New to WW2

nice pictures and welcome to the great forum.

Welcome aboard. The kit looks good together!

Barry

Too late! She just popped through from making ice cream. lol

Welcome. Nice pictures of 'the youth'. He looks reet good in the kit

All you need now is a loadout for yourself

Nice pics, I do Cold War as well as WW2; DDR, Bundeswehr and 70s/80s British.

I'm only a year younger than your dad.....

Cheers
Martin

i did fancy cold war myself when the fn fal came out, as it was my theatre of ops in the real life army,
but ww2 airsoft had a bigger draw for me.
if money and time permitted, nam and cold war would takje my fancy, but nither time or money permits at the moment

nice kit as well

Some nice kit there Kommando. I'm a big fan of Cold War/ Vietnam airsoft myself with PAVN and multiple Soviet impressions.

Porta if you fancy giving Cold war a try I've got plenty of spare kit to loan out.

Some nice kit there Kommando. I'm a big fan of Cold War/ Vietnam airsoft myself with PAVN and multiple Soviet impressions.

Porta if you fancy giving Cold war a try I've got plenty of spare kit to loan out.

thanks rich, event dates and wife permitting , i may give it a try

Pics look fantastic guys, only one problem....we need to get em dirty

One pointer- tell him to ditch the peadot helmet cover. Bit of a fantasy item that. He may want to adjust the way his gas mask tin sits too as it may swing about a bit like that (not that you can really stop them). Otherwise as Josh shays get it mucky!

One pointer- tell him to ditch the peadot helmet cover.

And the Pea dot cap. Another item not issued at the time.

Are you sure you've identified the pattern correctly? The only peadot headgear afaik is rare field made examples.

They are the rarest of the rare. They just dont appear in photos, field made or otherwise.
They are so rare it is usually taken that they dont exist so as to avoid their over use by re-enactors that can sway the history...
Why go to the trouble of field making them when perfectly good covers and caps were being issued?
Remember the cotton duck used for zelts and smocks has a certain degree of water proofing, off cuts from these were used to make the covers and caps. HBT, the usual fabric for Pea dot uniforms has none of that.

They are the rarest of the rare. They just dont appear in photos, field made or otherwise.
They are so rare it is usually taken that they dont exist so as to avoid their over use by re-enactors that can sway the history...
Why go to the trouble of field making them when perfectly good covers and caps were being issued?
Remember the cotton duck used for zelts and smocks has a certain degree of water proofing, off cuts from these were used to make the covers and caps. HBT, the usual fabric for Pea dot uniforms has none of that.

interesting, yeah as i say could easily have be mistaken on the 'actual pattern', theres soo many with dots &thingys... im by no means an expert . But ill take another wee look at the one we saw. Cheers for steering us in the right direction guys, im sure he'll appreciate getting the look spot on (excuse the pun). Yeah Herringbone Twill..not my favourite material, thank god i dont have any of it! btw the bottom clip on the gas mask canister is long since gone thats why it hangs down that way!

btw i found this. not sure if the hats are fake or the field made type. but look the same as wee bros.

http://www.snyderstreasures.com/pages/g ... adgear.htm

Nice link
The only problem I have with real stuff being used like clothing as an example is how faded they are from their original spanky colour (especialy hats)
It drove me nuts when the mp44s came out and guys aged them to look like 60 year old relics, not the new weapons they were! lol im not talking about stressing them a bit I mean they looked 60 years old.
We had a re-enactment at tudders a few years back and some of the guys (that had original gear on) looked like museum pieces not soldiers of the day.

Is it airsoft or re-enactment you brother want to get into? or both?? you'll get great advise on here from the boffs that know and to be honest combat ready looks about the same in both, Not sure about Germans? but US troops ditch loads of kit before fighting only wearing what they needed for the battle. Alot of the ww2 airsoft for example use their gas mask case for bbs/food or even a bottle of pop and only a few guys actualy carry bread in their bread bag, normally a thumb loader and snacks (if the fight is a long one)

I must ask on the helmit covers, if they were so realy used why are so many sold and warn in games? is it a modern consept of 'must be all camoe'd' that has fallen into ww2? To be honest I never new germans had helmit covers until airsoft lol, you never see them warn in the movies.

I must ask on the helmit covers, if they were so realy used why are so many sold and warn in games? is it a modern consept of 'must be all camoe'd' that has fallen into ww2? To be honest I never new germans had helmit covers until airsoft lol, you never see them warn in the movies.

People make them because they can make money from them, simple as. People buy them because either they don't know any better or as you say they have the modern mentality of having matching camo. Back then camo was camo and most would feel lucky to have any at all.

Yeah cheers for the advice guys, i only wish there was a cold war british forum that i could discuss all my stuff!!

There isn't much in the way of discussion but Josh's cold war section is about as good as it gets.

http://gunmanforum.com/index.php?showforum=101

Dont let dealers do your research.
Their job is to sell stuff not do your research for you. Just because they sell it does not mean it's correct.
Helmet covers are worn because they were issued but not in Pea Dot camouflage.
Sumpfmuster is another camo that was not issued as a helmet cover. Those that exist were usually made from the hood of the sumpf smock.
You can wear them if you like, just dont pretend that it's correct.
It's actually hard to find a dealer these days that does not carry these fantasy items.
Richard A Underwood?

The Real field made pea dot cap. Very rare, but still around.

I have been looking at that cap and I'm starting to think it's not good, a fake in fact.
Why? A number of reasons.
1) Large stocks of Pea dot cloth were found post war and sold off. Many fakes, and some honest repros, were made from this cloth including caps. I think more caps were made post war than were ever made during. One of the more notorious fakers was only rumbled when he started to make panzer wraps from Pea dot cloth. He made them in the Heer pattern not SS. oops.
2) The dark tan shade of the interior is not typical of wartime German production. Whilst most period cloth shows a white mottled reverse some was printed on a dyed base cloth. It tends towards the beige/sandy colour rather than the tan of this example. A very famous maker of reproductions, Janke, heard of them? DID at one stage print their dot on a tan base as far as I can determine. They also incorporated the miss matched roller effect visible on the left hand edge of the dark green shapes.
I think this is a repro/fake made from Janke cloth. I might be wrong, quite likely to be wrong but I wouldn't pay $100 for this never mind $1000.
None of this affects you and your kit, just me going through the books and websites.

I must ask on the helmit covers, if they were so realy used why are so many sold and warn in games? is it a modern consept of 'must be all camoe'd' that has fallen into ww2? To be honest I never new germans had helmit covers until airsoft lol, you never see them warn in the movies.

You have to remember that camouflage was very embryonic. The waffen SS, FJ, and British Airborne used a fair bit but outside of those formations its rare.

Camo in WWII is massively overdone by re-enactors and airsofters (and those that do both) as camo is seen as both elite and cool. In many armies (and some german units) camo smocks were issued for certain missions and tasks (recce or assault troops) and then recalled and handed back in afterwards as there simply wasnt enough to go around. Thats certainly the case of Soviet camo suits. Weirdly the only nation to issue a camo suit intended to go to all (late war) was the UK with the windproof suit that came in late 43.

The other main thing to remember is that all the names we have for german camo patterns are pretty much post war collectors terms. To the german soldier it was just 'a camoflage smock' or 'tiger jacket'.

Units would have horribly mismatched camo, you'd get an issue on formation and as battle casualty replacements came in or troops went back for refit or stocks were sent forwards you'd see the diversity of patterns. Look at the use of italian fabric used to make SS garments after Italy capitulated. Now not everyone in a unit would get this... if you still had servicable kit in an older pattern you'd keep that and maybe just get repplacement trousers.

Matching camo is a modern mans thing from growing up seeing 'proffesional' soldiers head to toe in camo uniforms. In the 40s the vast majority wore khaki or field grey wool... As Kermit told me once.. even the SS had a shortage of camo items, particularly helmet covers.

The peadot uniform was designed as workwear/overalls/camo suit and to my knowledge (as others state) never had any matching headwear made for it ... but folk like all their kit to match.

(you get the same with vietnam types who insist on head to toe tiger stripe when in reality you'd have a mass of patterns from ERDL to locally tailor made patterns.)

Don't get me wrong I bought the worlds supply of oakleaf, splinter and peadot too when i started but nowadays I feel 'less is more' and impressions look a lot better when based around field grey or when using camo sparingly.

Plenty of chaps with dyslexia on here so no worries.

What you might find useful is that both firefox and internet explorer have spellcheckers built in if you just download the patch for it.

Anything you've mispelled will be underlined in red althought it won't sort out incorrect but correctly spelt words for you (from instead of form, the wrong type of two , too or to etc.

(the irony is that I've only just re-set up this laptop and havent downloaded the plug in myself yet so this might be incredibly typo ridden... I'm no dyslexic I'm just really bloody lazy and post too quicky )