Hungary Armed Forces Uniforms

[hunyadi]

As we have some good threads on the civilian uniforms and some of the ones from the 1956 revolution period, I wanted to start a thread where uniforms of the Armed Forces could be posted for reference. These should include Police, Military, Workers Militia, and anyone who was authorised to cary and gun and wear a uniform. To start off with I will post a very new aquisition - a M51 Panzer tunic to a Sgt. Pins are the 1955 April 4th commemorative badge and an MHK sports badge from 1950. The tunic is dated 1953 by the inspection stamp.

[hunyadi]

Here is a detail shot of the details.

[hunyadi]

Next is a M57 Border Guard tunic for a Master Sgt. (equivalent). The M57 parade tunic used an open collar design with a pip of the serivce branch color along the collar. Serivce and walking out tunics contiuned to use the closed collar design, but with sewn in shoulder boards not like the "slip on" Rakosi era type. The Service and Walking out unifomrs were also converted over to a four pocket design. After 1965 all tunics were converted to the open collar.

NCO tunics used silver buttons while and officer would have used brass colored buttons. As this Border Guard fell under the ministry of the Interior they used buttons with the "Kaddar" coat of arms. The military used a crossed rifle button with wreath. The lapel devices are brass and should be silver but thats how I got it. The badge on the upper right pocket is a pre 1956 silver grade "Haditorna" badge. There were holes for a single ribbon bar, the only one I have at the time is a Service Medal - could have also been a flood medal or something else - but its representative.

[hunyadi]

and the detail shot of the shoulder boards and badges

[Gordon Craig]

Gents,

Time to add some more uniforms to this reference thread that Charles started for this purpose. The first uniform I will post pictures of is tunic from the same era as Charles M51 Panzer Tunic. It is the two pocket everyday service tunic. Made of a rough cotton type of material instead of the high quality wool of the M51 Panzer Tunic. It has 5 plastic buttons on the front and none for the pockets. Instead of closing the neck with a hook and eye there is a cloth tab on one side and a small brown plastic button on the other. Charles and I have not been able to find any reference for this method of closing the nexk. Also not that the white collar liner is made of a stiff plastic material. The collar liner has a series of small holes along the top and bottom that are used to sew the collar liner to the tunic. This tunic is well marked as being manufactured in 1955. This tunic is for a third Liutenant in the Infantry. Note the small stars used for rank indication. The stars were also "flater" during this time period than later rank stars. This is indicated by the green arm of service and the crossed rifles.

Edited May 7, 2007 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

A view of the back of this type of tunic.

[Gordon Craig]

A close up of the collar showing the collar tabs and crossed rifles as well as the collar closure tab and associated button.

Edited May 7, 2007 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

Here is another tunic of the same type that I bought last Saturday at the Budapest Militaria Show. This tunic has no shoulderboards nor collar tabs and no indication that they were ever applied. I want to use it to illustrate an anamoly pecurliar to these tunics. The loops for attaching the shoulder boards are the same at the shoulder end as they are on other tunics of this period except there is no obvious way to attache the shoulder boards at the collar end. Other tunics of this period use one of two silimar methods;

1-a wide cloth loop at the shoulder end and a thin thread loop at the collar end;

2-a thin thread loop at the shoulder end and a thin thread loop at the collar end.

In both of these methods the button is never attached to the tunic. It is inserted through the top of the shoulder board while the shoulder board tab is inserted through both loops on the tunic. The loop on the back of the button is then pushed through the shoulder board tab and either tied into place with a piece of cloth or sometime just a small piece of wood is used to hold the button in place and secure the shoulder board to the tunic.

On the Infantry tunic that I posted pictures of previously, an earlier owner has made two holes in the tunic at the collar end and tied the shoulder board on by inserting a piece of cloth through the button loop and pushing the two ends of this piece of cloth through the two holes in the tunic shoulder before tying it inside the tunic. Much the same as was done in the DDR NVA to attach shouder boards.

[Gordon Craig]

A front view of this tunic.

[Gordon Craig]

A close up of the plastic buttons used on the everyday service tunics.

[Hauptmann]

M63 Panzer Colonel tunic and pants (pants not shown). The badge on the right is the Sports Badge in Silver and the ribbon bar is Two Meritorious Service Medals, 2 Gold Service to the Nation Medals and 25,20,15,10 year service medals.

Photos are Charles (Hunyadi) and used with permission.

Dan