Avernos, the Desert Squirrel.
I've been dying for a truck all week!
so shiny and newAs I am planning on using my trucks for both my Afrika Korps and a late war SS force I’ve chosen to use generic balkenkreuz and symbols. Placement of these can varied massively across units.
The front fenders often held the tactical symbols and/or unit symbols.
The vehicles technical specifications would be found on the doors.
Symbols such as Divisional, Balkenkreuz, the Red Cross could be placed on doors, the side of the rear or even the canvas cover.
The rear tailgate again could hold tactical or unit symbols.
There are no hard and fast rules and I’ve found countless examples of all or none of these being applied, so don’t worry too much about accuracy.
I would agree @avernos – that the German tactical symbols is a labyrinthine nightmare even the groggniest grognard who ever grognarded can’t fully pretend to understand (if he says he does, he’s lying – either to you or to himself).
Case in point, I can verify that in that BW war photo above, the square symbol circled in blue means the truck is part of an engineer platoon – but the square symbol on the other finder (in pink) doesn’t appear on my tables.
yea and the rear vehicle has the same square with diagonal symbol in the pink circle and what looks like a signals batt symbol in the blue. Annoyingly I think I got that from a site making the same “you can’t know everything” point.
found them, the symbols were due to an order. Richtlinien für die Feindtäuschung (“Correct method for enemy deception” – Weisung OKH/WFSt./Abt.L. – February 1941) ordered to use new geometric Truppenzeichen for all divisions.
It was used to obfuscate the actual units for special operations like Barbarossa.
Old pinky there is 122.Infanterie-Division, Greif-Division proudly adapting a claw of Greif (griffin) as its symbol. So that is apparently a geometric griffin’s claw.
Now you know and knowing is half the battle 😀
Awesome, @avernos ! Okay, on the BW truck photo: Right hand side – claw: Yeah, clearly this was a divisional symbol. But in all honesty I only know a handful, and wasn’t about to go through 350+ (actually more,since many divisions changed theirs over the course of the war). Right hand side, blue – “infantry platoon with double arrow pointing up.” – this was pretty easy to find, it’s an engineer platoon on. Records are found in the official German handbook of military symbols (H.Dv. 272) of 24.03.1941, (with changes up to November 1941) and on the actual symbols used… Read more »
definitely fire some links down I have a few sites I use myself but I’ve not found one site that has everything so additional info is handy.
The guy who had researched the unusual symbols pointed out that some units didn’t like being told to swap their distinctive marking for a bland geometric one and simply used both, in what I like to think of as the petulant teenager manoeuvre
No worries, @avernos – hopefully these work for you (sometimes these low-budget web pages don’t display properly overseas.
If they don’t work let me know, I’ll try to splice together some screen shots.
http://www.niehorster.org/011_germany/symbols/_symbols_39.html
http://www.niehorster.org/011_germany/symbols/_symbols_41.html
A few more @avernos :
http://www.niehorster.org/011_germany/symbols/_symbols_43.html
http://www.niehorster.org/011_germany/symbols/_symbols_figures.html
that’s one of the sites I use at the moment, it’s a very good resource to go to. Especially when it comes to searching by theatres, countries or military branch.