RAID 2009-Internatuional Gebirgsjaeger Competition

[Gordon Craig]

I posted this as a thread on the International Forum but I thought I would post it here as well. The pictures came to me from Hugh Zillman so the credit for them goes to him. While the pictures only show Bundeswehr and Bundesheer Gebirgsjaeger a Swiss team also took part in the competition.
The first picture does not come from the RAID 2009 competition but is also from Hugh and seems to be a good one to use to open the thread.

Regards,

Gordon

[Gordon Craig]

#2.

[Gordon Craig]

The RAID 2009 badge awarded to the winning team.

[Gordon Craig]

#4. A table of badges waiting to be presented.

[Gordon Craig]

The commanding officer of the Bundesheer 6th Gebirgjaegerbrigade presenting the badges.

[Gordon Craig]

#6
The program prepared by the host nation.

[Gordon Craig]

Here is the URL to the Bundesheer web site where you can watch a video of RAID 2009. Just scroll down until you find it listed. It is well worth wathcing if you are interested in Gebirgjaeger. My thanks to a forum member on the International Forum for brining this to the thread there.

http://www.bmlv.gv.at/archiv/a2009/e...id/index.shtml

Regards,

Gordon

[Ralph P]

Gordon - Thanks for posting this thread...

[Guardian 5]

Nice pics - the boys are looking lean and mean.

TJ

[Gordon Craig]

TJ,

Young and fit for sure but old enough for a lot of them to have the Heersbergfuhrer badge.

Regards,

Gordon

[SprogCollector]

My own RAIDS lineup of caps!

BW officers cap; BW enlisted cap; OBH enlisted cap; current OBH officer cap.

I've always been curious about the wearing of the Edelweiss with stem facing forwards and backwards. Austria appears to have kept the WW1-era tradition of stem pointing rearwards with the Wehrmacht/Bundeswehr kept the stem forwards.



If you notice on the wartime cap, the edelweiss has a dark green backing material in keeping with the Austrian practice of doing so. Unfortunately, I've always maintained that this cap is a reproduction, despite its having been in my collection since the late 1980s.

[Gordon Craig]

Chris,

Re your comments on the dark green cloth behind the edelweiss of the wartime cap. According to my Austrian reference books the cloth worn behind the Edelweiss should be "Grasgrünen" which is a much lighter shade of green that that on your cap. I'll send you an email re my thoughts of how the edelweiss was mounted on Austrian versus German caps.

Regards,

Gordon

[SprogCollector]

HI Gordon,
Correct for grass green for contemporary caps. The TR period used the bottle-green badge-cloth for the backing. This is the same fabric used on the early tunics with the green collars. I've never seen a TR example with the lighter green.

[Gordon Craig]

Chris,

I guess that I should have been clearer in my comments. You said that the war time caps followed the Austrian practice of having dark green behind their caps. My reference material, and hence my comment, was that pre war Austrian armed forces (First Republic) wore a much lighter colour material behind their Edelweiss than the dark green shown on your war time cap. Therefore, I wouldn't say they were following Austrian prewar custom as far as the colour of the material went. Pictures of caps in my reference material show a much lighter colour in wear. Also, First Republic mountain troop uniforms I have photographed at the Heeres Geschlicht Museum in Vienna use a much lighter green as their arm of colour than is used on your cap.
I haven't studied many WWII Wehrmacht mountain caps so I can not comment on the colour they used behind their edelweiss.

Regards,

Gordon

[SprogCollector]

Hi Gordon,
Also poor choice of words on my part. By Austrian practice, I was referring to the stems being worn rearwards and the use of backing cloth but not taking the color of the backing material into account.

Here's an example worn stem-rearwards alongside one being worn stem-forwards. Both without the green backing: