Argentine Army during the war years

[Adler69]

As some of you might know Argentina was "neutral" during the war supplying food , weapons , ammunition , raw materials and oil to both sides , but for the most part the Argentine Armed Forces where influenced by Germany since the late 1800 , trained and armed by them , so much so that by the outbreak of WWII the Argentine Army looked very much like the Wehrmacht .















By 1943 Argentina was in the process of building up the Army numbers so that in case of the war expanding to the South American Continent Argentina could defend itself and possibly take the fight to the enemy , which at this point meant a possible war with Brazil . However the Germans could not spare any war fighting material , Argentina could manufacture anything needed for the new troops , but for one thing , helmets , so a new source had to be found , here's where another neutral nation came into play , Switzerland.







In 1944 the Argentine government authorized the formation of an Airborne Division , the Argentine Army looked for inspiration at the 2 nations that had first employed Airborne troops in combat Germany and Italy and the result was this

[volkssturm]

Why would Brazil and Argentina have gone to war?

[the2ndranger]

Well chilae modeled the military after the germans beacuse they looked fierce and proper. Also south america was very facist. I believe that hitler escaped to south america in the last days of the war. If you look at german vet movements after the war a ton of the escaped to south america.

[Adler69]

Nov 5, 2010 17:49:19 GMT -5 volkssturm said:

Why would Brazil and Argentina have gone to war?

There was tension on and off following WWI and during the '30s , small border incidents that went for the most part un noticed but they could have escalated at any moment , then WWII started and once the U.S. entered the war , Brazil favored the Allied side while Argentina claimed neutrality , but leaning towards the Axis.
When the war ended the weapons race started between the 2 biggest nations in Latin America , but when the Cold War started both Argentina and Brazil put away their differences to fight the common enemy .

[labrador]

Very nice pics Adler. Never knew they wore litzen back then.

[Adler69]

Thx , yes for a few years Litzen where worn by the Argentine Army , even our own version of the Panzer Wrap was worn by the Armored units for about a year in the '45 / '46 time frame.

[volkssturm]

Interesting. In the movie "Evita" (which I think was filmed in Hungary) they had the Swiss M1918 helmets, but the officer uniforms looked much more British or American. I guess they figured they were controversial enough without having German style uniforms.

[Adler69]

They filmed some scenes in Argentina , but the majority of the country wasn't to happy about who was playing the role of Evita , she is still being seen as saint by a lot of people back home , parts of my family are Peronista's and they will protect her image to the death.

[Adler69]

In July 1940 the Argentine Marine Infantry began using Krupp 88 L56 cannons for anti aircraft defense and later in '44 started using them in the anti tank role.
The Army at this time was also using the Flak 36 as a mobile fron tline anti air defense and anti tank role.