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Jan, for more information on 'Raudi': http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?for...opicID=24313888

It's a Russian Poplavko-Jeffery armoured car captured by the Germans. They had captured several of them, but only one seems to have been used bei the Freikorps in early 1919. - So, that's the one. It was active in the "Zeitungsviertel" in Berlin in January 1919, thereafter, its trail get's lost.

Brisbane in Australia it is, at the Brisbane Museum and Cultural Heritage Centre, were 506 "Mephisto" now is, - on display next to the dinosaurs... 529 "Nixe II" was at Aberdeen Proving Ground - until scrapped in 1942.

Yep, the Munster "Wotan" is a faithful copy of the Brisbane "Mephisto", only the gun is different. 506 "Mephisto" is a first lot vehicle while 563 "Wotan" was a late second lot tank. There are quite a number of differences between the two lots, e.g. less rivets with wider spacing in 2nd lot, changed type of louvres, different configuration of rivets at the machine gun apertures, only two hinges at the service flaps with second lot, while early first lot had three, etc. Yep again, the above tank can be identified as 507 "Cyklop" of Abteilung 3. The A7V wasn't lumbering, is was rather fast, in fact as fast as the fastest tank in the Entente repertoire, the Whippet. Both could make 14 km/h. On good ground the A7V was quite a respectable tank, its weakness was the inability to overcome badly churned up ground and trenches wider than 2,5 m.

Wooden tanks were used as training objects. After Amiens (August 8th, 1918), not only the few existing German tank detachments were dispatched for tank familiarisation but also the Quartermaster General was charged with the creation of wooden dummies in huge numbers. Some were good replicas, others - like the ?tzmann - more phantastic. Some were used as targets for the gunners, others for infantry anti-tank training. In some cases, captured non-running Mk.IVs and Whippets were used as well. The A7V in the first entry is 507, named "Cyklop" at that time (April 1918). The A7V replica in Munster is only named "Wotan", in reality it's "Mephisto" (exact copy) fitted with a gun like "Wotan" had one. The real "Wotan" looked different.

French geography, sometimes I get confused. - I'm sorry... - Not Bray-sur-Somme but Brie, also on the Somme, yet further south. Vehicles of the 5th British Tank Bn.

All four pictures show British MK.IV tanks captured by the Germans. Pics 1 and 4 were taken in the Somme Valley near Bray-sur-Somme between late March and say July 1918. Pic 2 and 3 belong to the aftermath of the Cambrai tank battle in November 1917. Pic 2 shows F.22 "Flying Fox" crashed into the bridge at Masni?res. Pic 3 shows B.28 "Black Arrow" at Fontaine-Notre-Dame.

Somehow the good citizens of Alost must have overlooked the fact that their town was in the fighting line these days. The 37. LdwBrig lost it to the Belgians on September 27th and re-took it on the 28th.

What kind of armoured car is this in the back? Russian Packard?

The Groupement Bossut (80 Schneiders) wasn't stopped by a trench, that happened to Groupement Chaub?s (48 Schneiders) attacking in direction Corbeny. Bossut's tanks advanced in direction Prouvais and achieved some penetration into the German lines before being "neutralised" by German artillery. Chaub?s' tanks were stopped at the first German trench, which they couldn't negotiate, and decimated by the German guns with only eight vehicles returning to their starting point.

The cuff title and skull badge were not limited to Kokampf in Berlin, they were also worn by personnel of the Leichte Kampfwagenz?ge auf the emerging Reichswehrbrigaden from mid-1919 to end of 1920. Also Gardekavallerie-Sch?tzen-Div and Marine-Div armoured car crews wore these, for example.

#8 = Tierseuchenforschungsanstalt Ost

Post 21: Kdr Stabswache im Hauptquartier... = Kommandeur Stabswache...

Volksern?hrungsfragen

The text does not relegate the soldier permanently to the rear. It just explains that he, being a messenger, is licensed to visit the bagage train of II./IR 75 for official purpose.

That would explain it, the "1" thus should be an "s", the text reading: "Bataillons Komm[andeur] dess[elben] Rgts".

All the war time formations would be served by the Ersatz formations of the peace time establishment. The engineers usually started with 3 Ersatz companies, but slowly geared up to have 7 or even 8 Ersatz companies per Ersatz-Bataillon in 1918. The Pionierbataillon 32 came to life as a reserve formation and only lost the reserve designation in 1917, but nevertheless its companies still remained Reserve-Pi-Kompagnien. - The question now is: Was ResPiBtl 32 served by 4./ErsPiBtl 3? Then the designation 4.(32.) ErsKp would make some sense.

Definitely: "Bataillons Komm." Now best guess: "des I." Definitely: "Rgts" Missing would be the regimental number.

Allerheiligen = All Saints = 1st of November Allerseelen = All Souls = 2nd of November, both catholic holy days, thus very important for Bavarians.

I've looked into the books: There were no German (including Bavarian) troops near Wyschaete by the end of September 1914. Thus, if the inscription is to be correct, the man should have been a POW, dying in an Entente hospital or camp. Bavarian troops were in vicinity Wyschaete by the end of October 1914, II. b.AK and the 6. b.RD, the latter storming Wyschaete on 1st/2nd November several times.

6th Bavarian Reserve-Division would be a good guess, only: they were not in Flanders in September 1914. The division arrived there by the end of October. I've only some few copies of the "Allg?uer Kriegschronik", a weekly periodical published in Kempten. It has about three to five pages per week filled with "our heros" (the KIAs), approx. 10 per page. Unfortunately, that Max Hergenr?der is not among those I have. It would, however, seem that men from the Kempten region did not only serve in Bavarian regiments (3., 20., 12., Res 12., 3. Ldw, 16. Res, 18. Res, etc.) but also in W?rttemberg units, e.g.: 120, 124, 127, Res 120.

It's from a copy of the Abt. 1 war diary made before 1945. This copy is incomplete and also may contain mistakes made in the process of writing it down. As to the Prussian files: Unless Russia comes up with a big surprise, there's little hope.

The 3rd German Army battle calendar has: "26.09. - 09.10.18 Abwehrschlacht in der Champagne". Bavarian units with the same entry are: - Bayerische ErsatzDiv (RIR 4, 15, 18) - 1. b. ID (IR 1, 2, 24, MGSSAbt 4) - 4. b. ID (IR 5, 9, RIR 5, J?ger 2) - 5. b. ID (IR 7, 19, 21, MGSSAbt 1) All regiments Bavarian of course.

The locations should be: "Fort de Witry" and "Nogent" (Nogent l'Abesse), both eastnortheast of and close to Reims. "Rethel" and "Neuflize", right in the middle of the "Lause-Champagne". "Giret" = "Givet" in that little French thorn that stabs into Belgium. "Flohimont" is a small village 2 km south of Givet. The I. Bavarian army corps was in the area of Rethel/Neuflize.

The only German tank arm war diary that is preserved in original is that of Bavarian Abt. 13, which is in the Bavarian state archive (but rather incomplete, combat actions were stored in separate folders, of these only two survived). All other (Prussian) tank detachment war diaries were reduced to ashes in April 1945 when the Reichsarchiv was bombed. What survived are copies made for other purposes. These are complicated to find, and an archive will most probably tell you they have nothing - as the stuff is listed differently. The Germans had 20 vehicles of their own A7V type and a total over time of perhaps 90 captured British Mk.IVs in their service, the number available at any time, however, never exceeded 45 (A7Vs plus Mk.IVs).