redarmylivinghistory

What color piping would a combat engineer wear on his shoulder boards for the M43 uniform?
Thanks;
Christian

Hi Christian , welcome to the forum first of all

The piping would have been Black.

Cheers, Ade.

Thanks for the info. I am planing to do a combat engineer impression and just couldn't find any good info. Now my next question is about guards units. Did everyone wear the guards badge or just the rifle units in the division?
Thanks;
Christian

I think the distinction with regard to wearing badges is actually lower than divisional level. Obviously a division contains a lot of organic elements which won't be rifles.

Could be wrong, but an interesting question...

Coming back to this one...

A 1941 Rifle Division was made up of this:

3 Rifle Regiments (with 4 x 76mm & 4 x 45mm)
1 Artillery Regiment (with 16 x 76mm & 8 x 122mm)
2 Sapper Battalions
1 Reconnaissance Company
1 Supply Company

strength: 10,859 men
36 field guns
78 mortars
18 AT guns

A 1943 Rifle Division was made up of this:

3 Rifle Regiments (with 4 x 76mm and 16 x 45mm (12 in GRR))
1 Artillery Regiment (with 20 x 76mm and 12 x 122m)
1 Antitank Battalion (12 x 45mm)
1 Sapper Battalion
1 Signal Company
1 Reconnaissance Company
1 Supply Company

strength: 9,380 men (10,670 in GRD)
44 field guns
160 mortars
48 AT guns

As you can see, the sappers were a divisional asset. Notice how they lost a sapper bn. and gained a seperate anti-tank.

source : P. A. Kurochkin, ed., Obshchevoiskovaya armiya v nastuplenii
(The Combined Arms Army in the Offense.) (Moskva: Voenizdat, 1966)

This really isn't a question about sappers, but this seems like the appropriate thread to ask:

Did AT gun crew in the AT gun platoon of an infantry batallion wear artillery piping on their shoulderboards, or infantry? How about the AT battery of an infantry regiment? Or the field gun battery in the infantry regiment?

Or in short, did gun crew outside of artillery regiments wear artillery piping at all?

-Z

In the post-war Soviet Army you would get a situation where a tank regiment in a motor-rifles division (because they had 3 regiments of motor-rifles and one of tanks) would wear the red of motor-rifles but with the collar badge of the tanks.

I am guessing this would be the same - raspberry boards but with artillery devices.

Most traditions like this go back a fair way, usually to Czarist times.

BUT I am not sure, so if anyone with better GPW knowledge would like to correct me, please do!

Oddly enough, we had this discussion at the weekend. A friend of mine in the states had run down a reference in a Russian uniform magazine that suggested that at the start of the war the cavalry troop of an infantry regiment wore infantry tabs but with cavalry insignia, which if I've understood it, carries on the postwar pattern described by Andy.

Most Interesting Comrade Starshiiy Rob, thanks for the Gen...

1936-1942 - http://tewton.narod.ru/uniform-2/uniform-14.html

1943-1954 (enlisted men) - http://tewton.narod.ru/uniform-2/uniform-15.html

1943 - 1954 (officers) - http://tewton.narod.ru/uniform-2/uniform-16.html

Yes, we get the message, you can read Russian. Big f$%^&g whoop.

A translation for us lesser beings, perhaps, comrade splitter?

Comrade, Nice Information, many thanks....

They are just pictures of Engineer insignia from 1936 through to 1954 - I thought they would be useful.

Starshiiy Rob wrote:Oddly enough, we had this discussion at the weekend. A friend of mine in the states had run down a reference in a Russian uniform magazine that suggested that at the start of the war the cavalry troop of an infantry regiment wore infantry tabs but with cavalry insignia, which if I've understood it, carries on the postwar pattern described by Andy.

Comrade, yes, this is the same type of thing I was describing.

Not everything seems to have worked like that though - the only other variant I know of postwar is the reverse of what I described earlier - motor rifles regiment with a tank division who wore tankisti black boards but with the wreathed star of the motor rifles on their collars.

Certainly there were plenty of postwar examples where this pattern might have been followed but it wasn't...

Online translation:

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_ur ... =Translate

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_ur ... =Translate

http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_ur ... =Translate

Not ideal but you can glean some info. There's some oddities with it though, for example I was reading on other site about 'castrated' rifles - I think it may have meant deactivated

Well done Robin (aka comrade splitter),a very informative post there.The illustrations are excellent and make things a lot easier than just text.

Thank you Simon also for the translations.

Great site Robin, dead useful