My Estonian Military/Police Stuff

Ever growing, I guess I'll share what stuff I have so far from this lovely little corner of the globe.


First off, a couple TTsKO hats. An older M43 with real earflaps and a boonie, both from probably the early 2000's.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe I actually got both from panzerwerk awhile back, so thank you!
Tags are unfortunately worn on both.


Easily one of the most comfortable boonie's I've ever had the pleasure to place on my noggin.


Next, a 1990's flask pouch in the early wacky purple TTsKO.


With 1957 Soviet flask


All together



The following stuff was all obtained by a great Estonian pal of ours, Merk, who provides a great source for this stuff and experience and info to go along with it.
So special thanks to him and a shout out!

Next up is a TTsKO ushanka. From the 90's or 00's.
Has a gold coat of arm's badge, according to Merk these are worn by professional/career soldiers, and conscripts doing their national service wear the Eesti roundel.


Apparently, for some odd reason, you can only wear the small dinky inner ear flap in cold weather, and not the actual ear flaps.


Writing of former owners, "PAITS" and "TAMMARU"


A HUGE winter TTsKO parka, obviously Afghanka inspired.
This one, according to Merk, is a "quintessential 90's piece" with lovely purple tint and epaulets, which served to put rank slides before they were removed and rank was placed on a single loop on the chest, sometime in the early 00's.


"Estonian Army"


This one however was an Air Force one, missing its patch but Merk pulled through and found it and provided one.
Amari Air Base.


Not yet sewed on, but as it will be.


It also came with an East German UTV pistol belt, apparently the fashion back then was to wear whatever belt you could find.
And also, this 1990 Swedish field dressing in the arm pocket.


A pair of TTsKO summer trousers. These are also from the 1990's.
They are brand new, some buttonholes were still sewed shut.


A TTsKO rainsuit, from the 2000's. In the older front snap style, rather than the pullover.


Some dress rank slides, for junior officers.
Ensign "Lipnik", 2nd Lieutenant "Nooremleitnant", and Lieutenant "Leitnant",


A thermal cold weather undershirt, dated 2009. Nicknamed "Soble", apparently a staple of the "lounging" uniform


And finally some police stuff. Here we have an old Soviet era auxiliary police armband and badge.
Under those are a newer sleeve patch and some rank studs, very similar to the East German ones.


And finally we have a standard 1990's era Estonian police service uniform, sans duty belt and trousers.
The visor is an 8-point, and has a beautiful coat of arms badge.
The service jacket is a sort of Ike-style, and has the older two piece patch and tab on the shoulder, and I added the rank studs, although it is still missing two.
The shirt is a basic short-sleeve button up, and has two coat of arms on each sleeve.



And everyone loves photos, right?

Here you can see the dress uniform with rank slides



The old rainsuit










I imagine there were different twills, but my TTsKO trousers seem to have a higher polyester content than most later ones.
Maybe 90's uniforms were more like that? This lovely girl on the left seems to have a pair like mine.










Some 90's pics, showing the plethora of gear the Estonians used, as well as some of their own early stuff.






This man has a Soble, KLMK, old winter parka, and his M43 has that same coat of arms as Grant has on one of his caps.



Soble on the front guy



Very Soviet looking winter gear



Some Sobles under the summer uniform



This fellow decided to don some rain camo



ATC tower at Amari Air Base


Estonian police, 1990's





Enjoy!
-Nate

Wow...

Great Photos.

I see at least one pattern most of us have never seen before.

Great kit as well.. Estonian rocks !!

S

nice collection items and outstanding, interesting pictures. thanks for sharing.

Got a few new things a little bit ago:

Winter TTsKO trousers. These are dated 2006, and according to Merk is the last iteration before the change, as the "ESTPAT" stuff was coming in around 2006.
These differ from the previous "Soviet" M88/Afghanka cut and have the later "modern" cut, including an elastic waist, velcro cargo pockets, a permanent sewn-in quilted nylon/poly liner, and pant legs that zip up to the knees to allow them to be donned over winter boots, as well as velcro cuffs at the base to tighten around the boots.



A now completed set, excluding long johns/Soble shirt.


Some of the extras he threw in include a Kaitsepolitsei patch, essentially the Estonian version of the FBI, and a Lahingukool "Battle School" tape.


Allegedly these patches are worn "in the field"


Hard to see on these guys, they are usually worn over the left pocket but rarely the right as well


And lastly, a 2000's Estonian Police short sleeve service shirt, straight out of the factory packaging.
Compared to the earlier 90's stuff you can see at one point the Estonian police patch combined the "Politsei" tab with the shield.

Some great items and a fantastic spread of pictures.  Well done

The most interesting picture in the entire mix, I think, is this one:



The guy on the right is wearing an Amoeba camo uniform based on the current uniform cut.  I've never seen that before!  I'm assuming it is for some force such as Defense League, not regular military. The guy on the left is wearing Defense League badging, so it's a good guess.

Steve

absolutely great pitures and fantastic items. thanks for sharing ... @Steve, nice picture, too.

Merk mentioned that uniform before, can't remember if he had one and sold it. You'd have to ask him, he mentioned a few experimental/trial uniforms.

Another nice picture!  Shows the big color contrast of a new and worn uniform with the detachable sleeve badge on the right arm.

As for the odd Amoeba in modern cut, I have a Defense League digital uniform.  It's very similar to the standard issue, but a little lower quality. So I'm not surprised to see the Defense League had its own Amoeba uniform, but very surprised to see they bothered to make one in the modern cut since they were already using digital by that point (Defense League got the BDU style digital camo uniform).

Steve

That uniform could  to be a trial, or maybe a unit purchase..

Certainly noticed it right away.  Non digital, current cut..

Defense league did have digital uniforms in a similar cut to the old amoeba uniforms, so the whole thing is weird.  Most likely  a very limited production uniform.

S

ripcord wrote:
Defense league did have digital uniforms in a similar cut to the old amoeba uniforms, so the whole thing is weird.

What was mentioned by an Estonian member, somewhere on this forum, is that the digital uniforms in the old cut were originally intended for the regular armed forces. However, very few were issued before the cut was changed to the new cut. All remaining stocks went to the Defense League.

This could be true, but it could also be true that the Defense League ordered a batch of uniforms in the old cut because it was cheaper than the new cut. The cloth is also different than new cut uniforms that followed. This fits a pattern with the Defense League uniforms.

For sure there's a lot of oddball stuff out there. The amoeba set in the old cut is just a reminder of that fact. I have ripstop amoeba trousers in the old cut, for example. Apparently extremely rare. I'll probably never get a jacket

Steve

Few new things

First is a coat in the strange-strap configuration, from Merk



Peace Operations Center patch



Senior NCO Course Graduation badge, and where the name used to be



And a strange teal nylon zippered interior pocket that according to Merk is from the factory, and not user added



An ESTPAT helmet cover for a Schuberth/K-pot style helmet, seen here on my Israeli M76 as my PASGT is too big for the cover



An ESTPAT ushanka for a conscript





And finally an Estonian Prison Service visor from the 1990's




Some pics. Enjoy!
-Nate

Nice pictures!!

Ironically, I have a uniform up on eBay right now that is nearly identical to the "Peace Operations Center" uniform you got from Merk.  I have four of these jackets and I can say for sure that the inside pocket is always made out of nylon, though I think one of mine the nylon is maroon color.

It appears that the uniform with the arm insignia flap succeeded the pleated pocket type in the late 1990s (1998?) and was replaced in early 2000s (2002?) by one without the flap and a few other changes.  However, the uniform was worn for a few years later minimum, probably longer by Defense League soldiers.

Here's a picture showing the flap uniform (right) and the one it replaced (left):



Also, I think I have a winter hat for use with the oddball Amoeba uniform in the digital camo uniform cut.  The hat is dated 2011 and is identical to the digital style winter hat.  It has Estonian Defense Forces triple lions on it.

Steve

A correction from Merk; those rank slides are not for an EDF "lipnik", but rather for a Komissar of the Border Guards.

I see you've made some great additions to your Estonian collection! The borderguard winter stuff is especially nice and very difficult to find. Congrats on getting some of it, though it's a shame you don't have the coat.

Ooooo... that's more "Swedish" cut TTsKO pictures in one place than I've ever seen! Thanks!

Is there a label on the inside of the desert TTsKO M43 style hat? I've never seen one before, so I'm wondering if it is commercial in nature or perhaps experimental.

Steve

Thanks Steve! Yeah, I'd love to get a parka to get the whole BG set, but that pattern by its nature is quite hard to come by.
Merk provided all those reference photos to me, he has an absolute goldmine. Being able to actually search in the language certainly makes it easier, heh.
The M43 was part of the group of items that were handmade by Merk out of original fabric. The only original desert piece is the 2004 coat.

Thanks for the great post. Excellent photos