Is this suitable for Yellow skirmishes?

[herrkassenmacher]

I know uniforms must be incredibly accurate for these types of games, but real German uniforms are expensive like no other. Something I learned is to get old swedish uniforms (almost identical but for less than a 3rd of the price) and get old east german gear and maybe refernish it to look like WWII gear. The shape is the same, but the exterior (such as the canteen pouches) are different colors. From there I'd mearly buy repro insignias and do some division research and gear up. God knows the guns are expensive enough, but with the uniforms, it's pure insanity. Comparing prices you can see a swedish whool field coat is 34 bucks... while a german repro is about 149... Is this idea of a cheaper uniform acceptable even in the highly accurate events?

[schmitty]

It's sort of a matter of personal taste. The more authentic the better, but I doubt anyone will turn you away for having similar looking swedish or East german post war items. I say, get what you can find and afford and you can always upgrade later.

Schmitty

[herrkassenmacher]

awesome, thanks. I just wanted to make sure.

[Gordak]

one great trick to a cheap german, is get a swedish overcoat, they look good and hide alot

swedish tunics need alot of work, so in the long run, its cheaper to go repro.

Cpt Zack sells german tunic and pants sets for ammazingly cheap.

-Gordak

[Rainer Schmidt]

Please...PLEASE dye them to the proper colour, and if you have enough experience, get some tailoring done on them.

I am a stickler for authenticity, and demand alot from vendors, but if I had to sacrifice a bit of quality for price, I would go with a good STURM tunic. They are rather close and very good.

Gordak, Cpt Zak carries STURM, at least, that is what I have been told

[herrkassenmacher]

yeah i wanted authenticity as well. I found some awesome wehrmacht uniforms but for the complete set it would have run me around 2000 dollars. while a swedish uniform with propper insignia would only run me around 200

[Capt. Zak]

I carry Sturm uniforms as well as the more affordable sets (tunic & trousers) from Hong Kong. A little something for the begginer and the seasoned airsoft player/reenactor. ;D

herrkassenmacher, drop me an email if you'd like.

[TS Allen]

Just so you know...

Anyone who says that you need to die swede uniforms to suit WWII items does not understnad the concept of die. At this time, these uniforms were made from 1000s (maybe millions) of batches of wool. Each is died a bit differently. I know people who don't hesitate to wear Swedish Wool because it is closer to an original they own than a repro they spent $20.00 on.

TS Allen

[Rainer Schmidt]

Most of the swedish wool I have encountered is almost a teal, and is not uniformly coloured. It looks textured in apperance. I've not stumbled across a original that came even remotely close to that colour.

[CharleyNovember]

Swedish does have a real teal tinge to it in person. Not sure how authentic. IS this perhaps the same thing where all OD must be exact no7 color like the US side?

[Gordak]

Swiss wool is a really bright blue gray, similar to what german police units used, but far from what the soldiers wore. Unusable.

Swedish wool is brown and stands out really bad, VERY late in the war, the germans used ground up russian wool to make uniforms and stuff started to turn brownish, so they could be used for battle of berlin stuff. Any earlier you would need to dye it. Luckilly once dyed they look great. Dye is cheap, and its hard to understand people who arent willing to dye it.
-Gordak

[Guinness]

people that won't dye kill me............ ;D

hahahahahaha....hahaha..ha...er um...-cough-







-G

[CharleyNovember]

Swiss yep that is what I meant sorry for the nordic mistake. Had a couple kids show up with it and it was a purty blue green color it really stood apart. Dye is cheap.

[Rainer Schmidt]

Haha, did that too. I ment swiss as I was imagining the Swiss Cross on the buttons while I posted. Sill S words.

[fallout11]

A word concerning “field-grey”: Field-grey (“feldgrau”) is a color that almost defies definition – in fact the Germans themselves had no set formulation for feldgrau.
It can be described as varying from a grey-green with a slight bluish tinge (early war) through a medium grey-green, all the way to a medium grey, to a dingy yellow-green greyish brown (late war). Pretty much any color in this range can be considered correct, as variations occurred even among soldiers in the same squad.
Pick up any Osprey military series books on the German Army of WW2 for more information and some beautiful rendered illustrations.

I've personally seen original M34 Schirmmütze ("Crusher") visor caps that were almost teal they were so blue-green.

[Gordak]

the m-1936 uniform, both over coat and tunic (bottle green collar) are very close if not Identical shade of wool on every example. I know this well, becasue numerous times ive cut up 36 pattern uniforms to repair other 36 uniforms. Id say all the way up to 1942 you can match wool prety easy, then 43-45 it gets really hard. I started collecting uniforms 15 years ago, you cant base much of anything on the osprey water colour art, they look great though.
-Gordak

[fallout11]

Hehehe...I started collecting in 1989.
The Osprey plates are widely respected by military modellers, museum curators, historical wargamers, and military history buffs because the are thoroughly researched and spot on accurate. They've been publishing military reference books for over 30 years now.

[CharleyNovember]

[pulls up chair microwaves the popcorn] Oh don't mind me fellows I'm interested in seeing which it is here.

[fallout11]

Gordak, I find it difficult to believe that would be cutting up ORIGINAL uniforms, given their relative collector's value and rarity. Reproductions, on the other hand, are reproductions.

As for color variation to original German "feldgrau", check out this website for variety:
www.germanmilitaria.com/Galleries/Headgear.html
This officer's visor cap is nearly teal in color:
www.germanmilitaria.com/Heer/photos/H44755.html

[Gordak]

I think Ive owned around 50 original german wool uniforms in my last 15 years in the (non reproduction) hobby. in addition to these I have dismanteled 8 or 9 original uniforms (almost all m36 type) infact I still have a few, Including a complete m36 overcoat i picked up just for material, that i never got to cut up, If these are really valuable, make me an offer

now to your examples.

German officer hats rarely matched tunic wool (i could almost say never but I like to be 100% correct when I post), a different type of material (lighter weight) was always used, often a type of wool we call doe skin because its so soft, completly different than what you would wear in combat. I have an extreamly rare NCO tunic made of the doe skin, but this was a walking out uniform, (he probably attended lots of ceremonies). This one is for sale too, LOL

The neatest officer hat I have ever seen used type 1 paratrooper smock material!! very coool!!!

So don't go by hat wool.
Collecting since 89? how many original uniforms do you have?
-Gordak

[fallout11]

I stopped collecting and started selling what I'd accumulated around '93, the same year I left blankfire reenacting, having found it to be too expensive a hobby for a (at that time) college student. Prior to that, I'd managed to put together 4 complete original uniforms that would fit me (not as difficult when I was much younger) one each of M36, M40, M42, and M44. In doing so, I must have looked at over a hundred tunics alone.

In those days, we didn't have the plethora of quality reproduction sutlers that exist today, and the internet was still off the radar screen, so you had to resort to attending gun and/or militaria shows and scouring surplus stores or auctions for kit. Finding what you were looking for was quite a challenge, and you had to look through a lot of haystacks to find the needle you sought. Much of the best stuff I found at, surprisingly, garage sales.

[Gordak]

I know what your saying about militaria shows, I have been to hundreds, including the Max 7 or 8 times. Started with charlie snyders saybrook show in 1990, (got my first uniform in 92) didnt really get into till 95 tho, when I started to buy like a maniac. Ive held Rommel's FM overcoat, one of hitler's brown shirts blah blah

Osprey books don't make up for lack of the real thing. water colors arent a wool colour guide, though then can give you an idea
Funny you would say museum curators use them, no, atleast I don't
we have hundreds of real uniforms in our archive rooms.


back to the point of the thread,

do you believe me about the m36 uniforms now?

Do you still feel osprey deserves my close attention?

-Gordak

[fallout11]

Apparently, we have a difference of opinion here, and this has become something of a pissing contest, which was not my intention.

I stand by my earlier post, original feldgrau wool varied significantly in coloration, and have seen it with my own eyes.
You are talking about multiple independent manufacturers working with varying feedstocks and dye lots over a multi-year period, using 1930's equipment, and ignoring the problems associated with war disruptions. Even original US uniforms from this period do not match, without manufacturing disruptions and federal mil-specs.
I think I've proved my point well enough with independent (non-opinioned) supporting documentation, including easily accessible weblisted photographs (did you happen to check the original tunic or trousers sections?) and a comprehensive and widely read military reference series.
Your only rebuttal is to say "nah-ah, I know better," and I'm not buying. Attempting to discredit the Osprey series is like calling "Janes" erroneous, and your claims of cannibalizing expensive and increasingly rare original uniforms to create patchwork wearables is laughable. Nice try.

The original point of the thread concerned converting swedish woolens. To this day, you will find more converted swedish tunics and trousers at European events than any other type, they are still widely used and approved. This used to be the case here in the US in the past, I've attended blank fire events where it was basically the "Swedish Army" vs the allies. Unfortunately, in recent years this has become something of a faux paux here, with many unit commanders (more self-proclaimed experts) demanding repros instead in a classic case of conspicious consumption, personal snobbery, and one-upsmanship. I wonder what the Europeans realize that we apparently do not.

I seem to be wasting my breath, so I'm done here.
Good bye, good luck, and have fun with your endeavors.

[Gordak]

No we were talking about swiss tunics. lol

swedish look great when they are dyed

I try to be fair, but I can tell you just cant get along with anyone.

None the less we did not get rid of any one here on the grounds of their opinions, as long as you are willing to follow through with your argument,

-Gordak

[mauser98k]

search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZbarrylyndon28

Here, now they aren't as expensive as all get out.

[tsallen]

Feldgrau wool is varied. Doeskin is definately lighter, but I have seen photos of officers wearing what looks like doeskin uniforms in combat (senior officers, at least).

Also, that hat is not neccesarily officers. Some senior NCO's got away with wearing the old style crusher shown there.

Now, I see, on any given weekend, maybe half a dozen new uniforms? I spend my saturdays at one of the Largest Militaria store on earth, which keeps at least 100 average German Uniforms around at any given time and maybe 20 "speciality" Uniforms belonging to named and well known officers and men and Generals.

Of course, I don't handle alot of these, but my personal collection *covering everything, not just WWII* of like 50 something uniforms. Hard to keep track. Of course, they are not all 100% complete, but, you get the idea. If you include Spanish Civil War items, my WWII Collection is now around half of my total collection. I handle this stuff every day. I spend hours a day in my bedroom/ office/ museum with it, and you get to know it. I have seen alot of Feldgrau and alot of Swedish Tunics, and they are often similar. I am not even going to bother. This is to boring for our popcorn guy I guess, sorry, but I cannot stand the old Feldgrau thing.

TS Allen

[CharleyNovember]

Hey now I was just trying to see what was up I am not an expert in this so I was relying in you guys that are to come to a consensus. So far we have two that say fieldgrau was varied in color. whihc logically makes sense to me and one person who says it was not varied and swedish is the wrong color. I am just trying to soak in the knowledge I start enough trouble around here this isn't my fight though

[Gordak]

the funny thing, is swedish wool varies too, some are better looking than others, Just die it a little greener and you will look goood.

I have an original m42, that aaaaaaaaalmosts looks sweedish, which is very suprising considering the year of manufacture.
I also have a doe skin uniform that is SO dark, it wouldnt be allowed at a reenactment, lol but its 100% original
13 million men in the german armed forces, the spectrum must goe from one extreme to the other.
But you got to agree, there is a norm, and thats what we need to aim for.

Dan, Go swedish before you go swiss, thats what ive been saing this whole thread

-Gordak

[CharleyNovember]

I'm going FJ since I am more than 70% there

[jardows]

Are these the swedish jackets you are talking about?
www.sportsmansguide.com/cb/cb.asp?a=163107