I've just been watching yet another documentary , WW2 apocalypses and i noticed a lack of Y straps in the combat footage , now i know a lot of this footage is no necessarily of the battle they are describing and even if it was it may equally be staged footage for news reel's and as such may well be of soldiers asked to preform for the camera's who were otherwise relaxing away from the front and not in full kit but there was a very few shot's of anybody wearing Y straps other than soldier's with mp40's as the pouches are more in need of support . i'm just wondering if this was a common as it seems , many seem to just use the belt and gas mask tin , zelts on the back of belts , water bottles attached to gas mask tin straps etc.
it just seem's one of the iconic bit's of kit may not have been as widely used , the usual image we copy is a German soldier in full kit , even with A frame in combat , i saw not one single A frame in the whole documentary. the British were known for storing kit when in battle to lighten the load but i was under the impression that the German soldier went into battle fully kitted, was i wrong , it makes sense that they would strip down a bit to be more mobile .
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
As with all these things, it depended, particularly with A frames (which iirc didn't really appear until 1942 ish). Belt order was indeed quite common, but there are also plenty of photos and film of German soldiers wearing Y straps with some wonderfully imaginative zelt/mess tin comos.
Cheers
Martin
"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" Helmuth von Moltke
Toys: AGM MP40, Cyma M1A1, TM M14/G43/SVT40, TM VSR/K98, SnS No. 4, ASG Sten, Ppsh.
Arnhem3,Gumrak,Campoleone
It's common to see photos up to 42 without Y-straps. The belt hooks and internal (over-shoulder) suspender loops were used instead, with the M36 and M40 tunics. However, the M42 and later tunics did not have the suspender loops - only short tabs attached to the inside of the tunic, which could not bear the weight of full kit - so the use of Y-straps with those tunics was essential.
When going for an earlier war look, I don't wear Y-straps.
You've got nothing to ein, zwei, drei, vier
that explains it , cheers
armoury
m1a1 Thompson,sten mk2,mp40,stg44,sterling,mk2 bren gun,lee Enfield no4 mk1,Mauser Kar98, Walther ppk,smith and Weston m10 and Mauser m712
Give me a big enough hammer and a place to stand and I could fix the world.
i'll kill a man in a fair fight or if i think he's going to start a fair fight or over a woman or.......
a problem shared is a problem halved ,but an advantage shared is no advantage at all
if a job's not worth doing then its certainly not worth doing well
Y straps were field tested in Poland in 1940, if memory serves, but not on general issue until, I think, 1941. I haven't got any books around me at the moment, so somebody correct me if I'm wrong.
I think you mean France 1940 Sean but otherwise its about right.
