WHAT countries have the BEST & WORST made uniforms/items?

OK...I thought this might be an interesting topic of discussion, as I was working with my Iraqi uniforms...Out of your collections & experience, WHAT countries' uniforms, patches, gear, etc are the best made and what ones are the worst made?


Right off the top...the absolute WORST that I have seen has been Egyptian & Iraq is not too far behind. The Egyptian uniforms that I have in my collection feature some of the poorest sewing/stitching I have ever seen, I would bet that a 5 year old kid could do a better job on a fisher price machine. I wonder how long a uniform out in the field actually lasts. And Iraqi patches for the most part are pretty rough, at least the ones that I have seen. Older Soviet stuff is not the best in the world either.

As far as best made uniforms...I would have to say that category belongs to some of the European nations, Estonia, Slovakia come to mind as does the UK, Italy, Spain & Poland. The new Peru digital sets are well constructed as well. I would say the US ties with the UK. But Slovakia really has some mighty fine made uniforms. Australia are up there with the UK. Their uniforms seem to be abit thinner than the US.

so with that....tell us your experiences...

Steven

some of the lesser Asian/China/Thailand/Taiwan etc uniforms are the worst , bad stitching, thin cheap fabric and poor printing make them some of the worst in my collection (but some of the coolest), most European and U.S. are some of the best overall in my opinion .

Side note , I am always impressed with the Czech, Polish and Austrian Items I have , post 60's that is .

The worst-made items I have come across personally have been those of the Russian variety. It would seem there is no quality control when they are manufactured, so long as quotas are met. There are loose stitches, scads of additional thread hanging off here and there, and buttons not sewn on all the way.

As for the best-made items, I have been thoroughly impressed with the modern US, German and British uniforms, especially the newer British windproof smocks.

That's just my opinion based on what I've experienced, though.

Best for me would be the Swedish M90, Danish M84 and Polish desert.

I agree the Egyptian "scrambled eggs" are cheaply done as with the Syrian woodland set.

Panzerwerk,

Just wondering, how would you fare the Philippine camos that you have?

My Philippine set is not too bad , seems to be well made out of a med weight fabric , reminds me of U.S. commercial made items from the 80's , not quite Military grade , but decent overall ! I would not be afraid to wear them out working in the yard , something I would never do in my Chinese camo sets.

panzerwerk wrote:I am always impressed with Austrian Items I have.

Haha, these times are over!

Best: I don't know
Worst: My PLA 6 color desert uniform.

(But there's also well made Chinese stuff. No doubt.)

I'm with Camousauros..
Danish, Swedish, Finish M05 and Canadian, Australian desert are the best made uniforms out there...
Worse chinese and egyptian

Best ,ade uniform I have, WWII Canadian P37 Woll Battledress, that stuff is tough.

Your all wrong !

Yemen

I have never ever seen such badly made clothing anywhere military or civi. Absolute utter crap by all meaning of the word crap. It has the feel of child or blind persons sewing skills, multiple coloured thread, red,white,blue,green and other colours !

I would say no joke first wear they would be trashed and binned as everything would tear or split.

I agree than Egyptian uniforms have some of the poorest construction.

Here is another entry for the worst – a Nepalese camouflage uniform.

This uniform was brought back from Somalia by a U.S. Soldier who was on UN Duty in Africa in 1993. Nepal had a contingent of soldiers in Somalia as a part of the UNITED NATIONS OPERATION IN SOMALIA (UNOSOM).

You can see the rough construction of the uniform and the hand sewn button holes in the photos below. I really like the uniform because it has a lot of character. Nice color and pattern too.




Some of the nicest uniforms are the Russian KKO Type II uniforms made by the Vera factory in the early 1990’s. These uniforms have high quality materials and construction. They have beautiful patterns and coloration as well.

For my experience from my collection.

The Irish camo is very well made as for the worst my Russian snow camo, however that one is a copy. Not that I knew that until it arrived from Russia.

Regards
Paddy

The British Army had a pretty dire DPM uniform in the early 1980's, baggy pockets that were more bags than pockets which hung loose and literally fell off if you put anything in them. Cheap plastic zip which lasted nano seconds.

It was a low point and didn't last long

The best were, in my experience, were the 1950's and 60's British uniforms we had in our museum collection (sadly all burned at the instructions of our director who didn't want them kept). 1950's green combat uniforms, double stitching, well made seams, excellent quality cloth, good buttons and zips and lots of nice features. For the time a good design, but the workmanship that went into it was exemplary.

Which museum director would BURN something????

mylle wrote:Which museum director would BURN something????

Most of them now but I was at the Royal Signals Museum, I managed the reserve and handling collections of around 3000 clothing items many of them ultra rare SOE jump suits, lots of Dennison smocks, a special comouflage uniform based on WW2 windproofs used by the UK section of the UN partisan force. Many trials items and one offs.

The museum director, not a professional historian or trained museum curator just a businessman, thought it uneconomic to keep them and had them burned, disposed of through the QM's or torn to shreds as the system for offering things to other museums is uneconomical and time consuming.

Many military museums run by businessmen are like this now, vast stocks of rare and valuable equipment have been destroyed.

The Imperial War Museum destroyed it's collection of Proof Pattern Military watches, including many Rolex and Omega, for similar reasons

Its all about the money now, its cheaper to have a photograph of something and get rid of it than keep the item in question

some of the worst gear must be IRAQI made uniforms & web gear, and the last helmets they made during the Saddam regime.

the web ammo pouches like the Iraqi mfg AK chest pouches are made of very poor quality cotton materials that are almost total garbage, Im surprised they would use such crappy gear? the khaki field uniforms also have very poor sewing, the last Iraqi made combat helmets like the M90 or the M80 / 03 are so crudely made they look more like something used by the Hollywood prop dept, not something that would hold up under field conditons / combat, the webbing is also very crude and not made to last, and the metal hardware rusts easily.