Prussian Guard Regiments helmet for Enlisted man

RON said:
Welcome to the Forum.
JzP Metalhelme had the tall ('JzP') spike. The ones that come with the regular line spitze had this done post-war or during the War Bond times when parts were mixed-up.
The reason why we are raising this here is because all 3 Guard-Infantry Pickelhaube examples, including mine, seem to have always had the taller ('JzP') spike from the beginning which would imply some soldiers did prefer to swap their regular line spikes with the JzP one...
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Thank you for the welcome. Your statement regarding the spikes you state as fact, when it is actually your opinion as it dismisses the scores of Jäger zu Pferde helmets in Europe with the shorter spike that never had a visit to America on their war bond excursion, or period photos where the spike is clearly not the taller pattern.
 
or period photos where the spike is clearly not the taller pattern.
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Not a lot of M15 clear pictures around that I have seen. Do you have something that clearly shows a size difference in use? That would be tough but certainly possible. Yes welcome.
 
I'd love to see such photos too...
I have also seen Kürassier Metalhelme with regular line spikes. This doesn't mean it was the right configuration.
One has to benchmark with the previous models (e.g. Jäger zu Pferde M1905) to see that the metalhelme (JzP & Kürassier) did have different spikes as there's no reason to think that, at least during the early stages of the 1915-1916 period, the 1915 Models didn't resemble their predecessors in terms of design.
 
joerookery said:
We often see pictures of soldiers wearing their helmets without a spike. Where did they keep them? Were they ever issued them? Did they work their way back to the warehouse where they were mismatched during the war bond drive? Now examples emerge that are positively taller on a leather helmet. Again I have seen nothing that provides guard troops the choice of spike height.
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Joe,

I just recently watched a video of a WWI German veteran from Füsilier Regt.Nr.80, interviewed in 1980 concerning his experiences at Verdun. He mentioned that on the eve the unit's attack, their spikes were collected and put in a bag. Later, when the unit was withdrawn from the front, they were informed that they were to parade before the Kaiser. This got them to work at cleaning and repairing their uniforms. Now, the bag of spikes had been lost on their return, so the men fashioned spikes from potatoes and wood and stuck them in their covers so that they would present the Kaiser with the proper visage!

Chip
 
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