Help With Id Disc

[Mark Holden]

Can anyone identify this unit. details taken from an Erkennungsmarke.

Numbers: 254 and 186, both appear above the unit stamp, one is the stamrolle number but I am not sure which as both numbers appear on both halves of the tag.

Unit: L.RES.FLAK. BATTR(Light Reserve Flak Battery??)


Blood Group 'O'

in layout the tag info is as follows

Cord Hole(s)

254---- ----186 o(blood group)

L.RES.FLAK.BATTR


thanks

Mark

[Matt L]

Hi Mark,

Your disc certainly has different placement of the numbers; one would definitely be the Stammrollennummer and the other should be the unit number, and given the positions, I'd expect 254 is the former and 186 is the latter.

You've got the 'translation' correct- L.RES.FLAK.BATTR. would stand for leichte-Reserve-Flak-Batterie.

The odd thing is that the marking is 'Batterie' instead of 'Abteilung', the latter being the proper main unit type. A Batterie woud normally have a number from 1. to 5. so what this suggests to me is that this could be analogous to Heer discs marked to Infanterie-Pionier (Panzerjäger, Geschütz, and others)- Ersatz-Kompanie discs where the number seems to refer not to the 'Kompanie', but to the Infanterie-Ersatz-Regiment under which it operated. So, it seems likely that your disc is from the leichte-Batterie of Reserve-Flak-Abteilung 186- a unit that definitely existed. It was created in the summer of 1941 in Luftgau XVII and did, at one point at least, 2 light batteries- 4. and 5.- your disc suggests that perhaps it had only 1 at some time. No other unit matches the number '186'. There were quite a few leichte-Reserve-Flak-Abteilungen, but they're numbered 700 and up.

If you could post an image, I'd be curious to see the disc.

Hope this helps.

Matt

[Mark Holden]

Matt,

Many thanks, I'll post an image at the weekend. I do not normally buy ID tags but this was part of a lot so it intrigued me as to its origins.

Mark

Hi Mark,

Your disc certainly has different placement of the numbers; one would definitely be the Stammrollennummer and the other should be the unit number, and given the positions, I'd expect 254 is the former and 186 is the latter.

You've got the 'translation' correct- L.RES.FLAK.BATTR. would stand for leichte-Reserve-Flak-Batterie.

The odd thing is that the marking is 'Batterie' instead of 'Abteilung', the latter being the proper main unit type. A Batterie woud normally have a number from 1. to 5. so what this suggests to me is that this could be analogous to Heer discs marked to Infanterie-Pionier (Panzerjäger, Geschütz, and others)- Ersatz-Kompanie discs where the number seems to refer not to the 'Kompanie', but to the Infanterie-Ersatz-Regiment under which it operated. So, it seems likely that your disc is from the leichte-Batterie of Reserve-Flak-Abteilung 186- a unit that definitely existed. It was created in the summer of 1941 in Luftgau XVII and did, at one point at least, 2 light batteries- 4. and 5.- your disc suggests that perhaps it had only 1 at some time. No other unit matches the number '186'. There were quite a few leichte-Reserve-Flak-Abteilungen, but they're numbered 700 and up.

If you could post an image, I'd be curious to see the disc.

Hope this helps.

Matt

[Chris Stewart]

Well...this is an interesting variant!

[Mark Holden]

Here's a pic(not my best shot)

Well...this is an interesting variant!

[Matt L]

That's a rather interesting disc Mark- it's not common at all to see the unit number on a different line than the rest of the unit information. The way the final 'TR.' on the bottom half are on top of one another makes me wonder if the stamper were simply new to the job or had been doing it a REALLY long time and just got tired . It's also an interesting example because it has no Batterie number.

I've found evidence to support the idea that this is actually the, or one of the, light batteries of Reserve-Flak-Abteilung 186: there is an image of a Reserve-Flak-Batterie disc in my references, marked '2./Res. Flakbattr. (4- 8,8) 643'. Right away it's obvious that the 643 is not the Batterie number- that's what the 2./ represents. Checking the literature, I find that there was indeed a Reserve-Flak-Abteilung 643. So the full 'translation' of the disc's abbreviations is: 2. Reserve-Flak-Batterie, Reserve-Flak-Abteilung 643.

Matt

[Mark Holden]

Matt,

Many thanks for the info. I think the stamper was just tired, on the bottom half of the disc he stamped the 'L' of FLAK upside down hard to see but true.

Mark

That's a rather interesting disc Mark- it's not common at all to see the unit number on a different line than the rest of the unit information. The way the final 'TR.' on the bottom half are on top of one another makes me wonder if the stamper were simply new to the job or had been doing it a REALLY long time and just got tired . It's also an interesting example because it has no Batterie number.

I've found evidence to support the idea that this is actually the, or one of the, light batteries of Reserve-Flak-Abteilung 186: there is an image of a Reserve-Flak-Batterie disc in my references, marked '2./Res. Flakbattr. (4- 8,8) 643'. Right away it's obvious that the 643 is not the Batterie number- that's what the 2./ represents. Checking the literature, I find that there was indeed a Reserve-Flak-Abteilung 643. So the full 'translation' of the disc's abbreviations is: 2. Reserve-Flak-Batterie, Reserve-Flak-Abteilung 643.

Matt