Military sizes are more accurate than civilian sizes in general. If you measure yourself carefully, you'll get fitting clothing. There's no reason not to order online, at least if you're ordering from Varusteleka.

• Overall length is measured with shoes off.
• Waist is measured at the navel.
• Chest is measured just below the armpits.
• Inner seam, in trousers is the seam of the leg, that runs from the crotch to the ankle. It's usually measured from your pants, not from your body.
• When taking measurements, don't add some just to be sure. Take the exact numbers. If you seem to get varied results, measure yourself five times and get the average.
• As in almost every country in the world, we give our information in the metric system. If you find this hard, use an online conversion software. Best idea would be to find out metric numbers for your own measurements, so you only need to use the conversion once.

International size charts

Different apparel use different size systems. Below are some of our most common size systems deciphered:

• Bundeswehr size charts
• US jackets size charts (Medium Regular etc.)
• US trousers size charts (Medium Regular etc.)
• Austrian jackets size charts (96-100/III-VI etc.)
• Austrian trousers size charts (96-100/III-VI etc.)
• East German NVA size charts (e48G, 52K etc.)
• European jackets size charts (48, 50, 52 etc.)
• European trousers size charts (48, 50, 52 etc.)

Gloves

Glove size is the circumference of your hand measured around the widest point of your palm. If you measure in inches, the result is your glove size. If you're metric, divide the measurement by 2,54.

The average adult male hand is 23 cm, so 23 / 2,54 = 9.06. The correct glove size in this example is 9.

Headgear

Head wear measurement is the circumference of the crown, measured around the skull, about one centimeter above the ears. Make sure to measure accurately - keep the measure tape tight. Generally, you'll want a hat that is not too small - 1 cm wont make much difference though. Some headgear (especially berets) will loosen and "grown in size" when used. This can be accounted for by ordering one size smaller.

Footwear

Please note! The chart is based on hard facts about shoe size conversions: Paris Points, Barleycorns, and such. Some manufacturers and other sources convert shoe sizes incorrectly, don't believe the fake news! Our truth is the correct one.

To improve your odds of getting the right size boots when ordering online, we strongly recommend measuring your feet to find out your true size in various size systems. Quite often two choices will be suitable in terms of length: in these cases, you may prefer the larger one if you have wide feet or the smaller one if your feet are narrow.

The correct manner to measure your foot is to trace your footprint on a piece of paper with a pencil and then measure the length. Do both feet, it's not common to have perfectly symmetric feet.