Today we start a major new series that will run over the coming months looking at examples of modern Australian Army uniform, equipment and personal kit. Long term readers will be aware that I have a certain fondness for all things Australian and a major influx of Aussie kit at the end of last year thanks to the help of an Australian collector has given me plenty of material to cover over the coming Mondays. We kick off today however with an item I picked up in the UK; a pair of Captain’s rank slides on the DPCU, or Auscam, fabric:

For the most part Australian military ranks copy British practice and are combined on the rank slide with the name of the country. In this case it is the three pips of a captain and ‘AUSTRALIA’ embroidered in black:

These slides are issued in small cellophane packets with two slides in them, however in practice many times it is only a single rank slide that is worn, mounted centrally on the chest as is common practice in many armies across the globe, as demonstrated by this captain:

The rank slides were produced on standard cotton like this pair, but were also produced on rip stop fabric. The rank slides can also be found in the desert DCPU pattern and in the Australian version of MTP.