British Mark IV Mk4 "Turtle" helmet

[Watchdog]

just got this doing a search on helmet parachutists....M76 paratrooper helmet - Wikipedia

Oh well, if Wiki says that the Para Lightweight (Sorry M76) and Mk6 are still in service how can we humble collectors disagree? Somebody best tell the guys and girls they are wearing the worng lids!

(To be fair the Mk6 could be called obsolescent rather than obsolete because the odd one or two are still found in circulation but usually because of sizing issues or simply a long serving individual being employed so far away from field deployment that an exchange just never happened!)

Mark

[Composite]

Re shell dates......I THINK the lower and upper values (so far) are 1951 and 1958......

I’ve tried to trawl all the other threads.....but may have missed one (or ten!)

Is this right?

[Jerry B]

Re shell dates......I THINK the lower and upper values (so far) are 1951 and 1958......

I’ve tried to trawl all the other threads.....but may have missed one (or ten!)

Is this right?

I think I remember a 59 mentioned in a fb group

[Composite]

Thanks JB......I guess I ought to join that new-fangled thing!

[Greg Pickersgill]

Re shell dates......I THINK the lower and upper values (so far) are 1951 and 1958......

I’ve tried to trawl all the other threads.....but may have missed one (or ten!)

Is this right?

Are you meaning the earliest MkIV shell is 1951? If so that's not right. I have some dated 1945. Of course if my attention has been wandering and you mean something else altogether I'll just shut up then.

[Jerry B]

Definitely 45 dated for the earliest versions.....though this thread suggests they came in in 1944

British MkIII Turtle pattern helmet

[Composite]

Great stuff.... if they’re lift-the-dot they’re in. I seem to recal talk of two batches...mid ‘40s and early ‘50s tho may have remembered that wrong......

.....so 45 to 58 it is....unless..........

[Composite]

Here's a rare one.......





'52 dated Column Officer (Ambulance) - the remainder of an "A" transfer visible at the front....as spec'd in late '64.

I could put a net on it and paint it green if it would help?

[Jerry B]

Added a mkiv to my collection today, I only had a mkiii and two miv both of which with the mkv liners but not one with its original mkiii liner dated 1953 made by CCL. It has the raw edge 1953 dated BMB shell, of which I already had one but with the later liner

[lithgow]

A late joiner to this thread, but the thing about designation in Roman numerals is that they get progressively longer and more complicated especially for folks with a limited education-the RAF dropped them for Arabic ones at the end of WW2 when Spitfires had reached the Mk 20s and Mosquitoes the 30s etc