Interesting vz. 60 jacket - one of the first models

Recently I went through my fathers old stuff in the locker and found one needles jacket which is quite different than all other jackets I saw. Naturally I was thinking that it is either Ministry of Interior (Border guards, SNB - Police) or para version. Than I spend an evening digging through ČSĽA (Czechoslovak peoples army) living history forum and found out that this jacket is standard army jacket, just early model.

The difference is the elastic band in the waist and also elastic cuffs inside arms. They seem to be designed to prevent air/wind going up the jacket - so that is why I thought about either paras or police (motorbike).

As it turns out both these features are NBC protection measures. As ridiculously as it sounds it was designed to prevent radioactive fallout from entering inside of the jacket. Somebody quickly found out, that in event of nuclear holocaust this piece of cloth would be quite useless so all jacket produced after 1960s don´t have it.

I am sharing it to prevent somebody buying jacket like this as an para version.

Very nice jacket, thanks for the detail pics.Old school Warsaw pact stuff just roxxx.

Very nice one!  We've had some discussions about the large number of variants of Jelici uniforms, including those for Border Guards, Police (IIRC), and females (my one and only camouflage skirt ).

The elastic for the sleeves and waist is the same as the Mlok uniform that came before it.  It is not to block out wind (as you correctly found out), but to block out biological and chemical agents. I had not heard "radiation" before, but it is just as stupid as thinking some cotton is going to block bio or chemical any more than it could radiation Once I hears this news it made sense to me because if it were for airborne the waist is useless.  It would be along the lower hem, not half way up. So it's not useful for blocking wind either!

Steve

Very nice. I've got such an early jacket from 1965 and didn't realize they modified the later jackets, so I assumed they all shared the same internal features.

Mine does not have the cross swords on the stamp however.

koalorka wrote:Mine does not have the cross swords on the stamp however.

If it has two chest pockets it is Ministry of interior jacket used by border guards, SNB (police) and prison guards.

I do have the SNB style tunic as well. Here are some photos of my 1965 set:





And the same cut in "Mlok":





IIRC, the set I traded with Steve had wooden toggles on the waist cinch, so perhaps earlier still.