Artillery Swallow Tail Standart, Staff for Mounted Artillery and Accesories

[Rich Moran]

More liberated images of swallow tail standards and their pole, pole tops and battalion rings

[rbminis]

I have moved your thread to the German Flags, Banners and Pennants section.
It was originally posted in the Allied section, I know, I checked.
Did you ever receive the images offered in this thread?
Wehrmacht-Awards.com Militaria Forums
Here are a couple more photos for you Rich.
Ralph.

[Bob Lyons]

Yeah I wondered why it was in the Allied section too... Thanks for moving it Ralph !

Here are a few more that I have saved over the years Rich, hope they are of some assistance too...

Regards

Bob

[Bob Lyons]

Oops, one I copied Ralph has already posted

[Rich Moran]

These B & W images are taken from original postcards dated 19.10.41

It is anyone's guess what happened to the enlisted and NCO personnel, but what was going on was operation Typhoon, Germans attempt another drive toward Moscow as the once muddy ground hardens, Oct 41.

Temperatures fall further on the Moscow front; heavy snows follow and immobilize German tanks. The Germans drive on Moscow is stalled due to winter.

German forces capture Saaremaa island in Estonia from the Soviets.

In their invasion of the southern Soviet Union, Germany reaches the Sea of Azov with the capture of Mariupol. However, there are signs that the invasion is beginning to bog down as rainy weather creates muddy roads for both tanks and men.

German armies encircle about 660,000 Red Army troops near Vyasma (east of Smolensk); some make a glowing prediction of the end of the war.

German forces capture Hiiumaa island, the last major Soviet outpost in Estonia.

Odessa massacre begins and continues for two days. 25,000 to 34,000 Jews are led in a long procession and are shot and killed in an antitank ditch, or burnt alive after being crowded into four buildings. The massacre began after, that day, a delayed bomb planted by the Soviets kills 67 people at the Romanian headquarters, including the Romanian commander General Glogojeanu. 35,000 Jews are expelled to the Slobodka Ghetto and are left in freezing conditions for 10 days. Many perish in the cold.

In Ukraine, the important mining and industrial center of Kharkov falls to the German Army Group South forces.

German Army Group South forces reach Sevastopol in the Crimea, but the tanks of the "Northern" forces are slowed or stopped entirely by mud.

The destroyer USS Reuben James is torpedoed by Erich Topp's U-552 near Iceland, killing more than 100 United States Navy sailors. It is the first loss of an American "neutral warship".

There were other actions but the above is the highlights of Oct 41.

More on Hitlers Winter Blunder:

Hitler's Winter Blunder | Defense Media Network

[Rich Moran]

Ralph, Thank you for correcting my error and putting this thread where it belongs.

Yes, I had taken images from the WAF, some i'd posted and others I did not. Both Bob & you covered the spread handsomely, thank you.

From the thread of Surrendered Flags I found these images of the leather arm rest/carrying strap taken in the Museum in Moscow. What's strange is you provided a WAF link, I click on it but the link does not recognize my user name and password. More inter web gremlins perhaps, as when I go to the forum and sign in, the forum opens for my use.

Now to figure out, were these leather arm rests/straps stuffed with leather to make them appear as an oversized pretzel or horses hair?

So, somehow that needs to be settled to produce the leather arm rest/strap correctly. Other questions arise as well, there is hardware stitched directly into the leather arm rest/strap and another puzzle begins, what are these and what source is there to obtain the needed hardware.

The adventure continues!

Also the line drawing in Brian Leigh Davis book, Flags and Standards of the Third Reich illustrates via line drawing, these appear to have rivets on each end of the strap. With these strap images posted here, they all appear stitched.

Perhaps when he wrote his book, resources were hard to come by so he did the best he could with what he had available to him. His book is the gold standard for the flags but with the flag staffs, it may have been difficult to get the images he needed.

Addendum: the last image posted on the right is taken from Bob & Ralphs posting of images. While the image is cropped and made larger, it is plain to see from the image that the portion of the leather arm rest/strap has it's tongue open and is held in place by the two teeth on the buckle. The tongue is supposed to be tucked under the buckle but the image is a wonderful welcomed help image to understand how these arm rests were made. Thank you Bob & Ralph for adding the image!

[Rich Moran]

As I work to bring the Nickle plating back to life I've made an interesting observation of the flag staff's components.

Many of the metal pieces are numbered, from the ferrule to the fillets, each with a similar number.

The filets have small square nails attached to their hollow core, they are like a half pipe, tapered more on one end than the other.

The staff itself was made in 2 pieces and somehow attached together tightly.

The filets are made of several pieces soldered together to make each of the 6 filets.

This is something I knew nothing about prior and have never read of this in any books or forum threads that were written about this subject. Perhaps because of so few of the staff owned in private collections is the underlaying reason why.

Question is who made the staff and parts?

[Rich Moran]

Flag staffs components were cleaned from what looked like brass to a copper color using a rust and stain remover called Enviroklean. I've used this on many projects as it removes rust and corrosion stains and oxides only.

Then several treatments with a product called Nushine. Nushine contains silver and is a liquid that is not an electroplating silvering process. Nushine will allow aging of the finish to occur. Notice the number stamped on the ferrule lip. The buckles and anchor loop are not numbered. The ferrule before and buckle before images are seen in this posting. The ferrule mounted to the staff is seen and that is the after Nushine treatment. The lighting makes the ferrule look like it is a brass color but it is silver and as it should be. The vice jaw marks were found already on the ferrule after cleaning and attests to the hard life it has seen.

The staffs filets have breaks in a few areas, 1 is chipped by the buckle mount hole and a few of the # 4 X3/4" screw heads that hold the filets in place are broken from the screw shafts themselves. Those will be removed and replaced as sooner or later the filets could lift free further damaging the filets themselves if these are not replaced.

I understand some may think "leave the patina" as that is the collectors mantra, but with this I could not bear any longer seeing this lapse into a further unsightly condition and age further without necessary repairs that are sorely needed. I believe this is the same route a museum conservators would take to help this age more gracefully.

I've had to have the swallow tail flag stabilized and the repair is a reversible repair to help the silk remain intact and my thought is why not make the staff match the condition of the swallow tail standard.

[Bob Lyons]

You are doing a magnificent job Rich !

Cheers

Bob