GS para helmet markings
hello all .
just picked up this lovely GS 1943 para helmet and while looking at it i noticed some markings on the side . to my belief they look like german. the helmet has slight wear and the markings are over painted and look lke they have been there for a long time .
well what do you think?
regards paul
I'd guess at the shell having been issued (postwar) to someone who had read too many Sven Hassel novels.
Maybe a bored kid with a paint brush!...
the helmet looks like its not been messed with . no marks on the screws and bolts . from what i can gather its been a sleeper tucked away somewhere .
What do you know of it's history? Did you buy it in the UK?
i bought it here in the uk . ive just shown it to a friend who is a big collector on german stuff and he said the markings were possibly wartime applied . they match original size and style .
I am sorry to say I don't like the look of this one at all.by no 1 pts school
I am not familiar with the maker mark in the liner and although I am not expert where these are concerned is that a 1948 date in there? If so that is an issue in itself because the web chinstrap replaced the leather in service from 06 June 1944 (they were actually produced in 1943 I think). This type of helmet was used up until the '80s (I still have mine somewhere) when the composite shell helmets were introduced. Although the later helmets were not dated the ones I recall from service had liners exactly like the wartime BMB ones apart from the stamp being omitted. These helmets were however, also used by the Belgian army.
I couldn't comment on the rune like marking other than to say it doesn't look like any SS runes I am familiar with.
Sorry.
Mark
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
It wouldn't make much sense to paint enemy insignia on your helmet in wartime.
I can only think of one possible (but perhaps unlikely) scenario, and that is of paratroopers playing 'enemy' on a training exercise, and wanting to be easily identified as being 'enemy' troops.
Hi Mark, The helmet as such, being an G&S 1943 is 100% correct. It's only the repaint on the outside & runes that are wrong/ not the norm.
well the training exercise seems plauseable . the exterior paint is the correct colour a dark brown which is GS trait .
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