Stahlhelm: Encyclopedia II - Stahlhelm - Central Power Variants

Stahlhelm - Central Power Variants

Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire used or had commissioned, variations of the Stahlhelm design. The Austrians’ M1917 helmet was similar to the German M1916, but had a cloth webbing chinstrap and had the chinstrap rivet located higher up on the steel shell. The Hungarians produced their own M1917 version that was similar to the Austrian design, but the chinstrap rivet was smaller in size and located even higher up than the Austrian version. The Austro-Hungarian helmets were manufactured by Krupp Berndorfer Metalwarenfabrik, and were brown in color.

Germany produced 5,400 visorless versions of the M1918 helmet for Turkey. It is often said that this visorless version was created to allow Turkish soldiers to touch their foreheads to the ground during prayer, without removing their helmets. However, this story has been disputed. Ultimately, the Turkish version of the Stahlhelm was never delivered, but instead was used by German Freikorps units after the war.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Central Power Variants", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki