Never Surrender!

[Stigroadie]

and nay, performing minor repairs?

No, there was a real, qualified armourer on site who did that and more. I said before, this was not an AFRA job, there were many and varied people involved. As Franz say the tag 'armourer' was a handy one for those people involved with the weapons. Perhaps not accurate in every respect but there you go.
I too have been a party to range and weapons briefings in many parts of the world. I shoot whenever possible on tour.

[Franz repper]

This topic is not about AFRA or AFRA trying to take control , The Arms storemen are Members of AFRA that is were the AFRA link ends !!!
This Issue is about some one endangering other reenactors the main ISSUE of this topic is to highlight this and Find the reenactor to show him the error of his ways . Any more of this I know more than you will result in Warnings being Issued

[Kaben]

Well like it or not this is my one and tuppence worth. There was a clear and concise safety briefing conducted by Glenn Swallow at 17:30 hrs on the Thursday evening as per every Beltring Glenn, in his usual indomitable fashion, made it quite clear that there was to be absolutely NO UNREHEARSED hand to hand combat, he even went to the length of conducting a demonstration with weapons to make it abundantly clear what he expected of every participant. Glenn also made it quite clear that it was up to the individual unit commanders to ensure that every man put on the field was capable of handling a weapon properly. Each person was then instructed to sign a disclaimer and was then issued with a battle pass which had to be carried and available for inspection; which was carried out by the SBG Field Gendarmerie. Clearly this member of Stahlkriege was in complete contravention of the rules and instructions for the Beltring Battle and had Glenn or indeed any of the rest of us been aware of this incident this man and his unit commander would have received some serious instruction of the required standard of conduct i.e. the boot of destiny connecting with the arse of anticipation. Comments regarding weapon handling are correct the guy with the Thompson should not have had his finger on the trigger unless he was about to engage an enemy. The issue of the filthy weapon is a NO BRAINER whether hired or privately owned you clean it immediately you leave the field - hey guys that’s what soldiers do!! It is clear to me that the German caused the incident and had ignored clear instructions, he was not the only person to do so and SBG member received powder burns from a weapon fired at him at close range. People must start to take this kind of thing more seriously - units must undertake proper training instead of holding photography posing weekends - do the work and the results pay dividends in the arena. Those who don’t or wont ensure that their groups are adequately trained will find themselves being sidelined by battle organisers.

I would like to make it CRYSTAL CLEAR that the grenadier at fault is NOT a member of Kampfgruppe Stahlkrieger. If he was, i would be able to identify him wouldnt I? Please get your facts straight before you make wild accusations that could harm our group.

Thanks

[Darkattitude]

The guy that got the butt of a Garand in his face the previous year after attacking my guys was in your group, I should know I came over to your display to see if he was okay. He told me that he had planned all these attacks with the guys concerned hence why I was so apologetic, you can imagine how annoyed I was later to discover that none of my guys had even spoken to this guy prior to him launching himself at my lads!

That said, I'm still working on identifying this clown.

[Dietmar]

Right, before this does get locked down, and now that the Stahlkriegers have been put under the spotlight, I can definitely state that it was not one of our boys. I was the NCO for our group and took all our grenadiers onto the field on Sunday. We only fielded eight guys and we all went to the central mound and were the first group to be attacked by the advancing Yanks. We were under orders to take our hits fairly quickly so that the Yanks could advance. This we did, as per the scenario. Therefore we were all "taken out" long before this incident took place.
The only other members of our group on the field were vehicle crews and were dressed accordingly (much like Duncan).
Yes, one of our guys got a bit carried away last year, and words were had. He did however get a butt in the face, so there's a bit of poetic justice for you.
In the group, we are all aware of this previous incident, and lessons have been learnt. So to suggest that we would be guilty of the same behaviour the following year is a bit annoying to say the least.

[Dietmar]

Deleted due to double posting......must stop hitting the keys so hard.............

[Kaben]

The guy that got the butt of a Garand in his face the previous year after attacking my guys was in your group, I should know I came over to your display to see if he was okay. He told me that he had planned all these attacks with the guys concerned hence why I was so apologetic, you can imagine how annoyed I was later to discover that none of my guys had even spoken to this guy prior to him launching himself at my lads!

That said, I'm still working on identifying this clown.

Just because someone else was in the group last year, doesnt mean that every close combat numpty is in KSK.

Im sorry that your guy got his kit damaged, and i hope he wasn't hurt. I only submitted the animated .gif because i thought it was interesting. I didn't realise it was going to kick up this sh!t storm - as i said, being new to the scene means i didn't know how much bad feeling there is about this kind of thing running under the surface.

The only thing that ties this to KSK is myself recording the action on camera and Duncan who had surrendered and was caught off guard just as much as your fellas. I dont support this guys actions, but I am equally not clued up enough about the re-enactment world to damn him either.

My only objective is to take the best photo's i can to capture you guys doing your thing in as dynamic and interesting a way as possible . I have been caught out here by posting this sequence as i never foresaw this reaction.

[BaggyPants]

If it had been one of your bunch, Tim, we'd have recognised his lardy ass I think that Andy erroneously thought the assailant was from KSK because of the proximity of the photographer, as Kaben states above. A simple error, I'm sure, with no malice intended. There were a few "independents" in that battle, so it was most probably one of them.

[BaggyPants]

My only objective is to take the best photo's i can to capture you guys doing your thing in as dynamic and interesting a way as possible

And very well done too, may I say. Unfortunate subject matter on this occasion, but top photos. Very lucky to get the Lancaster in the first few, just as it's turning

[Dietmar]

Oh yes, and I've just noticed his bread bag! Completely flaccid. And we used to have huge lectures from Grenadier Heeder about the perils of flaccidness.

Yep, all our lardy arses were laying around "dead." We're old, we can't run very far.........

[Sturmschar]

If I have been mistaken in my identification then I unreservedly apologise.

[Dietmar]

That's ok, these bloody Jermens all look the same. My heart rate is going down now......I have nice Bier here.............

[stefan]

OK someone told me about this thread at Detling and it would seem that its has grown since then

I will leave it to you all to argue it out with regards the right and wrongs of what happened but to clarified what Kaben has already said
the guy who launched himself at the three American reenactors was defiantly NOT a member of Kampfgruppe Stahlkrieger and as far as I
could see the whole thing looked spontaneous rather than rehersed/prearanged as he hit the guy at some speed and very hard ,I for one was completely taken by surprised and received a blow to the calf from possibly a butt or barrel of a weapon, my reaction was to get well away as it all looked like it could get out of hand and I wasn't quite sure what was happening

Kaben was there to take photos and rode on the back of the Panzer III , as for my part I was the commander of the Panzer III that day we both had no prior knowledge of this guys intentions as I am sure also nether did the three American reenactors

[Kaben]

If I have been mistaken in my identification then I unreservedly apologise.

Accepted. I just wanted to make sure i didn't get my group in trouble with the sequence i posted, hence my quite direct reply. No bad blood intended etc.

My only objective is to take the best photo's i can to capture you guys doing your thing in as dynamic and interesting a way as possible

And very well done too, may I say. Unfortunate subject matter on this occasion, but top photos. Very lucky to get the Lancaster in the first few, just as it's turning

Thanks
I saw it there, but was not sure if i had captured it until i got the images home to the big screen for editing. Was dead chuffed.
I have it in a few other pictures as well, but i havent posted those yet. Been so busy with paid photo work and this trip to Chernobyl that i havent had time to finish the Sunday battle editing yet. Will get the rest up sometime this week i hope as i dont have to go back to work until Friday.

[Darkattitude]

I'd just like to reiterate that it was not the KSK, they took on board the incident that happened the year before and were not involved in this incident in any shape of form, apart from photographing it.