Bermuda Regiment - Dress

Dress

The badge of the Bermuda Regiment combines elements from those of the Royal Regiment of Artillery, and the BVRC. The badge is bi-metal - all brass, except a white metal Maltese cross (the symbol of rifle regiments in the British Army, and used on the white metal BVRC badge), which is set inside the wheel of a cannon (taken from the badge of the Royal Artillery). Flashes, and other colour marks used on dress and elsewhere (such as backgrounds on signs about Warwick Camp) are red and blue, reflecting the colours of the Royal Artillery, but the stable belt (issued only to permanent staff, officers and senior ranks) worn is rifle green, with black edges, referring to the colours used by the BVRC.

The dress uniform itself is closer to the old Royal Artillery pattern, and to the generic No. 1 full-dress uniform used by most British regiments today, being composed of dark blue, almost black, tunic and trousers, and differing only in the red cuffs and collar added to the tunic. The trousers have a broad red stripe running down the outside of each leg. A generic dark blue peaked cap with red hat band is worn with this uniform. During the summer months, British Army No. 3 Dress is worn (i.e., the same uniform, with the exception of a generic, white, tropical-weight tunic).

The combat uniform is now the British Army Soldier 95 uniform. This includes a lined Soldier 95 smock. For much of the Regiment's history, its dress included a mixed collection of British uniform items. As with its predecessors, the Bermuda Regiment has a tradition of wearing temperate uniforms, including combat jackets and pullovers, for much of the year, and tropical uniforms during the summer months. This is a result of the peculiar climate of Bermuda. For many years, and unusually for an infantry unit, the Regiment wore the Denison parachute smock which it inherited from its predecessors, only adopting the 1968 pattern DPM combat jacket in the 1980s (which it issued into the new millennia, although the 1968 uniform actually became obsolete with Regular British Army regiments in the 1980s). Green shirts and lightweight combat trousers began to be supplemented by DPM tropical uniforms in the 1980s, and by the mid nineties had been entirely replaced by them (although the green kit, like the Denison smocks, was handed down to the Regiment's Junior Leaders, and to the Bermuda Cadet Corps, which continued to wear it). The tropical DPM uniformed continued to be issued for some time after its replacement in Britain by the Soldier 95 uniform. The beret worn is the dark blue one worn by the Royal Artillery, and by various British Army units not authorised to wear distinctive colours of their own. The old 1958 pattern carrying equipment was replaced with DPM Personal Load Carrying Equipment (PLCE), however some units have since been issued with DPM load carrying vests.

Little use is made of Service Dress, which is only issued to a handful of permanent staff members, though which is interesting as the colour varies slightly from the standard British Army khaki (being greener), and as, during the summer months, the long trousers might be replaced with shorts. The Bermuda Regiment service dress is composed of jacket and trousers, worn with an olive green peaked cap, tan shirt, and tie. Whereas its predecessors often used tropical weight service dress during the summer months, it uses the same uniform worn in shirt sleeve order - usually, a short-sleeved tan shirt with no tie, whether worn with long trousers or shorts of the same weight and colour. A stable belt is worn in shirt sleeve order. Mess dress is also worn for many functions by members of the Officers' Mess, and of the Sergeants' (and Warrant Officers') Mess.