Navy M-1969 Cadet No. 3
Summer Parade-Walking Out Uniform



 

 
3rd Year Sailor Cadet (1987)
 

The cadet is Wearing:

A black bezkozirka with the 1969 enlisted cockade and a cap band marked “Northern Fleet.”

He also wears a dark blue tunic with the blue and white neckerchief.  The patch with the star and three yellow stripes on his left sleeve indicate he has been a cadet for three years.  These stripes are worn in place of the standard service specialty patch.

On his chest are two pins: a Komsomol membership pin and a second-class soldier-sportsman pin.

The shirt is worn over the light summer weight telnyashka.  A white belt with an enlisted naval buckle is also worn.  Black trousers, white gloves (not shown), and black deck shoes complete the uniform.

This uniform is correct for periods between 1969 and 1994.

Sources Cited

 


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More about the uniform...

The 1969 summer parade uniform No. 3 for naval officer cadets is different from its enlisted counterpart in several ways.  The most obvious is the reverse color of the bezkozirka and belt.  Normal sailors wear white caps and black belts, but cadets wear black caps and white belts.

His other insignia also differ from the standard conscript sailor.  Yellow chevrons below the star on the left sleeve denote the length of time the sailor has been a cadet (three in the case of our example).  These are worn in place of the standard round patch that denotes the naval specialty of the sailor.  Black shoulder boards with white piping and an aluminum anchor device indicate his rank as a seaman, but also as an officer cadet.  The remainder of the uniform is identical to its enlisted counterpart.

All of the other components of the uniform are drawn from the same stocks as the enlisted sailors.  The tunic is the same dark blue fabric that is worn in cooler climates, and the black trousers are identical to those worn by the enlisted ranks.  Short shoulder boards are worn with this uniform.  Yellow stripes across these boards indicated the sailor’s enlisted rank.

The differences helped set the sailor apart from his fellows, while allowing others to know that his career path was different from the rest.  Ribbons and badges were authorized for wear with this uniform.

 



 

Service Chronology

The naval officer cadet uniform of the 1969 regulations was markedly different from its enlisted counterpart.  It made use of reverse colors whenever possible (black cap, white belt) and attempted to set the sailor apart with details like the white gloves.  It was a significant naval uniform for the latter half of the Cold War.

It is interesting that the uniform it replaced, the 1958 summer No. 3 uniform, was not nearly so different from the regular sailor uniform as the 1969 uniform was.  It was identical to the average sailor’s uniform, and only differed in that it was fitted with cadet shoulder boards.  Though white gloves and a white belt would be worn for inspections.  They also wore a naval cap with an officer’s emblem instead of the enlisted star.  The 1969 cadet uniform attempted to further differentiate officer cadets from their shipmates.

The cadet summer No. 3 uniform was phased out of service in 1994 along with all other Soviet era uniforms when the first Russian Federation uniform guidelines were established.  The new uniform dispensed with the bezkozirka entirely and took much of its look from the officer’s uniforms of that year.  Also, whereas the difference between the Soviet cadet and his enlisted counterpart was stark, Russian Federation naval cadets only differ from the other sailors by means of the shoulder boards they wear which were piped in white and marked ‘MKK,’ the rank devices are pinned to these boards.
 

This Uniform Replaced... M-1969 No 3 Summer Parade-Walking Out This Uniform was Replaced by...
1958 No. 3 Summer Enlisted Uniform M-1994 No. 3 Summer Parade Uniform


 

Sources Cited

(1) Prilutskaya, N. V. and N. L. Kortunova, Военная одежда вооруженных сил ссср и россии (1917-1990) [Military clothing of the USSR and Russia (1917-1990's)], Moscow: Military Publishing, 1999.

(2) Правила ношения военной формы в мирное время [Regulations on wearing military uniforms in peacetime], Moscow: USSR Ministry of Defense, 1958.

(3) Правила ношения военной формы одежды [Regulations for the wearing of military uniforms], Moscow: USSR Ministry of Defense, 1973.

(4) Правила ношения военной формы одежды [Regulations for the wearing of military uniforms], Moscow: USSR Ministry of Defense, 1989.

(5) Океанский щит страны советов [Ocean Shield of the Soviet Nation], edited by P.N. Medvedev, Moscow: Planeta, 1987.
 


Last Updated 11 January 2019 by Ryan Stavka