Old school, hard a$$

[Guardian 5]

This General looks like he eats nails and majors for breakfast every morning.

I like him.

TJ

P.S. - His name is General Hans-Lothar Domröse.
http://www.jfcbs.nato.int/jfcbrunssu...130613051.aspx

[Collectinsteve]

Heh... yes he does! Interesting to see his uniform is dark gray. I'm not sure I've seen that before in a recent uniform. Any details about that?

Somewhat related... in 2004 I ran into a US Army Brigadier General at a highway rest stop in my home state. Very random. He was just back from Iraq, he said, and was on his way to visit a friend while on leave. He was still in his desert combat uniform. I noticed that his current unit assignment was Special Forces. He asked where he could get a good meal and a beer so I sent him to a great pub down the road a bit. About a half hour later I called the pub and asked if there was a general there. The (obviously young) bartender had no clue about uniforms, but she did say there was a soldier there.

And now I get to the relevant part:

I asked, "does he look like he could snap you in two pieces without breaking a sweat?" She said "yes". I said "that's the one. Here's my credit card, whatever he wants charge it to me". I think that guy could come out ahead in a bar brawl against a platoon of recruits. And probably not even spill his beer

Steve

[Gordon Craig]

A familiar face but I am too far from home to look him up.
Interesting comment from Steve about the colour of the tunic. From his ribbon bar he appears to have been on almost every BW operation outside of Germany.

Regards,

Gordon

[RamJet]

I suppose You all would be very surprised if You could hear him talk ... He gave a speech at Reconnaissance Wing 51 at Jagel in March which I attended and it was one of the most humorous descriptions of NATO staff work I ever heard.

[Collectinsteve]

With all those mission ribbons on his chest, I can just imagine how many stories he has to tell!

I'm still curious about the dark jacket. I know general's, especially 4 star generals, can break rules if they want to. But is it done more frequently, or is he pretty much the only one doing this?

Steve

[RamJet]

He isn't breaking any rule. He wears a grey jacket as prescribed for the Heer. It is only a darker grey as usual. There are no colour chips of the shade in the regulations ...

[Collectinsteve]

Interesting! But usually the color is very consistently light gray. Why dark gray for this one officer? Or are there more uniforms like this around the BW?

Steve

[RamJet]

I can't tell exactly as I am Luftwaffe and we have dark blue uniforms. But I know that I have seen darker grey Heer jackets more than one time. The Kleiderkasse uniforms (where officers usually buy) have very light grey jackets, but of course You can go to a taylor and get Your uniform there - from darker fabric.

[Proud Kraut]

You can find this dark grey Dienstanzug variants from time to time. As far as I know, mostly worn by Officers or Senior NCOs of the Panzertruppe or Heeresaufklärungstruppe (former Panzeraufklärungstruppe). These are all custom made uniforms, tailored e.g. by tailors like FraKu (Franz Kuhnert) or others. See example pic of a dark grey tunic on his website:

http://www.kuhnert-uniformen.de/produkte/bundeswehr/

PK

[SirHarry1]

The service dress jackets sold at LHD Shops range from a very light gray to a pretty dark shade with the slip on boards. They started selling these about three years ago when I was on active duty as a reservist. But since this pic was taken much earlier I would think the General had his one made by a tailor and simply picked a dark gray fabric.
BR
Harry

[Proud Kraut]

You are right. But the new Dienstanzugjacken with "Wiener Naht" are by far not as dark grey as the ones some Panzer- and Aufkläreroffiziere do prefer to wear.

In this context I want to bring back to mind the Army order - still valid - that every Army soldier, regardless of rank, has to keep available at least one Dienstanzug Jacke in "Standard-dark-grey" (the color of those DA, that were issued to recruits).

I'm afraid we need more pics and the different RAL-Numbers for all these shades of grey...