There’ll be rank insignias on both sleeves, as opposed to on the collar or on the chest (depending on which garment) as is the case now. This would be the first time since the trial uniform of 1906 that there’s been rank insignia on the sleeves on a field uniform I believe.
The flag is now repeated on both sleeves as well (was only on the left), and is changing to a naval jack instead of the regular nation flag that is used now. That’s a surprise.
The left sleeve will also have the main unit patch (as today) and a branch patch (such as infantry, artillery, engineers etc.) The right sleeve can hold a secondary patch for a company or similar plus a tab such as the ranger one or other applicable training achievement.
My thoughts are that it’s understandable that everything goes on the sleeves due to body armor potentially obscuring the other locations but the change from the bronze/gold color to black looks really weird in my eyes. The naval jack is rather odd but okay I guess, the branch insignia (which was also on the collar) is also a bit odd to have there underneath the unit patch. But, boy oh boy are some people not going to appreciate certain patches such as the ranger tab going on the bottom and changing from an arched format to that rectangular one.
Is this layout something we’ve nicked from someone like the Brits or American or have we just created some peculiar thing on our own (as in most cases)?
