My new NVA M56 Helmet.

[Gunny Hartmann]

Hi gents,

We seem to have a couple of M56 threads but this seemed to be the best place to add this one.

From the outside it looks like the original M56 because of the rivets. On the inside if you remove the later '74 plastic cradle liner it can be seen that the early liner which was permanently fixed by the rivets has been removed by taking off the peen of the rivet and leaving it in place. This is done to preserve the ballistic integrity of the shell which would be compromised by the heat generated in welding over the holes left by taking the rivet out.
Six steel nipples are then spot welded (which does not heat up the surrounding metal too much) to the inside of the shell to accept the plastic cradle of the new liner. The new liner does look cheap and nasty to our collectors eyes but it was superior to the old not least because of reduced manufacturing costs and easier production but also because it was far more adjustable to suit the wearer than the old.

What struck me about this one is the unusal date stamp format and that I don't think I have seen such an early example of this (1957) at all let alone in this condition (the liner is mint but we all know what they look like )

I hope this is of interest to "variation" collectors amongst us>

Regards

Mark

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A nice variation which i'll be looking out for.