roy elderkin wrote:To some extent they do, the two major regt's of the Rhodesian Army were the RAR [Rhodesian African Rifles} and the RLI [Rhodesian Light Infantry] both Regt's were affiliated to the British Light Infantry, Royal Green Jackets hence the badge of the RLI is the infantry bugle, the RAR is the shield, assagai and knobkerry from the Matabele region. The original colours were Green and White , jackets green insignia white. When Zimbabwe came about it was changed to Green and Yellow, as seen on the photo. The bush hat was symbolic, in that only the RAR and former members of the old Federal Army wore them, the rest wore berets. But they do go back historicaly, when the only form of headress was the bush hat, this headdress was adopted by Grey's as a formal no one dress from the original Grey's. The BSAPolice wore them but were known as stable hats, otherwise they wore pithhelmets, until they changed to peaked caps, although the Pith Helmet was issued it was rarely worn, except by the mounted escort.
Thanks Roy.
I wondered to what extent the dress uniform relied upon British precedent. To the American eye, the uniforms depicted here look very British.
Allow me to ask an ignorant question. What was the "old Federal Army"?
The use of the bush hat is interesting. It has a very widespread history of use, but it tends to have become strongly associated with certain armies or units. This is one such example, and we can see a precedent of similar hats being worn back to the Boer War by at least South African units. Of course, the same type of hat is very strongly associated with the Australians, who limited it to dress and semi dress use post World War Two, but who very recently have allowed it to return to use with their utilities, as they're worried about skin cancer and it still shields the sun as effectively as ever. And of course the Gurkhas use what is basically the same hat. At various points in time, it's use as widespread in the British Army, sometimes unofficially.