Friday, 15 May 2015

Scottish & North Irish Yeomanry

The Scottish & North Irish Yeomanry (SNIY) is the newest regiment in the British Army being formed in 2014. It is a light cavalry regiment in the Army Reserve, and incorporates elements that were formerly part of the North Irish Horse and the Scottish Yeomanry.
It already has a cap badge and camp flag. The badge is a wolfs head, imposed on two crossed lances, with a scroll bearing the regiment's name. Personally I'm not to fond of it as it does not really have any Scottish or Irish symbolism, but it does look pretty badass. The flag is three bars of blue, green, blue with the badge in the centre:
Its not a bad flag the arrangement of blue, green, blue is unique and recognisable, but what about its ceremonial standard?  
 As it follows the cavalry tradition this should be a guidon, here is my idea:
 It is a double sided flag, on the obverse (right hand side) is royal insignia. It features the royal cypher in a circle of thistles (flower of Scotland) and flax (flower of Northern Ireland), ensigned with the Scottish Crown. Many Cavalry standards bear the white horse of hanover in their corners, but as this is a modern regiment founded in 2014, I decided to use the badge of the House of Windsor instead. This is counter changed the regiment's abbreviation.
On the obverse is the regimental insignia, again the letters "SNIY" are used, my original idea for the other corners was to use the badges of the North Irish Horse, and Scottish Yeomanry, however I thought it might clutter the design too much. I decided on using shields bearing the crosses of St Andrew and St Patrick as they are both simple,saltires and compliment each other.
Flanking the central badges on both sides are the regiments battle honours, both the Scottish Yeomanry and North Irish Horse had proud histories , the NI Horse particularly saw action as a tank unit in North Africa and Italy in WW2, the battle honours of these antecedent units would continue to be born by the new regiment.

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