The garrison cap is also called the forage cap and the overseas cap. Designed in WW1, cap was to serve as a replacement for the rigid campaign hat when travelling as it is collapsible and lighter. During WW2, the garrison cap stayed and was favored for wear at informal occassions.
The hat is made of a wool darker in color than the shirt and pants. They are often decorated with a colored braid (officially called the hat cord) running along the sides. The hat cord is signatory of the type of branch that serviceman is a part of and is either one color or has a second color "piped" in to it. Some of the common braids for 2nd Armored are:
- Light Blue for Infantry
- Red for Artillery
- Red and White for Engineering
- Maroon and White for Medical
- Yellow for Cavalry (which some tankers and recon guys wore)
- Yellow and Green for Military Police
- Green and Yellow for Armor (came in later in the war)
- Orange and White for Signal Corps
The cap usually has the Distinctive Unit Insignia (DUI) pin attached to the front left of the hat. Which one to get depends on which Regiment or Battalion you sign up with. For a first-time, just focus on trying to find a hat that fits. Look for the Infantry Piping as it is common and is good for any regiment in the division.
You'll find that these caps are nice to have. Some guys wear them in the field when not in combat. They fold away nicely when not worn, and can be tucked in to the epaulet of a Class A tunic or folded in to a belt. They do not, however, do much against the sun.
Pictured above are three caps found in 2nd Armored: Infantry (top), Medical (middle), and Cavalry (bottom). The Infantry hat is a reproduction. For the armored divisions, the concept of tanks was fairly new. So, for a time, tankers wore either infantry, artillery, or cavalry piped caps (depending on where the battalion were originally pulled from) until a new piping scheme was developed for them.
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