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Wehrmacht Issue Blanket Repros
Identical replicas
of an original Wehrmacht issue blanket! |
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As many of
you know, there were no real good sources for
reproduction WW2 German army blankets that were based
off an original. So, some of the members of der
Erste Zug took on the project & produced the nearly
identical replica of the original WH issue blanket
pictured here:

These
blankets were a standard piece of equipment for all
German army personnel. It was issued for use
during the fall and winter months and returned to the
military depots for the spring and summer months (this
not always being the case). These blankets were
found in training barracks and static defenses as
well. They were manufactured with an interwoven
colored stripe at each end allowing the owner a
reference point to roll the blanket up in a consistent
manner to attach it to his field pack.
When
deciding on what blanket to copy, we examined 6
original examples of the same pattern. This type
blanket is well known amongst collectors world wide as
a WW2 German army blanket & has been seen in various
photographs. All of our originals & those we
examined in other collections, are that of a light
grey to almost white or cream color. All have
the red "guide" stripe on one end and a blue "guide"
stripe on the other. Pictures of the stripes on
the reproduction (left) & original (right) are shown
below:


You will
note that the reproduction blanket is brighter in
color both in the body & stripes. This is due to the
fact that we wanted to produce the blanket as it
looked when issued, not as though it had years of wear
& tear. As you can see, all the details of the
original down to the weave and the wool are exact!
You will not find a better blanket.
Please
understand, we are not claiming this blanket to be the
only issued blanket used by the Wehrmacht. We are
aware that the German military used all types of
captured stocks, etc... As of now, the German
reenacting community is dominated by the plain &
foreign blankets of the generic type with & without
Hospital property stamps. We figured, those looking
for something more than the average plain blanket
would like a chance to acquire an exact repro of one
of the blanket variants that has confirmed wartime
usage.
We chose
this pattern blanket for reproduction, because it has
the end "guide" stripes for folding the blanket (red
on one end, blue on the other) which makes it
different than any other blanket in use today.
It is these specific differences that will make it
obvious to others that the blanket you have, is German
issue.
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