Picture of the day

Found an old issue of Soldier of Fortune from July of 79 while rummaging through my bookshelves yesterday, snapped a couple pics out of it to share.

Article on British unconventional warfare training between 1940-42, bit of Enfield eye candy for you.






Some Lebanon pics as well, looks like a vz58 the one soldier sitting down has?

 
I recall this pic from the same magazine (does that show my age or what?)

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Re: chap with the VZ58 - Circassian or Chechen? :ninja:

(Not to sound like a stereotyper here).
 
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Photos from WW1 vintage. Group of soldiers with MkII Ross, including my aunt's husband and a photo of my Uncle Charles (on left) who was killed at 2nd battle of Amiens August 10. 1918 with his friend Norman. Charles has no known grave, his name is on the Vimy memorial.

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Cocked&Locked said:
that's about right. 18-20 mm. Later Type VII's had up to 21 mm
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Thanks. I recall 2 and then a bit bigger. I guess it was 20 mm, not 2 inches. Big difference.

I recall my father talking about shooting 50 cal at subs. I always thought that would be a waste of time, but maybe not. He was RCAF, Maritime Command.

He took this picture during an attack with a Hudson:

SUBONSURFACE.jpg


If you look closely with a magnifying glass, and can read lips, the conning tower crew are looking up and saying (in German) "Oh ####e!"

I did some research, and the fact that it has a gun bith fore and aft made it easier to identify.
 
Bushwacker, those remind me of this regimental photo of my Opa, I snapped a pic of it when I was home for my moms 75 birthday in February. My Grandfather is the sixth on the right in the middle row, backside notations on the picture say 1922. He was in a field artillery regiment it would seem.


 
I can remember trying to wrap those damn puttees so they would staty up in cadets in secondary school. What a monumental PITA! I can just imagine some military stores clerk chuckling to himself as he boxed up uniforms to send out to schools and saying "these puttees are going to drive those kids crazy". That would have been in 54-58. When did the Cdn. forces scrap them?
 
bushwhacker said:
I can remember trying to wrap those damn puttees so they would staty up in cadets in secondary school. What a monumental PITA! I can just imagine some military stores clerk chuckling to himself as he boxed up uniforms to send out to schools and saying "these puttees are going to drive those kids crazy". That would have been in 54-58. When did the Cdn. forces scrap them?
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I was still wearing them in 1965!
 
I was wearing them after that.

Puttees were a royal PITA to the soldiers that wore them. It was an art to wrap them correctly and of course, every unit/formation had a variant on how to do it.

Infantry wore khaki and wrapped from the ankle up. Rifle regiments wore black. Artillery wrapped from the top down.

Some armies (like the IJA) ##### crossed the tape around the finished wrap whereas others finished the tape at the top. There was a variety of colours used by the British Army throughout their history.

After cursing them for years, I STILL wear them! To shoot "Wild Bunch" in SASS, the era being Mexican Revolution. I dress as a 'Soldier of Fortune' in quasi military, to include puttees to the knees. Once a soldier ....
 
Sharps '63 said:
I was wearing them after that.

Puttees were a royal PITA to the soldiers that wore them. It was an art to wrap them correctly and of course, every unit/formation had a variant on how to do it.

Infantry wore khaki and wrapped from the ankle up. Rifle regiments wore black. Artillery wrapped from the top down.

Some armies (like the IJA) ##### crossed the tape around the finished wrap whereas others finished the tape at the top. There was a variety of colours used by the British Army throughout their history.

After cursing them for years, I STILL wear them! To shoot "Wild Bunch" in SASS, the era being Mexican Revolution. I dress as a 'Soldier of Fortune' in quasi military, to include puttees to the knees. Once a soldier ....
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What do you shoot?

46696.jpg
 
Sharps '63 said:
I was wearing them after that.

Puttees were a royal PITA to the soldiers that wore them. It was an art to wrap them correctly and of course, every unit/formation had a variant on how to do it.

Infantry wore khaki and wrapped from the ankle up. Rifle regiments wore black. Artillery wrapped from the top down.

Some armies (like the IJA) ##### crossed the tape around the finished wrap whereas others finished the tape at the top. There was a variety of colours used by the British Army throughout their history.

After cursing them for years, I STILL wear them! To shoot "Wild Bunch" in SASS, the era being Mexican Revolution. I dress as a 'Soldier of Fortune' in quasi military, to include puttees to the knees. Once a soldier ....
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Fox Puttees....the premier choice (me too!)
 
I thought it would have been sand, not mud. But more realistically, it was probably a hangover from something that made sense 100 years ago, and the brit army (and Canadians that once took their cue from the brits, more or less)

From wiki:

A puttee, also spelled puttie, is the name, adapted from the Hindi patti, bandage (Skr. patta, strip of cloth), for a covering for the lower part of the leg from the ankle to the knee. It consisted of a long narrow piece of cloth wound tightly and spirally round the leg, and serving to provide both support and protection. It was worn by both mounted and dismounted soldiers, generally taking the place of the leather or cloth gaiter.
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sail32 said:
The puttee was designed to catch spear grass so it would dig into your ankles.
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LOL, that made my morning.

The puttee was a very original, 18th century and ww1 attempt at ankle support, being the British army didn't want to pay for nice shiny hooker boots for their armies anymore. So ankle boots were introduced but the lads started to roll their ankles and fill their boots with burdocks quite regularly, and it was decided that a long piece of cloth about 3 -1/2" wide, with a cloth tape at the end to tie it off, was the best solution. The ww1 puttees were long and went up to the knee, as previously stated they were wrapped differently by everyone. They were replaced with the P37 canvas gaiter when everyone was tired having to re-learn how to tie them each time they took them off. When everyone found out the gaiters were crap, being that they provided no ankle support and couldn't keep quack grass from entering your boots, they went back to short puttees until high top boots were invented. This technological advancement was amazingly only adopted in the 1980's in the British army!
 
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sail32 said:
The puttee was designed to catch spear grass so it would dig into your ankles.
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I've read that they were first worn in India to protect against snake bite.

Once we got away from wearing them to just below the knee, it became the fashion to wear a cotton tube of weights (9mm bullets) to cause your pants to drape and hang to display the sharp creases that marked a Canadian soldier.

They kept nothing out of your boots as they tended to creep up over boot tops with exertion. Worn knee high, they did offer a degree of warmth.
 
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