Historiker

Well I finally picked up a gluhzundapparat for my pioneer impression. Unfortunately it will take a bit more work than I anticipated to bring it into use. I purchased it without a case, tester or handle but I didn’t anticipate that it had been full of dirt and partially disassembled inside.

After I opened it up for some anticipated light refurbishment this is what I found…

Not a nice surprise… the loose parts and sand were in the bottom of the housing when opened…

I guess I have my restoration work cut out for me…

If anyone has a gluhzundapparat of any type they are looking to sell let me know! Also I’m looking for any technical information available for my rebuilding effort.

Saw this on ebay… of course with all the ‘dealers’ trying to make a buck off of reenactors with ‘rare’ ‘limited’ ’special’ stuff I always scrutinize items with care.

This Fallschirmjager WWII Reenactor Vinyl Sticker VSP010 caught me by surprise…

Now admittedly the British did copy their jump helmet from the Germans so that portion of the silhouette is close, but as far as I know the Fallschirmjager never carried a Lee Enfield rifle!

Take a close look at the rifle… not a Kar98k nor a G43… the sloped mag just in front of the trigger…it’s a SMLE.

Well so much for quality control

Attention: This is obvious fair use of a copyrighted image, so no bogus DCMA takedown notices to cover your embarrassment.

And a big oops! I wrote this last year but forgot to take it out of draft!! .dumb…

Well Waxahatchie is almost upon us again… this year it’s Nov 7th.

… old post …

I had the privilege to meet two really talented photographers who were attending the Waxahatchie reenactment. These guys took some of the best photos I’ve ever seen of a reenactment! - and not because they managed to get a flattering photo of decidedly un-photogenic me - more because they captured reenactors in character - in moments that reflect back in time… they seem to make history come alive. I’m captivated by the shots they took.

The photographers whom I know only by the handles of “TXZeiss” and “Yo Spiff”.. here are the links. Thanks again!

TXZeiss’ photos are here.

Yo Spiff’s are here.

First I have to congratulate the French who with typical Gallic dash and cunning executed the best counter move to a restrictive battle scenario I could have ever imagined! Wow! As the opposing force we Fallschirmjäger need to learn to expect anything. It was highly unexpected that the French would get up at 6am and hump down into the woods and lay in wait for the us. The DBLE hit the Fallschirmjäger from behind when all the firepower was up front. What a surprise! Our rear echelon folks took quite a hit.

Another lesson this Fallschirmjäger learned was that there are always Allies around. I took a hit from a Legionnaire in the woods… on a grassy knoll when I was leading another patrol. I had assumed there were no Allies in the area I was walking in on the road; wrong. (One of our own was perched on his R-75 in the middle of the road smoking a cigarette… totally ignoring his hits so I thought there weren’t any Ami’s around.)

The ambushes were the highlight of the day. Ambush number one was when Herr Hauptmann sent another Jager and I hunting for the flanking Amis. We walked a deep gully away from the action and then paralleled the general direction of the road. We came to a second gully where we thought the Amis were. Behind the gully was a huge hill. We scaled the back side of it and surprised a couple of locals watching the battle below with binoculars. My partner spotted 6 Amis lying on the far side of the ravine below us. With the general battle noise they would not have heard our shots. So we moved down and close and did a simple banzai charge. So we got two of them… before we both got shot. Kinda farby…

My next ambush was a small effort also. I had noticed a Legionnaire in the woods near the road pinning down our Kubel and a Feldwebel. We had a sniper in the woods but he’d been ineffective at hitting the Frenchman. I set out in a direction away from the front and flanked to the right, following the fence. I snuck up slowly to where the sniper hide was. I got past him heading toward the woods with the French. It was wide open tall grass; a low crawl would have been better but for cactus and fire ants. I approached in a crouch without making any sudden movement. The Frenchman didn’t see me until I stood up for the shot. He stood up and raised his rifle but I already had him sighted. The sniper and I fired at him as soon as he stood. He took a great hit and went down hard. I approached past him and there was only one other Frenchman on the hill but he hadn’t seen me or his buddy go down. I hosed him and came out on the other side of the hill. I found no others so it became apparent there were only a few Legionnaires on the hill holding the road.

I reported that to my Hauptmann and we were instructed to form a team to go find where the 36th was, since the Hauptmann suspected they were flanking again. I led a team down the road the opposite direction from the front. The team was two soldaten from the 167 Volksgrenadier and two Fallschirmjäger with K98s and last me with MP40.

Zwei soldaten 167 Volksgrenadier

As we reached the road split we circled back to the front on the other road. In the distance we heard some muffled vehicle noise and we moved into an ambush across the road. We arrayed on the road and I went forward to sit on the hill past the site to close the kill zone and use the full auto spray on the occupants of the kill zone.

We sat in ambush for a few minutes and we could hear the GIs talking about putting Jeeps into 4L to climb a hill. The two Jeeps crested the hill, waited and then the first one came into the kill zone. They never saw it coming until we lit them up. The first was a jeep with a .30 cal an American Captain and two GIs. They ran right into it when the 98’s opened up I sprayed them from the side. The Captain was so surprised he just yelled “F**k!’ at the top of his lungs, they never even got a shot off.

The next Jeep with 3 more Amis and a .30 drove right up into the KZ and got the same treatment. The Amis on foot came up and started flanking us and at first didn’t see us so we got 4 more of them before they dropped us.

One of our victim jeeps… photo by Scott Swenson, G Company, 36th

Just got back from Brownwood the TMHS tactical battle. Our scenario was the evacuation of Messina where the Fallschirmjager fight a rearguard action to enable the retreat from the Island.

I’ll write more later but it was a fun battle my squad executed one infiltration and ambush and a terrific tactical ambush on two jeeps with the Officers of the American 36th while they were trying to flank us. One bummer was me laying on a nest of ground dwelling yellowjackets … lots of stings, fortunately I had on a boots, smock and gloves, but they got into my helmet and if you know how well Fallschirmjager helmets fasten you’ll know how hard it was to get it off in a hurry to swat them! So I started the day with a lot of stings. My jager companion in that ambush position watched me as I did the wasp swatting dance not much he could do to help unless he wanted to get stung too! I found out later on that an Ami took shelter there after we’d been pushed back he got stung a lot too.

I ‘captured’ a couple of new items at the swap meet… an M1 Garand and a Gew 43 with a Zf scope… look for more on them later on. Well time for more Benadryl lotion on the stings.