"1918, Chateau-Thierry, helmets" Topic

Only Stahlhelm were used. The units varied considerably in terms of experience and even within units.

Robert

The pickelhaube was a decorative, not a protective headgear.

Pickelhaube was designed to be protective but not against shrapnel. The change over started in 1916. With the relative shortages, the helmets were rotated from outgoing to incoming units on the front line. Later, the helmets were standard issue to all.

Robert

From what I've read the opening weeks of the Battle of Verdun would have been one of the few battles were the Pickelhaube and Stahlhelm would have been seen on the same field at the same time.
If interested, the Stahlhelms would not been camoed for Chateau-Thierry. The RKO for painting the helms was issued in August of 1918.

German Reserves were pretty good troops, After serving his time in an Active duty regiment, a soldier then went into the Reserve Regiment. He would actually be better trained and more experienced than his active duty counter part. Although by 1918 new recruits were being sent directly into Regular, Reserve, Landwehr, and Ersatz Regiments.

In "Storm of Steel" Junger says they received their steel helmets in the late summer of 1916, so they spent at least part of the Battle of the Somme in pickelhaubes.

Also the East front wasnt terribly high on the list for steel helmets, not uncommon to see pickelhaubes theres much later than on the West Front.

With the relative shortages, the helmets were rotated from outgoing to incoming units on the front line.

Interesting to note that Haig ordered the same thing to be done with British helmets (ie assigned to a section of front line trench, rather than to a unit) when he first took over on the Western Front, the shortages in this case being the result of a failure to cure the problem of "thinning" of the metal on the top of the helmet when it was "punched". This has since become "Haig took helmets away from his men because it spoiled their offensive spirit".