Infanterie-Nachrichten, Sanitäts, Geschutze, erkennungsmarken from eastern front.

[Laplander]

Hello.

Finally I got some new tags to show you.
They are obtained from a Russian source.
I like the "Geschutze" since it has lots of letters and a possible battle damage.
There is two strikes bloodgroup on the back of this tag
I also like the four, or even maybe five strikes bloodgroup on the San.Ers-tag.
If you have any comments or opinions on the tags, please share them.

Best regards
Anders

[Matt L]

Very nice Anders- that Geschütz-Ersatz-Kompanie für motorisierte Schütz(en?)-Einheit 2 is very interesting as it's a unit I've never heard of before; unfortunately, I can't find any reference to its type anywhere though.

That dent sure does look like what would be expected from a high-velocity impact- but whatever it was lacked the mass to penetrate (although it was just a couple of millimetres from the Trennschlitz, where it would have gotten through for sure). Doubtless it'd have hurt and been quite a shock, but the guy survived thanks to his Erkennungsmarke- that's pretty amazing. The cracks further suggest it was a fragment impact as they're most likely due to the disc's age- heating and cooling over 65 years caused whatever microfractures the hit created to develop into actual cracks. I doubt they occurred from the hit itself as clearly it had only the energy to deform the metal and tear it in that 'v' shape- metal that's flexible and malleable doesn't crack readily save from repeated movement. Only metal that's hard tends to crack.

[Laplander]

Hi Matt.
I have many times wished that items could speak their history.
If the dent is indeed a battle damage it is not unlikely that it was part of a multiple fragment trauma.
Hopefully the owner survived thanks to his tag, but it is equaly likely his head fell off from shell fragments.
I aim to try and find out some more about this tags history, so far I know very little.
I am right now soaking a few more erkennungsmarken in oil to loosen dirt and grime.
Hopefully they will look good enough to be taken pictures of.
Thanks for your reply, Matt.

Anders

[Matt L]

Indeed it would be fascinating to know what happened- I'd think though that since fragment density drops quickly with distance, and clearly this fragment wasn't travelling fast enough to penetrate even a thin zinc tag, that perhaps it was the only one that would have hit this man, but he was just extremely lucky that his disc saved him. I mean if he were indeed killed, the disc would have been broken, and I'm sure you wouldn't buy from someone who would take discs from graves so it wasn't an MIA case. It's possible it came from the site of a dressing station or field hospital- often these are locations where many Erkennungsmarken are found, presumably they would be removed from certain wounded or just otherwise lost during treatment, but only the source could tell you about that.