Officer's versus NCO's Cockades

kaiserzeit

New member
Before the purists get all in a twist about my use of the term NCO's - Mia Culpa! You know what I mean, anyway.

In another thread we found ourselves looking at one of Joe's excellent helmets - the General Adjutant's helmet. There is one quirk about it that I don't quite understand:

I was looking at the cockades for this helmet. The left is a very nice example of a Bavarian officer's cockade, with the applique, single trough of blue against the white background.

The National cockade confuses me somewhat, though. its applique ring is the single-ring NCO (sorry, using shorthand) style rather than the double-ring officer style. What am I missing?

The National cockade on Joe's helmet (my apologies to Joe for borrowing his image):

right250.jpg


Thanks guys,

Laurie
 
I would have thought so but maybe he worked up from NCO and left 'em on one of his 'haubes to show his roots? Did'nt Bavaria bend the rules a bit too?
Whats wrong with your use of the term NCO Laurie? Do you mean 'Unteroffiziere'?
 
Hi Mike,

You and I are thinking along similar lines but I do hope some of the others chime in.

Regarding NCO, I got severely reprimanded by some of the village worthies for misuse of the term NCO in favour of Unteroffiziere mit Portepee, which I find a bit cumbersome. The two terms are not perfect equivalents - structural differences between the German military and the armies based on the British formula - the language police were having kittens.

Maybe I'll drag out yet another acronym (as much as I hate them):

UOmP

or should it be:

UmP

What do you think?

Shaken, not stirred, of course.

Cheers,

Laurie
 
deadhorse.gif


Oh the old cockade controversy! I am the minority opinion. Though I do not know why. It is my contention that size of the cockade made the difference. The type of ring does not matter. While my size argument has been broadly accepted the rings argument has not. There exist examples of 48mm and 55mm cockades with both kinds of rings. Using the rings to determine rank was Bowman's view. Again not everyone agrees and period writing onlt talks of rings not the type. :dink:

http://www.pickelhauben.net/articles/NCOCockade.htm
 
Hi Joe,

Welcome back!

Thank you for reminding me of your article, I had completely forgotten - slow learner.

Hope you are well and up to appropriate mischief.

Cheers,

Laurie
 
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