NationStates Jolt Archive

Port Royal, Roycelandia

The men and women of the Imperial Armed Forces have voted overwhelmingly in favour of retaining their current uniforms, despite criticisms from some quarters that the Imperial Guard's uniform, dating as it does from the Zulu War era, is grossly outdated and should have been changed over a century ago.

"I mean, Crimson is not exactly the best colour for battledress on the modern battlefield", says Dr. Steve Beauregarde from the University of Port Royal. "The soldiers of the Imperial Guard are visible from miles away, quite literally. They really should have Camouflage uniforms, like everyone else on the planet."

However, Commander Edmund Blackadder of the 3rd Imperial Guard (Emperor's African Rifles) disagrees. "The total number of Roycelandian casualties in any war due to friendly fire currently ranks at zero. The Redcoat uniform is also a powerful psychological weapon in it's own right, and let's face it, it does look pretty cool. Incidentally, the Colonial Guard wear Khaki anyway, and the Foreign Legion have Camo gear, so I don't know what the fuss is about."

The Soldiers of Roycelandia evidently agree with Commander Blackadder, and the distinctive Redcoat and Pith Helmet uniform will stay in service for the foreseeable future.

A Complete Dossier on the Roycelandian Armed Forces can be found here:
http://s4.invisionfree.com/The_Commonwealth/index.php?showtopic=7&view=getnewpost

Lusakan analysts have long dismissed the visibility issue as the main failing of Roycelandian uniform policy, pointing out that, in their experience, Royclendian soldiers on official deployment rarely seem to get into heavy fighting and are usually not trying to hide, unlike many of their less powerful opponents. During the Lusakan War of Independence, it was Lusakan soldiers who hid in the bushes and shot at passing army columns, and it mattered little what colour those columns were. There are few records of Roycelandians ever being given away by crimson flashes in the bush, because their tactics didn't seem often to lead them there.

While this in itself may simply be indicative of the obsolete nature of all Roycelandian military planning rather than just the uniform, it is not usually the point made by Lusakans interested in the matter on a serious level. As Professor Bernadette Mkapa of the Morogoro Institute of Political History says, "the practice of wearing the uniforms of their predecessors actually makes them [the Roycelandians] more vulnerable on a propadanic level...

"...it is that little bit easier for their traditional enemies [such as the United African Republic of Lusaka] to associate today's Roycelandian Empire with the most brutal episodes of what would otherwise be its long-forgotten history.

"Let us not forget that the Roycelandians have been in Southern Africa for almost five centuries, and during that time any number of regimes have been in power and any number of private companies or self-interested gentlemen have carried out countless regrettable actions... and for a large part of that long period of history, the Roycelandians and whatever unpopular actions, laws, battles or slaughters have been carried out are associated with that crimson uniform."

The implication is that many old imperialist powers have done much to change their image and to distance themselves from past actions, from slavery to massacres to simple unbalanced economic practice restricting native African progress or suffocating national cultures and identity, and that ordinary Lusakans recognise the difference between a French imperial soldier in a tall hat and a blue tunic, and a French peacekeeper in a beret... but believe that a Roycelandian imperialist in a crimson tunic, riding on a horse, is the same thing as a Roycelandian imperialist in a crimson tunic riding on a Landrover.