.

[Dorward_Bis]

Great job, Marc! A very deep respect) I'm sure both President Davis and General Lee would be happy to implement this system into their armed forces))

[ijnfleetadmiral]

AWESOME job!

[marcpasquin]

the naval insignias that goes with them.

I'm thinking of doing Air Force next but unlike the previous 2, It's obviously impossible to extrapolate them from those used during the Civil War. Any suggestion apart from the RAF ?

[general_tiu]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparati ... e_Americas

How about the ranks of some Latin-American countries?

[Medic_in_Uniform]

There are two immediate thoughts for a "CSAF" -- the first is that the obvious solution, which most countries used when their Air Forces were formed, is to pick either the Army-pattern or the Navy-pattern and essentially use one of those, either directly or with minor modifications; the second thought is to create something entirely new and unlike either of the others. At that point, it's whatever you feel like...!

If you follow the US model then clearly they'd end up with pretty much the Army insignia on variant uniforms.

[Torg003]

It basically comes down to how to see the air force being formed. Did it start out as an army air/flying corps (as in the US) or as a merger of air elements of army and navy (as in UK and Commonwealth). It might be interesting to not have an air force as a separate service, but have the army and navy keep their air elements separate and show the special insignia that might have developed for each one. For example, I could see a CSN Air Service (or Air Arm) having an eagle instead of anchors in the enlisted insignia and using the rank title aircraftsman (or airman) instead of seaman. Higher ranks could use terms like, Technician and Master Technician.
Anyway, those are just examples, I'm sure you could come up with something better.

[Medic_in_Uniform]

Yep, much like what happened in the UK with the Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service before their eventual merger into the Royal Air Force.

I guess whether a subsequent merger happens (or how it happens!) has as much to do with politics and personalities as it does with practicalities...!

[marcpasquin]

It basically comes down to how to see the air force being formed. Did it start out as an army air/flying corps (as in the US) or as a merger of air elements of army and navy (as in UK and Commonwealth). It might be interesting to not have an air force as a separate service, but have the army and navy keep their air elements separate and show the special insignia that might have developed for each one. For example, I could see a CSN Air Service (or Air Arm) having an eagle instead of anchors in the enlisted insignia and using the rank title aircraftsman (or airman) instead of seaman. Higher ranks could use terms like, Technician and Master Technician.

Someone on another forum suggested something along the same line and to be honest, it seems like it might be a good. His suggestion was that a country which would not have been involved in any war (assuming the CSA had turned into a pariah state post ACW) and only have air branches as support to the army, navy and possibly some sort of border service.

The other option was to use a naval type insignias where the enlisted would use exactly the same progression as naval rates but with the single anchor being replaced by a 2 arms propeller and the crossed anchors by a 4 arms one. probably in grey on dark blue.

Officers would also use the progession of their equivalent but theirs bars wouldn't have a curl and instead would have a bird in flight over it (maybe a buzzard ?).

[Dorward_Bis]

Taking into consideration the sky is being indicated sometimes as a "Fifth Ocean", I would join the opinion of colleagues who support the "navy-like" ranking system for this hypothetical Air Force.

[Medic_in_Uniform]

Assuming that a hypothetical Air Branch wouldn't come into existence until about 1910 (-ish) and thinking of the uniform styles and variants around at that time...

The use of propellers with varying numbers of blades is an obvious alternative to the naval-type enlisted insignia.

One thought that crossed my mind was to use the naval-type officer insignia but to restrict them to shoulder-boards / slides only rather than cuff insignia; keeping to the CSN pattern, you can then allocate specific colours to staff, aircrew, engineering, ordnance, commissary, medical, etc...

You could then choose whether or not this was worn on on a "naval" style double-breasted jacket, an open-necked four-pocket tunic with collar and tie, or maybe a Pershing-style high-collar tunic with Sam Browne belt, breeches and riding boots. I guess something like the USN small-crown peaked cap of that era as headwear, with an overseas wedge cap as the less formal alternative?

I think I favour the Pershing but in a slightly more grey version of an RAF-type (or early USAF) grey-blue with black Sam Browne and black boots for senior staff! Maybe they would have borrowed the RFC-style "maternity" tunic for aircrew, except in CSAF grey-blue...?

Could be a fun one to fully work-up and draw out!

[Medic_in_Uniform]

Oh, and I wonder if they would have avoided the Eagle as an emblem, because of the links to the US arms...?

Maybe some specific choice of a bird from the Southern states...? A falcon or hawk of some sort...?

[jrichardn2]

Re a hypothetical CSAF - wouldn't it depend on its history? Most air forces were spun out of their countries' armies; hence the near universality of army-type rank titles and badges. The RAF was originally a merger, so it had more or less unique titles and badges.

If the CSAF was just the CSA Air Corps it would _probably_ use army-style rank badges and titles, but with a uniform or regimental colour in a blue lighter than the navy.

[marcpasquin]

A variant of the scheme I described above would be that the CSAF woul be a unified service that would have adopted modified naval insignias for enlisted (propellers instead of anchors) and modified army insignias for officers.

This would require 3 types of "pips": for the company officers, highly stylized wings, somewhat like WW2 luftwaffe insignias. For generals, suns in splendors. For field officers however, I'm not entirely sure. Maybe heraldic stars (estoile) ?

[MovingtargeT]

Marc, I responded to your post on the "other" forum...please check it out if you haven't already.

Regarding this idea, the CSA already has a tradition of using regular 5-pointed stars, I don't think that they would suddenly change to a stylized version. For company or field grade pips designs, many countries use flowers or leaves in their insignia. The magnolia would be a good choice because it is synonymous with the old South.

Also, for wings or birds you could use something like an vulture, albatross, pelican, or gull. None of these are intimidating birds of prey, but still very prominent in the region.

[marcpasquin]

Regarding this idea, the CSA already has a tradition of using regular 5-pointed stars, I don't think that they would suddenly change to a stylized version. For company or field grade pips designs, many countries use flowers or leaves in their insignia. The magnolia would be a good choice because it is synonymous with the old South.

The reason I was going with wings / estoiles / suns was to have a sky-based theme that would be distinctive for the Air Force in the same way that that RAF officers' stripes follow RN progression but are visually different. In that sense, keeping one identical but changing the other 2 would look weird to me.

[Medic_in_Uniform]

That's a pretty neat concept -- I like that and I think it would work well.

[marcpasquin]

I finally got around to do the Confederate States Air Force.

The concept was that like the Royal Air Force, the confederate air force was formed by integrating the army air component and its naval counterpart. in the same way as the RAF, the insignias take inspiration from its parent services but the other way around with officer insignias being modified version of those worn by army personnel and enlisted ones being inspired by naval ones.

A larger version is available in my deviantart account if anyone is having trouble seeing anything.

http://marcpasquin.deviantart.com/art/Confederate-air-force-633176592