Panzermeyer's camo jacket - fieldgrey equivalent?

[MarcoPennisi]

Very interesting piece, didn't even know there was also a field grey variant of it, thanks for the detailed pictures!



I don't think these tunic were designed to be patchwork-pieces to use leftover material scraps. The twill weave on the grey fabric (which I think is a wool blend instead of cotton as suggested) goes in the same direction all over the tunic, this couldn't have been achieved if you only got scraps to work with. Besides that, making a tunic from scraps is way more time consuming than making a bulk of regular tunics. For regular tunics you have a stack of several layers of cloth, you put the patterns on the top layer, placing them so that you get as little scraps as possible, trace the patterns and then cut the whole stack according to them. So with one cutting you get enough pieces for, let's say, 10 tunics. If you use scraps you first have to look for pieces that fit your patterns and then trace and cut every part individually. That's just not economical. Also, looking at the construction of the tunic, assembling all those individual parts looks to be way more time consuming than a regular tunic. The little scraps that were left from regular uniform making were either used to make insignia like shoulder straps or they were recycled and made into new cloth.

I think these were experimental, factory made tunics produced in a small number and sent out to units for field trial. All the parts on those tunics that are prone to heavy wear are made from field grey wool. The shoulders and upper back where your Y- or backpack-straps are placed and the weight of your equipment rested; the waist were your belt was placed; and your forearms up to the elbows where you prop yourself up while crawling on the ground.
Maybe those tunics were only intended for use by special units but the trials ended unsatisfactory or the cost-benefit-ratio didn't add up?

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Hptm. Fuhrmann is right, processing waste from uniform making would only allow for shoulder straps or their shoulder loops. But I owned and examined other late pattern field tunics with the back portion and/or the pockets made of a different fabric from the rest of the garment which only proves the acute shortage of textile (as well of other raw materials) the Germans experienced as the war evolved and their manpower expanded, thus forcing them to make use of whatever fabric was available and fit for the purpose. This is especially true with the Waffen-SS as documented by the exchange of letters and by the situation reports of the proper WSS departments. W.Naasner’s book SS - Wirtschaft und SS – Verwaltung is enlightening in this regard.
Using a different material for the areas subject to more wear reminds me more of US WW2 airborne reinforced jump jackets & pants and of some postwar uniforms (including my own). I don’t think this is the case. The WSS quartermaster ordered, let’s say 10,000 , field tunics to clothe 10,000 recruits , the clothing factory produced 10,000 tunics and no one knew if and how many would have been donned by the baker company or the recce patrols .
The perspective of the cost-benefit ratio is plausible but doens’t seem to have been the Germans’ major concern. The cost of so much forced labor was very little, in the SS industry the cost of inmate laborers was almost nil. Quantitative requirements and timing of supply were more compelling.
Eventually, just in passing, the Lodz ghetto had 117 workshops that worked for the Germans and in the General Gouvernement there were three major SS owned clothing factories. A minor SS clothing enterprise was in the Baltic countries as well. Thus I can’t see the reason why such clothing couldn’t have been made in the East.
Intriguing specimen, BTW.

[Sturmmann]

Thus I can’t see the reason why such clothing couldn’t have been made in the East.

If manufactured in the east (Baltics) then I would assume they would appear on the photos taken in here but these tunics first appear on photos couple months after most of the Baltic territory was already lost to the Red Army.
On the other hand of course they could have been manufactured in here, kept in a warehouse, taken to Germany when the army retreated from Baltics and first distributed in late autumn in Neuhammer.

[cossack1648]

Very interesting tunic, especially with those period pictures to back it up. Are there any traces of previous insignia? It would be nice to restore it, if there were any insignia on it in the past.

Jack

[Sturmmann]

Are there any traces of previous insignia?

No traces of previous insignia visible.

[cossack1648]

No traces of previous insignia visible.

Then probably it was never issued, which would explain its unworn condition.
Very interesting tunic and indeed a rare specimen in the SS tunic collecting field. And documented by period pictures.
I would leave it alone and I would not try to apply any insignia, if it never had any. Just preserve it in a state as it was left after the war.



Jack

[Remy Spezzano]

s for the detailed pictures!

I think these were experimental, factory made tunics produced in a small number and sent out to units for field trial. All the parts on those tunics that are prone to heavy wear are made from field grey wool. The shoulders and upper back where your Y- or backpack-straps are placed and the weight of your equipment rested; the waist were your belt was placed; and your forearms up to the elbows where you prop yourself up while crawling on the ground.
Maybe those tunics were only intended for use by special units but the trials ended unsatisfactory or the cost-benefit-ratio didn't add up?
.

I am going to weigh in and echo the same as commented by Hptm. Fuhrmann.

The tunics we see in the wartime photos are all pretty much made exactly the same.

Heavier wool is positioned in the front and back chest and shoulder area where the leather or web Y-straps would hang and rub on the material the most. The other patch of heavier wool is placed exactly around the waist area where the belt hook holes are located. This is the area where the constant rubbing of the leather or web belt would take place on an active infantryman. And the same holds true for the long strips on the sleeves.

Really the more I look at all the photos it's clear this was a very well thought out design and not some experimental item. Because as we can now see and compare the Panzer Meyer camouflage tunic with the field gray wool version, they are produced pretty much exactly the same.

Most likely all of these tunics were produced at one SS labor facility. Which is why they are consistent in production with only slight changes here and there. ex. the button holes.

All these years we thought the Pazner Meyer tunic was some weird experimental tunic but now we can see it's just a camo variation of the standard issue field grey tunic. Pretty wild to see how they actually screened the camouflage pattern onto heavy wool.

Right now it appears we only have one field gray example to examine and several wartime photos of the same tunic pattern being worn. Please check to see if there are any ink stampings with a 3 digit number which can be linked back to one of the SS clothing factories. Maybe one day another one will surface which will have the same number? Either way the owner of the tunic has something incredibly rare and unique.

[espenlaub]

I think such a kind of tunics has been made from the narrow pieces of the rest clothing, which has been stored in the stocks. Jus a good idea from one of the Bekleidungsamt workers, then it has been sent to KZ using camp labour. That is not a newest model which must replace main uniforms, just spent a huge amount of money to supply the army and most probably fill the hole in uniforms deficits. Units near the depots where has been this tunics supplied, got them. The materials used, near to the Italian gabardine, but a little bit thinner

[wehl]

Few more observations about the tunic.
As Hptm. Fuhrmann stated it is not definitely made out of leftover material scraps. You can seen from the inside picture that the tunic is made of the twill fabric except the upper part of the torso. The grey wool parts on waist and on the sleeves were added on top of the twill fabric. I guess these were the areas which were most likely to worn out. Belt and Y straps would perhaps rub holes in twill fabric more quickly than it would on wool.

About the background of the tunic - someone here stated that strange things were manufactured in east. I doubt that it was manufactured in east. I have known the existence of this type of tunics for many years through period photos of 20. Estonian SS division. These tunics appear on the photos in autumn 1944 when the 20. ED was being reformed in Neuhammer training camp in Silesia. My assumption is that perhaps these tunics were issued to 20. ED for field testing.

bandage pocket looks made the same way/size as in Betr.Ra made dot tunics .

[J. Csernus]

Just some more addition to this thread, just found this while surfing the web.
It looks like a very similar one, it was for sale at a general auctionhouse in Germany...
Sorrily there were no more pictures...

[HORYIOSHI]

Mohnke use also this type of camo jacket!

see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBtwY0gatpY