These sliders were introduced for wear on the front of the French style uniform in the mid 90's.  Initially they were flat with a velcro backing and then became available in slide on form.  If you look closely you can see that the Cpl and Coy Sgt have been sewn onto a backing which was made into a slider.  With the introduction of the DPM uniform the rank had to be used with a velcro backing on the shirt but as a slide on the smock. Subsequently the shirt was altered to allowed the slider to be used.

The following are the slider series you can see that they have more of a uniformity to them.

It is worth noting that before the FCA were issued with DPM's the slider was not available to them for some odd reason.  Because there was a demand for sliders by FCA personnel, a commercial company made sliders for private purchase.  They are a bit larger than the official issue but worked and filled a void. 

 Page Updated : Saturday, 29 September 2007