Battledress Blouse, 1940 Pattern

After closing of production of Panther-Store British Battledress blouses and trousers we have successfully moved the original materials and designs which were used for their production from Brno, Czechia to Nemšová, Slovakia to retain the heritage of these supreme quality products for reenactors all on the Globe. We know that Panther-Store has had just the best references what was put into the life by very personal approach of David M to his customers. For a long time, we have had an excellent personal and friendly relation with him, and we proudly sold dozens of parts of British battledress sets. Unfortunately, after summer tragedy for all reenactors´ family, remained our hands empty. In this sad situation we have not wanted to substitute the ultimate quality British battledress sets by cheap solutions from many well know sellers or producers as we are sure that the highest quality and a good selling prices are very important.

Under this item we are providing to you the economy wool Battledress Blouse, 1940 Pattern, that is sometimes named as 1940 Pattern (Austerity) or even 1942 Pattern what is incorrect. Blouse was introduced into British Royal Army in accordance with Specification U/1076B from January 2, 1943. Blouse has been simplified, the number of internal pockets was reduced at one pocket, only and all buttons were replaced by plastic (composite or vegetable ivory) buttons pattern C.A. 5377. The parts of British Battledress were for Czechoslovak Military Units in USSR delivered via Murmansk (Arkhangelsk) Run from Great Britain. Also, these ones were used by Czechoslovak officers which were arriving to USSR from Great Britain or Middle East. The British Battledress, 1940 Pattern has been used in USSR from fall 1943 even to the end of WW2.

We discussed with some customers about the tone of color the used plastic buttons pattern C.A. 5377 and from this reason we have decided to issue following instructions. As the color of plastic (composite/vegetable ivory) buttons pattern C.A. 5377 was defined by the specification as a drab color the tone of color was not specified in details for instance as olive drab, brown drab, field drab, etc. We can understand that situation is creating a hard time to specify the exact tone of color. The plastic buttons pattern C.A. 5377 were manufactured by British private companies, e.g. Lacrinoid Products Ltd. London (before known as London Buttons Co.), Dormer Plastics Ltd., etc. Nowadays we can find on the market the evidences that even these companies were not on the same page with the tone of drab color what is fully understandable because non specified drab color could have very wide color spectrum from light brown color via khaki color to olive green color. From this reason we are not trying to find any logical order in tones of drab color but trying to go out those ones which were common in WWII. So far we have seen so many original WWII plastic buttons pattern C.A. 5377 even pattern C.A. 2253 (revolving shank buttons) in several tones of drab colors that we cannot accept the opinion that these buttons should have just dark brown or just brown, khaki, olive drab or whatever brownish or greenish color. As we would like to follow in our business the clear historical background as much as we can, and we cannot be focused just at one tone of olive green or brown drab color, etc. from the above-mentioned WWII era British plastic buttons point of view.