FAMAS Belt and Suspenders Question.

No idea why as I am trying to massively downsize my collection but am toying with trying to cheaply put together a Desert Storm era French web set as I have a lonely canteen set already.

Have bought a job lot of what I believe to be French Pistol Belts and Suspenders. Some of the belts have plastic hardware-sliders,keepers etc,some are metal and the suspenders have flimsy looking plastic clips to the front to attach to the belt but have no idea how these work or even if they are of the correct era/period?

Many Thanks

Sounds like the right stuff. The plastic fittings are, I have always assumed, from later issue items. The suspenders have poorly designed velcro fastenings on the rear straps and snap hooks on the front straps. The front snap hooks pass through a D-ring on the rear of the 3-cell magazine pouches and then clip on to a smaller D-ring, also on the rear. All you really need besides the canteen are the two magazine pouches, a respirator pouch, and perhaps a 3-cell TAP grenade pouch. A small cleaning kit pouch and a first aid pouch were often clipped/taped to the front suspenders.

Many Thanks Andrew,would the plastic type ones be period correct for 1991 as am sure that all the suspenders in the lot are of the plastic type?

Have a few grenade pouches somewhere so guess I will need a pair of ammo pouches IF Im going to go ahead with the set up.

Many Thanks.

I am not really sure. I have never seen any belts with visible markings, so it is hard to say when the plastic hardware was introduced. The same goes for the suspenders. One would probably have to take a close look at photographs from 1990-91 to see what shows up.

Thanks Andrew,will have a look through my books when I get a chance.

Gulf91 wrote:No idea why as I am trying to massively downsize my collection but am toying with trying to cheaply put together a Desert Storm era French web set as I have a lonely canteen set already.

Have bought a job lot of what I believe to be French Pistol Belts and Suspenders. Some of the belts have plastic hardware-sliders,keepers etc,some are metal and the suspenders have flimsy looking plastic clips to the front to attach to the belt but have no idea how these work or even if they are of the correct era/period?

Many Thanks

Hopefully these pictures will help but it sounds like you have the correct items.