Totally hooked

They are useful for keeping your kit in the right place, especially if you are quite heavily laden down. They are not essential but I would say that most German players do use them as they can make the kit slightly more comfy to wear.

Dead easy to install, and most of the suppliers sell them:

http://www.epicmilitaria.com/product.ph ... hook-black
http://www.sofmilitary.co.uk/german-tun ... duct,17470
http://militaria-net.co.uk/german-field ... p-862.html

The other good thing is you get the belt height right as its not round your waist like modern belt position.
Also help if your kit has more weight at the front than back ,it stopps it riding up at the back and down at the front.
I like em

One thing to note is that early wool tunics also require internal suspenders (to support the weight and stop the wool stretching) such as these:-

http://www.epicmilitaria.com/product.ph ... ort-straps
http://www.hikishop.com/ww2-german-unif ... p-534.html

Later tunics had suspenders built into the lining. My wife made me a pair out of some cotton lining which do the job

A good fitting guide can be found here http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 51822cfe4f

Well i have most of the std belt equipment (bread bag, canteen etc) but wore my entrenching tool/bayonet combo for the first time at a game on Sunday, i had already ajusted the Y-strap length so its higher up (i had made the mistake before of wearing it too low), overall it was fine, i only thing is as most of the weight is on the back, the belt tends to droop on the e-tool side, not really a problem but i thought the tunic hooks might help?!

I had this problem on Sunday with my gear over my jump smock. I had a bottle of .36 bbs and a can of gas in my breadbag so it was back heavy. My volkssturm tunic has solid belt hooks and I never noticed the weight problems causing it to tip back until I swapped to fallschirmjager. I used to carry a bag of bbs my pistol and a speed loader in the breadbag then too.

In real life your front pouches would be full of heavy ammunition, which they aren't in Airsoft.

As noted above, the belt hooks help locate your belt properly, but you can also just do it up tight. It is easy enough to tell if it is too low as you can't get into your pockets. I found setting up the internal suspenders to be a complete and utter pita, once they are done they are OK.

The never ending joys of Germans webbing!

Cheers
Martin

Well I tend to try and reduce weight on the back of the webbing to prevent the straps becoming uneven, such as leaving both the canteen and the bread bag empty, I have taken green gas in the bread bag but I find the bottle only just about fits, would be handy if they did a smaller size bottle but havnt found anywhere that sell them so far, last game to balance out the weight I replaced my left mp40 pouch with a side arm, that seemed to help a little but obviously I couldn't/or wouldn't want to do that too often. I think ill get son tunic hooks and see if there is any difference, I have an m40 tunic so quess ill need the spenders also, thanks for the feedback

The hooks are easy enough to use, I've noticed a few people double thread them through the holes in the jacket rather than using internal suspenders (which is what I did with my DAK jacket). Just have a look at the cloth and see how strong it looks, you may need to sew some internal reinforcement in if it is a flimsy repro. I wouldn't rely on the hooks to support all the weight either (just as I wouldn't Y straps), the belt needs to be done up reasonably tight. If your belts are loose the stuff just falls apart, but yes, balancing the weight between front and back helps a lot - I put most of my heavy stuff in the gas mask tin or pockets.

There was an amusing scene in the recent TV series 'Sandhurst' where the drill sergeant gave the assembled officer candidates the benefit of his opinion on slack belts.

Cheers
Martin

for "walking out" dress, hooks are essential as the belt won't be in the right position without them. For a full webbing combat scenario they can be a liability. Either snagging on the belt or putting too much strain on a tunic so it tears.

Belt hooks - always for me. And your belt as tight as is comfortable, about navel height.