WW2 Y-Straps

[praetorian]

I picked-up a set of y-straps at a gun show a few weeks ago. I think they're WW2 Romanian.

According to the Osprey book: "The cavalry and artillery had saddle bags rather than back packs and wore a y-yoke to support the belt. The Romanian yoke was of natural brown leather and the junction at the back could be either sewn or held together by a black metal ring."

Mine are of the black metal ring variety. Any opinions?


http://img477.imageshack.us/img477/2911/co...im000485cz1.jpg

http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/635/copyofim000488hg3.jpg

[mihnea]

The Y-straps might be Romanian they look like the Romanian ones but until now I have seen no originals they are as rare as the uniforms.

I have never seen Y-straps with the ring in pictures only the sewn type (with at least 4 variations).

Here are some pictures with Y-straps, unfortunately only two picture show cavalry units (all the pictures are from the book "Armata Romana 1941-1945" except one that is from my collection).



This one is from my collection:


Edited: I have seen the other topic in "Reenactment"

This post has been edited by mihnea on April 14, 2007 06:11 am

[praetorian]

Nice photos! I think the logic behind the y-straps was to issue them to cavalry and motorcycle units to allow them to adgust their gear a bit higher. The rucksacks that the infantry were supposed to get had the straps built-in so if they were wearing rucksacks they wouldn't need y-straps. The cavalry and cyclists, however, got saddlebags instead of rucks.

In practice it seems that infantryman rarely wore the rucksack so issuing them y-straps probably became more common as the war progressed. German troops were issued them on a large scale in 1941, I believe, so the Romanians may have seen them in use and found them useful.

Another thought is that many cavalrymen effectively became infantrymen by default during the later part of the war, but would of course have continued to wear their y-straps.

I found mine at the bottom of a box full of leather junk at a gun show. The best deals are always underneath the tables!