Black beret

The black beret is a colour of beret, a type of headgear. It is commonly worn by paramilitaries and militaries around the world, particularly armored forces such as the British Army's Royal Tank Regiment (RTR), the Royal Canadian Armoured Corps (RCAC), and Royal Australian Armoured Corps (RAAC) and the Indian Army Armoured Corps and Indian Border Security Force. Notable non-armored military units to wear the black beret include the non-military police and non-special forces elements of the Irish Defence Forces, MOD Guard Service, Russian Naval Infantry (and formerly Soviet) and Russian OMON units, the United States Air Force (USAF) Tactical Air Control Party (TACP), Philippine National Police-Special Action Force (PNP-SAF) members, and the Royal Canadian Navy ("navy blue"). It was also worn by the United Kingdom's Royal Observer Corps (ROC) with their Royal Air Force (RAF) uniform, Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA).

Black berets are also worn by navies. In some navies, the naval color called black is officially "very dark blue". The Dutch Navy and Marines wear dark navy blue berets; a silver anchor for the Navy and a gold or dark brown (field duty) anchor on a red background for the Marines. The Portuguese Marines and San Marco Regiment, the Marines of the Italian Navy also wear a dark blue beret. The Royal Norwegian Air Force also use a dark blue beret. Finnish Marine Infantry wear a dark blue beret with the Navy insignia.(Finnish Coastal Jaegers - marine commandos - part of the same Nylands Brigade, wear the green beret).

Perhaps the most famous Commonwealth wearer of the black beret was Field Marshal Montgomery who wore a Royal Tank Regiment (RTR) beret complete with cap badge, presented to him by the regiment, to which he added his own general's (later field marshal's) rank insignia.