It appears to be a common practice for 3 Aust Div artillery patches of WW1 to be manufactured and issued with a khaki serge backing identical to the one on this 3 Div AASC patch.
I had one (arty) in my own collection and have a photo of a tunic still in the possession of the family of a 3 Div trench mortar btys fellow with this backing.
If you look at the photos in the roll of honour in Vol 3 of the 7th FA Brigade Yandoo, page 37 I think, at least three of the men pictured are clearly wearing 3 Div arty patches on backings. This was identical to the patch I had which I must admit I originally thought had been added on, although the patch itself was definitely original.
This AASC patch is the first non-arty 3 Div one I have seen but I did have a 3 Army Bde AFA patch with a very coarse khaki backing which was not uniform material. That patch itself was not the fine broadcloth you see in Army Clothing Department patches,it was also coarse.
I do have a scan of this latter but not sure what I'm doing in the uploading process coz the file size exceeds the site's size restrictions. I'll work on it.
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