How to Wear WWII German Fieldgear

what's up everyone today i'm going to show you how to properly wear your german world war ii field gear so this is the field gear i'm wearing here's the back side looks like that i know it looks super cool it's a lot of stuff but again it's a lot of stuff this would be considered overloaded and this is the amount of gear that you do not want to run into combat with but for the sake of this video i'm going to show you how to wear everything if you were to wear everything at once of course some things did change here and there depending on what you wore but for the sake this video we're going to wear things the way that i'm wearing now so again here's the back side looks like this looks pretty cool i know let's get into it all right so for all intents and purposes field gear is what we're going to call the gear that you wear for combat um things like rucksacks you know things like that we don't really care about for the purpose of this video just because this video is about the field gear of course there is other gear that soldiers had that is not being depicted in here but i assume that if you've been in this hobby long enough to know what those different types of field gear are you know those different types of packs bags whatever the case may be that you already have understanding of how field gear is supposed to go it's just one of those things that by the time you learn a certain amount of stuff you already know a bunch of other things beforehand so there is some implied knowledge being used here but anyway this is the field gear that we're going to go over so starting from left to right we're going to cover the mess kits canteen red bag belt shovel gas mask y straps bayonet ammo pouches as well as a zelt bond uh we're not really going to do too much with the zell bond but i am going to explain a couple of things with it so let's begin the first thing we're going to discuss is the belt and belt buckle so basically you just want to feed the edge of the belt buckle through the end of the belt like that and you look on the back here and you want to adjust the size of your belt depending on the size your waist so for me i have a small waist so typically if i'm just wearing the belt for a dress uniform or you know garrison duty i will have it on the tightest setting but in combat i will be a little bit more comfortable and go one size up that way i have some room and that is your belt pretty simple but that is the foundation for what we're gonna do with the rest of the stuff after you put your belt buckle on your belt the next thing you want to do is get your ammo pouches whether it's the k98 or mp40 or whatever most people are going to have their k98 pouches first and we'll feed these on first so generally speaking most belts will be able to fit through it if yours doesn't then feel free to take the belt buckle off and set it aside and put the belt buckle on later but generally speaking i'm able to feed this tab through my k98 ammo pouches and so it looks like this when you feed it through on the back there's these two straps and you can technically take these straps off and just smack it right onto the belt wherever you want it but i feel it's just easier to feed the belt through and you always want to start feeding things from one side to the other so in our example we're going to be feeding things from left to right you never want to do things where it's like then here then here then here then here you're just not going to be able to do it so always go on one side and then feed everything else on now because we're doing that we cannot put our last ammo pouch on yet but it would go right here the reason why we can't put it on is because we're going to put more stuff on in the middle so let's get our bread bag next is the bread bag set up you will need your mess kit bread bag and your canteen as well as a mess kit strap so this is your bread bag you carry your stuff in it not too much to say about that you carry your things that you need basically think of it as a 24 hour pack you put everything in there that you think you might need within the next 24 hours if you need something within the next day put it in your bread bag if you don't need it within a couple of days or a day put it in your rucksack but everything that you need within a certain brief amount of time put in your bread bag your canteen pretty simple self-explanatory carries your water very important what i like to do personally is i like to feed the canteen strap so this i don't know what he'd call the bracket i guess is on the inside that way you have the handle on the outside and the reason for this is because in my experience in reenacting i will often crush this part of the canteen when i'm laying down and it will end up squeezing the canteen strap it'll make it harder to get on and off so i put on the back that way if it does get crushed it's not a big deal but typically it won't so how you put this on is generally speaking you put the canteen on the right side of the bread bag because you put the bread bag on the right side of your body so it's easier to grab so you take this strap feeds underneath it goes on the bottom and you hook it at the bottom here you take this strap and you feed it through the leather tab and you clip it now it's very important that you do this because this will relieve tension from the hook you might see here that the hook is starting to rip off there's a lot of tension that gets put on this back strap here and so in order to relieve some of that tension you use that leather strap now you take this hook and you clip it to this d-ring here just like that now the reason why you want to relieve the tension from this hook is because if you don't and you just let it dangle on the d-ring chances are after some time your hook is going to rip off and your canteen is going to get lost i've seen it happen many times and i've unfortunately witnessed my friends lose their canteens in the field they've been able to find them for the most part but it happens so just be weary if you don't want that to happen use the strap i know it's an inconvenience but deal with it if you're going to put the mess kit on your bread bag whether you're marching or you're going onto some kind of run or whatever you put it on the left side typically you don't really put the mess kit on your bread bag it's really only if you're marching out and you don't have an a-frame or if you don't need your pack but you need the extra gear whatever the case may be so yeah you don't really wear the mess kit into combat but sometimes it happens so what you do is you feed your bread bag strap first through this part of the mess kit and i like to feed it underneath the handle here and then from there you feed it through the bottom of this tab the leather tab mine broke unfortunately but for the sake of this video we're going to pretend like it's not and then you feed it through the d-ring once it's through the d-ring you will want to feed the tab again through the top of the mesh kit and then tighten it just like that so now everything is secured goes on like this and we can move on to the next step which is putting this stuff on okay so our bread bag setup is here and basically you feed the belt through these loops here and then you use this hook to hook it on in the middle so let's simply do that just feed it through nothing too crazy about this and then uh when you're done feeding it through simply use the hook and put it on okay so we have that so the next thing we're going to do is the shovel and bayonet these two things are going to go on at the same time because they fit into the same piece some people ask me which direction the shovel goes sometimes there's a bit of a curve with the shovel and sometimes people will say that the curve faces away from you like you know like let's say the curve is like this and your body is here sometimes the curve comes out away from your body sometimes it goes with your body it really just depends on what you want to do for the sake of this video i'm going to have it like this but it's ultimately up to you now you'll notice there is a gap with these two loops in the shovel cover that is because the bayonet goes right in the middle what you need to do is you need to loosen the strap for keeping your shovel in and all you need to do is put your bayonet through like this pretty simple next in order to put on the assembly simply lay it out and feed the belt through all of the loops and then you put your last ammo pouch on and that is your belt okay so before we go any further i want to talk briefly about the zelt bond and how you would set it up to carry into combat so basically what you need to do is you fold yourself bond up into a square more or less uh those of you who know how to fold a zeal bond know how to fold this up on and just simply fold it like this if you don't know how to fold the zelbon there's already videos up there on youtube of how to fold one but anyway you get it to the point where it looks like a square i'm going to unfold it just a little bit to show you what i mean so after you've folded it a bunch of times i like to fold it in like this and make it a square but i like to leave a little bit of excess on the bottom because we are going to be rolling it uh the next thing is tornister straps tornister straps are a very underrated piece of equipment in the hobby a lot of people just use a bunch of mesquite straps for whatever they're using but i prefer tornister straps because you can tighten something up and then you have this additional strap to put it on things without undoing the whole assembly so i personally really like tornado straps for using the zelf bonds so anyway you take yours up on fold it like that and then you just roll it up nothing too crazy just a simple zelf zelphon roll then what you do is you take your tornister strap and i prefer two of them i think two of them is the best way to go about it and you want to make sure you line it up so that way the extra strap on the outside is where you would imagine a belt to feed through you put it on like this so the buckle should be at the very base of where the fold is and you feed the strap through and tighten it as much as you can you don't want it falling out you can use one strap but i prefer to use two because i like my gear to be extra secure so just like that and then we can talk about the placement of the extra gear on the belt okay so before we put the gear on and i show you how it's supposed to fit i'm going to talk about where you put the additional gears so we have the zelf on here and we have the gas mask so where is this stuff supposed to go let's first talk about the zelt bond because if it's on your gear you want to put this on before the gas mask the gas mask is almost always the last thing that you put on so we're going to talk about this in a minute but the zelt bond can be placed basically wherever you want i personally if i'm going to wear it on the belt prefer to strap it over my mess kit and canteens i think it's the best place to put it some people will put it on this side but it's really up to you me personally if i'm going to wear it on the belt i will put it on this side however if you don't want to put it on your belt you can also put it on your y-strap so these are the y-straps here these are suspenders there's these two d-rings here and you can feed these back straps through the d-rings and carry it on your back it's up to you most people just leave us up on behind but sometimes i like to carry my zeld bond with me when i'm marching to a position because if it starts raining or if i need it for camouflage purposes i have the zelp on i can use it and i don't have to worry too much yes it is heavier yes it is clunkier but if i need it at least i have it so for the purpose of this video i'm going to put it right here right above the mess kit and the canteen so all i'm going to do is take my straps and bring them a little bit closer just that way i can feed it on better and if i ever put it above the mesquite and canteen i like to make sure that i feed the straps in between the bread bag strap that way it's right above it so i simply get these two straps and i feed them through and then i clip them on using the tornister strap system the zeldbaum is on the belt now the gas mask this is an area of debate of exactly where it goes pictures will show you that it goes on any side a lot of reenactors will tell you that the gas mask when you wear it goes on this side where the shovel is some reenactors will tell you that it goes over here but i'm going to tell you what i've read what i have read is that putting it on the right side where the canteen is on the right side so basically your right hip is the standard regulation that's what it says in the manuals however if you look at lots of pictures a lot of guys wore it on this side on the left side basically it's up to you however you choose to do it make sure that you have photo evidence of the unit that you're portraying to show how you wear it and based on my research if you wear your gas mask a certain way make sure it's done the same way throughout the entire squad if not at least the same platoon if you just look at pictures generally speaking guys in formation guys together in a group guys in the same squad at least if not the same platoon will have their gas mask set up the exact same way of course there's sometimes outliers where it is a little bit different but for the most part it's the same across the platoon if not at least the squad so for the purpose of this video i'm going to put it on the left side that's just because of where i'm used to doing it and because the zelt bun is already here so i have nowhere else to really put it but we're going to put it on the left side now this gas cape bag you can choose to wear it in a number of different ways again make sure it's the same way throughout the squad you can either have it strapped to your gas mask i like to do where i connect the loops on the back of the bag i like to feed them through the straps on both sides it's kind of hard to see but they're fed through the straps that way they're secure through there and then i use a strap to keep the gas mask bag or the gas sheet bag from dangling around everywhere alternatively you can wear it flat on the chest as was done early war as was the regulation but after the early war era kind of ended guys either kept them on the gas mask itself or they just fed it through the strap and they wore it on the back for the purpose of video i'm going to wear it strapped to the gas mask cam so we're going to put that there now i'm going to show you how to put on the field gear before i forget i want to show you the back of this setup what it looks like as well as where to grab it so when i put on my gear i set the gear up like this and i don't add anything else to it like i leave the gear like this and then i put it on my body and then i put the other stuff on and the reason for that is because this allows me to grab the gear in strategic areas so those of you who have the uniform know that there are holes for belt hooks belt hooks are awesome i really like my belt hooks i don't think there will ever be a time where i'm not using belt hooks but on the back of your belt hooks or on your back the belt hooks are kind of hard to get at those of you who ever put on field gear before so what i like to do is i like to grab the belt wherever the belt hooks are supposed to be on my body generally speaking i like to keep a belt hook on my shovel that way prevents it from sagging and i like to make sure that the belt hook is on the right side of the bayonets so right in between one of the shovel loops and the bayonet of course it's inverted because we're showing it from the back side but on the outside this is the right side of the bayonet so the right side of the bayonet is where i keep one of my belt loops and the other belt loop goes in between these two bread bag straps whether that's on either side of the zelt bond doesn't really matter too much probably going to be on this side so i'm going to have it set up like this so i grab it like this and i simply put it on my back and i'll show you what that looks like from a different point of view all right so i'm going to grab the gear exactly the way that i showed you i'm going to grab it exactly where the belt hooks are going to rest just like this belt hooks are going to rest right here where my middle fingers are and i'm going to bring it around bring it around my backside i'm going to show you this i'm going to take these belt hooks and i'm going to simply hook them on my belt the next thing that i'm going to do is i'm going to take the front sides of my belt and i'm going to feed the belt hooks through the front you want the belt hooks to go in between the two straps of the ammo pouches just going to go like that and then we're going to tighten our belt just like that so there it is here's the gear on me now ideally you want to wear your gear so that you barely if at all see the back stuff of your the back side of your gear sticking out from the side of course the canteen you can't really control that's just going to happen but the zelt bomb the gas mask you want it to be relatively tucked in behind your back so before we continue any further i want to first show you how it's supposed to sit this is the natural way it's supposed to sit the ammo pouches are roughly you know half a centimeter to a centimeter width away from the belt buckle i see a lot of people walking around like this at events that's not good that's not how it's supposed to look make sure the ammo pouches are up to the front you also want the belt to be or the belt buckle to be in between the two bottom buttons of the ballooza of course this makes sure that your blue fits right so you kind of have to work on that and you want the buckle to line up with the edge of the jacket and the eagle to line up with the buttons so with that out of the way let's put on the y-straps so here's the y-straps look like this what i like to do is i like to hold them by the front ends like this so the back part is like this and i like to hold it inside out and simply throw it over my head just like that next thing i do is i take the back side and i always hook the back side before i hook the front and what i like to do is i like to hook the back part of the y straps i like to hook that in between the bread bag loop and the bread bag hook so i like to do that again i'm going to adjust my ear to make sure it's a little bit more behind me i'm going to come back around and then you grab these the straps pull them tight so they're a bit snug you hook them on to the front just like that so there's the y straps again looks like this nothing too crazy about that now the next thing i'm going to show you is the gas mask how i'm going to put that on i'm going to put the gas mask on the right side on the regulation side and what i'm going to do is i'm going to put it over my zap on it's going to look kind of weird but just for the sake of demonstration i'm going to show you how it looks so on whatever side you want to wear your gas mask you feed that arm through the strap so i'm going to feed my right arm through the strap because it's going to go on the right side and you put it over your head so that way it's a cross strap now real quick that dinging noise that you hear from the gas mask that's because there's nothing inside if you don't want that dinging noise put a gas mask inside pretty simple supposed to have one in there anyway but for the sake of this video i don't have one it's actually over there right now but you get the point so anyway i'm going to take this gas mask now that it's already strapped over my shoulder and i'm going to set it up right on top my zelf bone just like that i'm going to take this hook here and i'm going to feed it behind my belt and i'm going to feed it on the outside of my bread bag so that way it's tight this can be a little tricky but there we go so i'm gonna feed it like that and there you have it all the field gear is on make sure that your uniform looks proper and this is what it looks like from the back side so it looks just like this looks cool i know but like i said this is overloading your gear guys would not go in the field wearing this much stuff um but yeah another quick note is if your gear is riding up on your body like let's say it's going higher and higher up on your chest that's because your belt's too big you need to make it smaller or if you can't get a new belt so that's the reason why that happens if your belt is sagging again it's because your belt is not tight enough or it's because you don't have your gear in the right spot there's a reason why i put the shovel on the belt hook that's that way it doesn't sag so make sure you set your gear up strategically really think about what you're doing and this is how the gear should look you know just because things are in the right position doesn't necessarily mean it looks right like i said earlier if your ammo pouches are spread out like this you know fix it if you have something that looks wonky make sure you fix it you know you got to look a little bit professional uh it just looks better it looks cooler to have things done that way and it was how german soldiers wore the gear so that's the gear guys hope you liked the video comment rate subscribe and i will see you later

Channel: WWIIFREAK001

Views: 191,629

Rating: 4.8861089 out of 5

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Id: kzjk6PsY_zo

Length: 27min 48sec (1668 seconds)

Published: Tue May 25 2021