Bty and Regt Plaques

The topic of plaques for 2/10 Bty has come up this week. This discussion led to an exploration of the different plaques that have been in use by the units that led to 2/10 Bty 9 Regt. Following are examples of those we can find. Many of the Bty plaques featured a mascot.

2 Fd Regt

2 Fd Regt preceded 2/15 Fd Regt. Here’s a plaque from 3 Bty at Landcox St, Brighton, from Peter Kama-Shattock.

15 Fd Regt

15 Fd Regt preceded 2/15 Fd Regt. Here’s a regimental plaque from then.

1970 … 15 Field Regt. .. when H.Q. and 22 Bty. were based at Dandenong and it’s sister 23 Bty, was based at Frankston – Before merging with 2 Field Regt. Which, occurred in 1975 creating 2/15 Field Regiment.

Ian Webley

2/15 Fd Regt

There were unofficial plaques for both 2 and 23 Btys (there may have been one or more for 3 Bty and HQ Bty, but I’m not aware of anything).

There was a generic Regt plaque.

Here’s the 2/15 plaque as presented to Dave Mills.

2 Bty

The 2 Bty plaque featured the mascot Gunner Secundus.

The 2 Bty Plaque I had a lot to do with, organising the art work and sourcing the production in conjunction with the PMC of the Gunners Mess at the time.  The mess actually sponsored an albino snake at the Melbourne zoo with a copy of the plaque on “Gunner Secunds’” display.  You will also note two versions of the snake scale, black on white & white of black.

LtCol Peter Rowley

23 Bty

23 Bty picked up the nickname (or called themselves) “The Rebels” so for a long time they used the Rebel Flag (US Confederate flag) as an emblem, and this early plaque shows this.

The Bty had a longstanding relationship with Frankston and chose the dolphin as the mascot.

23 Bty had the dolphin mascot that I believe was a Col Swindels (BQMS) design. The dolphin was selected as the Frankston FC are the Dolphins and this emblem celebrated 23 Bty’s connection with the City of Frankston over many years.

Maj Stuart Pigdon

10 Mdm Regt

I expect there were probably many plaques from 10 Mdm and subunits.

Here’s a 10 Mdm Regt plaque from Sgt Helen Janner

37 Mdm Bty

The only plaque I’ve seen for 37 Bty is as follows.

2/10 Mdm Regt and 2/10 Fd Regt

There were some plaques produced for the batteries of 2/10 Mdm (later 2/10 Field). The following two plaques were for 2/10 Mdm and 2/10 Fd (Sgts Mess) from SGT Helen Janner.

22 Bty

I’m aware of two plaques. The first features a M2A2 and the badge.

A later plaque featured Ned Kelly as a bushranger with the name “Bushrangers”.

Comment on the “Bushrangers” significance.

The Bushrangers plaque was by BSM WO2 Trifford. He was looking for a Victorian reference for the battery given it’s location. There is also a version with a white V behind the bushranger figure which I have. I recall being involved in the search for a new plaque at the time and it was well before 2006 at the old 22 Bty.

Takis Diakoumis

Here’s the other version of that plaque.

38 Mdm Bty

The following plaque is from SGT Helen Janner and is similar to the 22 Fd Bty plaque featuring a gun (M198) and badge.