Rubberised patches - who was the first?
 

Would I be correct in saying that the Soviets were the first to come up with
rubberised patches? Following the end of the Cold War rubberised patches were also used by most ex Soviet republics and several ex Warsaw Pact countries. Russia and the Ukraine however are moving towards embroidered patches.

Another user of rubberised patches were the South Africans bit the “Tupperware” patches were a mix of rubber and some other material. Did any NATO member have rubberised patches?

Thank you.

I think Turkish Cypriot rubberised date back to the late 70's but I'm not sure if the one I have was picked upon Cyprus when I was there in 1978.

Concur with Leigh, Turkish Forces had 'rubberised' patches in late 1970's - Regards Mark

Belgium.

Marc

Guys, thanks for the input - much appreciated.

Marc, yes I forget about Belgium. In the 50’s and 60’s it came out with rubberised patches. I would imagine that the main reason rubberised patches.

I’m guessing that the reason rubberised parches never really caught with most other countries is because they were more expensive to produce compared to embroidered and printed ones; as well as being harder to sew on.

Going off topic; the first thing which comes to mind when “bevo” is mentioned is Germany in WW2. It was a prolific user of bevo patches but several other countries (Britain included) did have them during the war. For some reason it never really caught on (costs?) and hardly anybody uses them today.

....not sure if this helps - Polish Boy Scouts have definitely been using them since the 60's (possibly earlier) and continue to do so today. I cannot get to my own examples, but I am sure you will find more images online if you need them.

Polish Boy Scouts in the 1960’s - very interesting.

I was under the impression that the first to introduce them
we’re the Soviets in the 1970’s (the SADF introduced them in the mid 1980’s) but as 2 other members have pointed out; the Turks and Cypriots had them and now you’ve mentioned the Poles.

hello

we have the same things in France called procédé Gilmant (Gilmant's process)
it started at the end of the 30's until the end of 50's
not easy to find....!!

cordially
Didier

Interesting topic.

Attached are a couple of modern Australian SAS Rubberised patches.

Paul

Hello
Those Polish Scouts patches are younger - rather 70'ties.
But the fact is that first patches made with pvc appeared in mid 60-ties - issued for 6th Airborne Division and 7th Naval Assault Division.
Regards
Rafal

Yes, I appreciate that the Polish scout badges in the image attached to my post earlier in this thread are not issued in the 60's. As I said in that post, I am currently unable to get to mine (which are definitely from the 1960's) so I sourced this image for illustrative purposes from Google Images.

Apologies for not being explicit in my original post - was only trying to help!

Not sure if these fit you criteria of rubber, but, they are a rubber flock material applied to cloth. Post WW2 Home Guard.