by flashesandovals Wed Jul 09, 2014 7:42 am
Before we went to the kevlar type helmet in 1993, we were never issued any helmet covers in the Belgian Army, only nets - period! ( Except for 3 Para).
Covers were home-made from sandbags, cammo hoods from older smocks, cammo shelter halves etc.
Also, whatever available other nation's helmet covers were procured on an individual basis...US ERDL, MITCHELL and WOODLAND M1 or PASGT, UK etc.
In the early 80's 3 Para had some made for the battalion. They had a very distinct commercial pattern, nothing like any other military ever used before. I still have one that I will try to dig up.
Being the Platoon Sergeant in the 90's, I had everybody to wear the same US woodland PASGT cover. On top of that everyone had a removable cammo net with burlap and strips of old cammo cloth.
We made the removable so we could get rid of it when training in urban terrain.
And one last thing: at the Para-Commando Brigade we were issued 2 helmets each; the one depicted here was for jumping and the PASGT type was to be worn once we hit the ground and on firing ranges - so we carried both into combat/exercise...go figure!
It appeared that we needed the protection of the PASGT but it was too wide and caused injuries when jumping the French type TAP parachute.
