I here you Chip but the photographic record doesn't support that. It would have been just as easy to provide the badge to all the soldiers in the unit as it was to supply them with anything else. And its not like they had a butt load of uniforms with them. I look at armies today and you can see the same thing. Look at the US Army for example. We started Ranger School for the Rangers, Air Assualt School for the 101st, Airborne for the Airborne etc... and each has thier specific qualification badge. Once those units were filled with qualified guys the schools were opened up to others because they are go to know skills. Why wouldn't the germans do the same? They had machineguns along the whole front and having specially trained subject matter experts in thier use would have made sense. What commander wouldn't want to have his guys trained?