Swedish M37 helmets

[ruskin1999]

Glad you approve. It was a bit of a task to draw up the templates them make and join the pieces but it did all come together quite nicely so a bit of planning was worth it in the end I suppose. My somewhat limited experience suggests that if stored in good conditions or if regularly worn with natural oils from the head and hair being absorbed leather liners seem to hold up pretty well but its when they are effectively dumped and exposed to repeated warmth and cold for prolonged periods that the leather deteriorates (and as someone who has worked in a library the same principles apply to leather or vellum covered books which is why temperature and humidity is tightly regulated to prevent 'drying out'). As the shell was in good condition but the fixings quite rusty I suspect the culprit was poor storage in this case. As it was only ever intended to be for my small collection it would never be sold on and certainly not as an original - just a nice companion piece to the M26/65 & M37/65 I have.

[Estonian]

I cant find any information and no good examples about M37 helmet rubber comb.

[Greg Pickersgill]

I cant find any information and no good examples about M37 helmet rubber comb.

I have just checked the 2022 Skotte book and there is no mention or illustration of this object. It might be included in the following volume (not yet published) which covers developments beyond 1945.

[Steelhead10]

A couple photos of mine to add to this thread and the markings

Matt

[Estonian]

Hjälmnät m/1937 --Tillhör den mobiliseringsutrustning som personalen vid AM fick under kriget. (Belongs to the mobilization equipment that the personnel at AM received during the war.)





Compared to US shrimp nets (The Swedish helmet is in the middle)





This helmet net also fits the Swedish M26 helmet

[Jack59]

I cant find any information and no good examples about M37 helmet rubber comb.

The only purpose I could see was to identify "enemy forces". Here is what I found from this no longer active web site.

Swedish Helmets : Exp

[Greg Pickersgill]

I'd overlooked this website, run, I if I recall correctly, by Stefan Anbratt in Sweden, which was live for several years in the early part of this century. He never put his name on his webpages, which is peculiar (to me anyway) and I may be right in thinking he changed his surname later. He was also, somewhat more recently, talking about doing a book on Swedish helmets.

Anyway, I never believe in the permanence of any website so I copy them when I can, so for the sake of completion here are the relevant pics of the B-styrka opposing forces comb. No other text apart from what can be seen in the archive clip Jack showed, which reminded me of all this. Thanks Jack!

[Jack59]

Wow Greg, your wise philosophy about the web pays off. You were able to find the originals, good work & also thanks to you.

I cannot resist to show that little beauty from the same site, one of the experimental Swedish helmets leading to the M21 helmet.

A future thread about those experimental helmets could be very interesting.

[Greg Pickersgill]

Swedish collector Stefan either had, or had access to, a lot of these test and experimental helmets. I believe he knew Anders Skotte. Anyway, Stefan published pictures of many of them, both in his own webpages and as contributions to helmet forums. I have a lot of these saved but I don't intend using them them here as obviously it would not be appropriate in a thread on the M37.

It is worth remembering that almost no-one other than a few collectors in Sweden will ever see or handle any of those test helmets.

I think I mentioned this before, but Skotte's recent book "Svenska militärahuvudbonader Hjälmar 1917-1945" (Svenska militarahuvudbonader Hjalmar 1917-1945 ) has a large section on t&e helmets, In fact it seems like he has more info on them than on the actual issue helmets! The book is entirely in Swedish, no English precis or anything like that; I'm working on translating the text for my own purposes but will be happy to provide parts in this forum as appropriate. (No, I do not have Swedish, but I've done this before and scanned and OCRd pages put through Google Translate works well for all but the most technical terms, with a bit of copyediting afterwards.)

[JesperS]

Swedish collector Stefan either had, or had access to, a lot of these test and experimental helmets. I believe he knew Anders Skotte. Anyway, Stefan published pictures of many of them, both in his own webpages and as contributions to helmet forums. I have a lot of these saved but I don't intend using them them here as obviously it would not be appropriate in a thread on the M37.

It is worth remembering that almost no-one other than a few collectors in Sweden will ever see or handle any of those test helmets.

I think I mentioned this before, but Skotte's recent book "Svenska militärahuvudbonader Hjälmar 1917-1945" (Svenska militarahuvudbonader Hjalmar 1917-1945 ) has a large section on t&e helmets, In fact it seems like he has more info on them than on the actual issue helmets! The book is entirely in Swedish, no English precis or anything like that; I'm working on translating the text for my own purposes but will be happy to provide parts in this forum as appropriate. (No, I do not have Swedish, but I've done this before and scanned and OCRd pages put through Google Translate works well for all but the most technical terms, with a bit of copyediting afterwards.)

I have Skötte's book too and I understand Swedish (and English) well, so if there are parts you are unsure about I can probably help.