Paras - Uniform, Kit and other Particulars

There's a good chance on this thread!

I never realised there were different thicknesses

Cheers
Martin

I believe you are referring to the correct girth.

Normal toggle ropes are about an inch to an inch and half in diameter and you can 'toggle' a number together to make a long rope, a rope ladder, a rope walkway etc etc. You quite often see then wrapped around the waist or shoulders of airborne and commandos.

There is a lighter version where the rope is about half as thick, some say this is a jungle variation, some says its lighter for airborne troops.

I have no idea which is the case, personally i just think its a manufacturing variation

Whereas I'd heard that the thick ones were airborne and that everyone else (commandos and normal troops) got the thinner ones...

yeah i've never seen a hard and fast answer.

Given that most of the ones i've seen for sale are the thicker type and that the army still use the thicker type (when you do a regular commissioning board physical as an army potential officer, part of the kit you're given is a toggle rope believe it or not!) I would have thought that it's more likely the thick type are the standard.

I'd have also though it more sensible for the thin sort to be jungle or airborne if there is a distinction as its less weight to carry in the jungle and its less weight to transport in a glider?

It could well be that the thin ones are just an economny measure and late war.

I have no idea

Or post war or other than British?
All the pictures I recall looking at of airborne where the toggle rope was visible looked to be the thick version.
The thin rope is always one of those 'avoid like the plague' items for me. No reason to it, I just dont like them.

Ditto. I always see the thick one in the pictures. I don't think weight is an issue here. The thick one weighs next to nothing.

It's not heavy but if you consider in jungle warfare you want to be carrying as little weight as possible.. a few ounces of rope is a few ounces of food/water/ammo you cant be carrying and you can see why it might make sense.

Same for airborne use, if you scale it up to the weight difference of *30* of them being carried in a horsa it might be the weight of an extra belt of ammo.

But i agree, nearly every pic i've seen seems to be of the thicker type. In fact i'm struggling to recall a period pic of the thin type.

As poacher says, probably best avoided.

This may offend...but that is a bloomin silly waist buckle on the webbing! It just spontaneously comes undone with literally no effort or movement.

Is there a specific way in which the webbing goes. i.e Waterbottle on left? Bayonet on right? Entrenching tool in between?

This may offend...but that is a bloomin silly waist buckle on the webbing! It just spontaneously comes undone with literally no effort or movement.

Nah, I know what you are doing and I had the same You are buckling it wrong. It works like this:

If buckled properly and under decent tension (it cannot be loose) it will not come undone.

I think you dont have it tight enough.
You must unlearn what you have learned young Tommy, forget your Yankee ways.

Is there a specific way in which the webbing goes. i.e Waterbottle on left? Bayonet on right? Entrenching tool in between?

Yes. Look here:

http://www.perthregiment.org/rperth2.html (scroll way down) and here:
http://karkeeweb.com/1937main.html

Things to note:
- The braces cross on your back and one goes through the small loop in the other, they don't just overlap
- The belt and the puches should ride fairly high
- Put the bayonet from on your belt BEFORE you attach the left pouch
- The canteen is hanging from the brace ends on your right side, so there must be a bit of them left for it to attach properly
- attach your entrenching tool BEFORE attaching the canteen

It is a really good waist buckle. You need to put the hook of the buckle up through the hole in other piece and the hook grips in the bar. It won't come undone.
Yes their are definite ways to arrange equipment on webbing. First check any unit pictures you have as some units do arrange things differently.
The most common arrangement for later in the war is cross over straps with loop facing inward. entrenching tool across the back beneath the waste belt but as high as possible. Water bottle carrier on right hand side. Bayonet frog on left hand side behind the ammunition pouch.
Small pack worn with L straps as high up the back as possible. L strap hooks fasten to the buckle on top of the ammunition pouches.

Hehe, German belts come undone but British - never. As the last training day I had to seek assistance to remove mine! (It was a tad tight but if you bend over to try and see what you are doing it expands the waistline making it even harder to remove )

This may offend...but that is a bloomin silly waist buckle on the webbing! It just spontaneously comes undone with literally no effort or movement.

Is there a specific way in which the webbing goes. i.e Waterbottle on left? Bayonet on right? Entrenching tool in between?

The buckle works lovely, and is very good at staying locked... ...if you have the belt adjusted to your waist size. The main idea with '37patt is not to rely on your shoulder braces and let it all hang on you like US webbing - but to carry all the weight on your waist, via the belt, with the braces only really acting to keep everything straight and stop the universal pouches flopping forward.

Traditionally, the most 'common' way to see webbing worn is bayonet on the left, the waterbottle hanging on your right, with your entrenching tool hanging from the back. This also allows you to hang your small pack on your left (mirroring your waterbottle) when "on the move"/marching (so not really a combat way of wearing it) to allow your L-straps and space on your back to be used for your large pack (not that you'll need one for your impression). In some photos, it can be seen to have the entrenching tool in this position to your left, also (obviously with no small pack worn from your belt anywhere). This allowed sitting on transport with greater ease.

Ideally, as said previously, best answer is to find pre-action shots of your chosen impression subjects and copy how they're wearing it.

As said you need to look at pics of the unit to know exactly how they set their webbing up.

Units then as now had SOPs (probably not called that then) so that every man carried his kit in the same places so if you needed to find someones field dressing or search a casualty for a piece of kit you were not routing about forever.

Airborne troops have a lot of variation.

small pack on the hip is very common in glider units so you can actually sit down in a horsa on a two hour flight!

some glider units also wore the bayonet on the left shoulder but if you do that you cant wear a small pack with l straps but it is really practical and makes it much easier to get your bayonet out of your webbing.

I also used to do the buckle up the wrong way (on 58 pattern webbing) until an ex NCO showed me the error of my ways. It isn't an obvious way of doing it up unless someone shows you

As above, the webbing is meant to be tight around the waist, and ride really high - belly button level, in line with the waist fastening on the BD blouse, if not higher.

There are plenty of pics on the interweb of how to wear British webbing. Depending on your height and build you may have to work at it for a while to set it up so it works, particularly getting the e-tool and water bottle on the same strap to interact properly, but once it is done it is done and you don't need to redo it unless you get fatter or thinner.

Some people like to wear their small packs on the left hip for Airsoft purposes, but irl this was more of a marching order thing and actually the small pack is very easy to take on and off if you need to get at stuff. The universal pouches are also a joy to use compared to the crappy load carrying equipment on other nationalities gear.

Cheers
Martin

And if you want to get really anal about putting on webbing correctly;

The cross-straps/shoulder braces are 'sided', with the one with the loop of material where they cross being the "left" (buckled to your left pouch, over your left sholder, and buckled to the right-hand belt buckle) and the one without the loop being the "right" (buckled to your right pouch, over your right sholder, and buckled to the left-hand belt buckle).

This picture shows them worn correctly, with the "left" looped strap on the left shoulder and the straps the correct way up with the stamps hidden and the loop hidden on the 'inside' of the webbing:

Also, make sure they're the correct way up, with the date/manufacture stamps hidden underneith, and the extra loop of material on the "left" cross-strap/shoulder brace being hidden. Especially make sure they're the correct way up when you Blanco your kit, as you don't want to blanco them on the wrong side! (I've seen this been done a lot... )

It's particularly noticable with the three-piece construction type of shoulder braces, as the 1" lengths should be sewn to the top of the 2" wide sections, and not undernieth pressing into your shoulders (again, I see this a lot and I bugs me so, because I'm a wee bit OCD when it comes to people not setting up 37patt webbing correctly )

Follow these guys' instructions on the webbing wearing, they've got it good http://www.perthregiment.org/rperth2.html
The only thing that they've messed up is; the ends of the cross-strap/shoulder braces entering the wrong side of the buckles of the entrenching tool carrier in this picture below. If fed through from the correct side, the straps should lie behind the carrier, rather than going over the top as seen in the picture:

As a general rule, always have the 'split'/'open' side of any 1" buckle as the exit for the end of a 1" webbing strap.

I was going to grumble about blanco then realised its a canadian unit and they didnt all use it.