(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Hidden History: World War One Combat Helmets [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-25 World War One marked the first re-introduction of the combat helmet in several hundred years. "Hidden History" is a diary series that explores forgotten and little-known areas of history. The armored helmet has been a part of warfare for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks had several different types of bronze helmets such as the Kegel, Corinthian and Chalcidian, while the Roman legions had distinctive helmets with protective crests and cheek pieces. In the Dark Ages, most helmets were of the conical Spangenhelm type, and the Age of Knights saw the Great Helm, the Bascinet, and the Sallet. The arrival of gunpowder firearms on the battlefield in the 1500s, however, marked the end of armor and helmets and they became obsolete. At least for a time. French Adrian helmet photo from Wikipedia When the First World War broke out in 1914, the French troops were wearing a soft cloth kepi as part of their standard uniform—similar to the kepis that had been worn by both sides in the American Civil War. The Great War, however, saw the proliferation of new and devastating weapons, among which was shrapnel, a type of artillery that was designed to explode above the troops’ heads as they crouched in their trenches and shower a deadly blast of small steel balls down onto them. Casualties from shrapnel skyrocketed, and the head wounds inflicted were often fatal. The French were the first to give some protection to their troops. The poilus were issued simple bowl-like steel caps that fit underneath their kepis (which quickly became nicknamed “brain bowls”). While these worked fairly well, they were not enough, and the French Army sought a better solution. They modified the protective steel helmets that were worn by firefighters in Paris and adopted these for their soldiers as the M15 combat helmet, more commonly referred to as the “Adrian” after the General who introduced it. They were first issued in the summer of 1915. The Adrians were made of mild steel, in five pieces. There was a ridge along the dome-shaped top which helped deflect blast waves and shell fragments, and a brim in front and back to protect the face and neck. A longitudinal slit at the top, underneath the crest, allowed for air flow to dissipate heat, and a large insignia badge at the front identified which service branch the trooper belonged to. Although it was not capable of stopping a rifle bullet, the Adrian worked well against shrapnel and shell fragments, and it cut the number of head-wound fatalities by nearly half. The Adrian was adopted by several of the other Entente countries, including Belgium and Russia, and at last 20 million of them were produced during the war. In France, a modified postwar version known as the M26 remained in service with the French Army right up to the Nazi invasion in 1940, and was still being worn by firefighters and by some French riot police into the 1970s. German Stahlhelm photo from WikiCommons When the First World War began, German troops were wearing the familiar spiked Pickelhaube as part of their standard uniform. Made from leather, this helmet was purely decorative and offered virtually no protection on the battlefield. As a stopgap, troops were issued a steel cap designed to fit under the Pickelhaube while work was carried out on a new combat helmet design. The configuration that was settled on was based loosely on the medieval sallet. It had a wide dome shape with flared edges and a recessed brim to give good vision. Two metal lugs on the sides would hold an additional sheet of steel armor in place for specialized troops like machine gunners, tank crews and snipers. It was known, prosaically, as the Stahlhelm (“steel helmet”), though many German soldiers referred to it as “the coal scuttle”. In February 1916 it was first issued to the troops fighting at Verdun, and by summer it was ubiquitous. The Turks, who were allies of Germany, purchased a number of modified versions with a higher cut in front, allowing the Muslim soldiers to touch their foreheads to the ground while praying. In the postwar era, one of the growing right-wing “militias” of military veterans that would lead Germany to Naziism was called “the Stahlhelmers”. As the Second World War approached, the Wehrmacht redesigned the helmet, making it smaller and lighter but from a better grade of steel, and removing the lugs from the sides. It served through the war. Today, most NATO armies including the United States use a kevlar combat helmet that remains very similar in size and shape to the German Stahlhelm. British Brodie helmet photo from Wikipedia The Tommies of the British Expeditionary Force went to France in 1914 wearing the cloth dress caps that had been introduced in 1906 after the Boer War. When the shrapnel shells began flying, the British looked at the French Adrian, but they decided that it was not strong enough, did not offer enough protection, and was too complicated and expensive to manufacture quickly in bulk. So a Latvian immigrant named John Leopold Brodie came up with a design that was loosely based on the wide-brimmed “kettle helmet” from medieval times. It was introduced in the autumn of 1915 as the Mark I Steel Helmet, and became known as the “Brodie helmet” or simply “the tin hat”. The Mark 1 Brodie was made from thicker steel than the French Adrian, which gave better protection to the wearer. The wide brim covered the neck and shoulders. The one-piece design allowed the helmets to be quickly and cheaply stamped into shape from a single sheet of steel. At the time, British industry was not up to the levels needed to produce sufficient materials for the war, and there were severe shortages of rifles, artillery shells, and helmets. Much of the production was therefore outsourced to factories in America. In the meantime, the BEF initially issued helmets only to troops in the actual frontline trenches, handing them off to new arrivals whenever they were rotated to the rear. By 1916, however, most British troops in France had been issued their own tin hat, which often also doubled as a wash basin and cooking pot. When the United States entered the war in the spring of 1917, they had no helmets of their own, and adopted the British version for themselves as the M1917 Combat Helmet, partly because so many American factories were already producing it and partly because the British had a large supply which they could share. The doughboys, like the Tommies, referred to it as “the tin hat”. (A number of American troops who were incorporated into French units, on the other hand, wore the French Adrian instead.) After the war, the Brodie remained in service with the British Army, undergoing several design changes. It was still the standard combat helmet in 1939 when the Second World War broke out. When the Yanks entered World War Two in 1941, they were also equipped with the British Mark II tin hat, but this was quickly replaced by the new American-made M1 helmet, which was similar in its design to the German Stahlhelm. 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