Honourable Artillery Company Para Gunner
 

Hello
I have this post in the Artillery section as well.

I see on the Army website that the HAC have a Para Gunner troop to support 7 RHA.
Are they wearing the maroon beret with HAC badge, and does anyone have a photo them wearing it?
Your help, as always, is greatly appreciated, thank you

A Battery (1st City of London) HAC
 

HAC para gunners are now wearing maroon berets if they have passed P Company. The beret badge can either be the ‘short arms’ worn by most of the Company or the flaming grenade of the Corps of Drums, depending on which part of the Company that the recruit comes from. Neither of these metal badges has their normal cloth backings when worn on the maroon beret. I’m not sure whether the maroon beret is worn only when working with 7 Para Regt RHA or when parading with the Company as a whole.

My understanding is that the maroon beret is worn by all the gunners in the troop regardless of having passed P Coy (there is no requirement for those who wear the beret within 16 Air Assault Bde to have passed P Company) but everyone is expected to complete P Company at some stage.

I was also led to believe that the gunners wore the long, RA type, badge and the signallers attached to the troop wore the flaming grenade HAC badge.


This may or may not be correct but it does come from someone in the HAC

I am going by 2018 photos, which show both the flaming grenade of the Drums and the 'short arms' beret badge used by the rest of the Company being worn on maroon berets. No HAC gun/cannon badges are visible. The HAC gun badge, as I understand it, is restricted to the No.1 Dress cap "when dressed as Gunners" i.e. when firing Gun Salutes at the Tower of London.

There was a recent photo knocking around with a small of them wearing both badges (but not the winged gauntlet and staff). I asked one of their med troop and he confirmed what I said earlier.

Thank you all for your kind responses, greatly appreciated.
My apologies for my really late response, life got in the way!
Cheers chaps

Hi, are these pictures available on line please?
Cheers

I’d be interested in seeing them too

The original photos have the large name patches used during P-Company, so for Persec I’ll see if I can get some redacted versions.

Thank you

HAC paras
 

Here's a photo of the HAC paras in 2018 (with name tags redacted), as promised.

I can see no cannon badges here.

You're a star, thank you so much for that, appreciated and interesting.