A History of ÖBH Web Gear, Part 2

Post date: Aug 23, 2019 11:36:32 AM

Introduction

Following on from the previous article (in case the title didn't give that away), I present to you some exhaustively-researched information on the second era of Austrian military load-carrying equipment: that associated with the Steyr Armee Universal Gewehr, or AUG, which was adopted by the Austrian army as the Sturmgewehr 77 (StG 77).

Rustung 75 Webbing:

By the 1970s, the FN FAL rifle, while certainly good, no longer fitted with the fashions of the times. With its iron sights, conventional layout and hard-hitting round, it was decidedly old-fashioned. To replace it, the Bundesheer made a radical move and adopted what was the first ever widely-issued bullpup rifle, the Steyr AUG: a polymer-framed, integrated optic bullpup chambered for the .223 intermediate calibre cartridge. While usually considered less glamorous than rifles (to most people), the magazine pouches for the StG 77 were far more advanced than those of the StG 58 as well. Going from traditional twin leather pouches, the pouches for the AUG's transparent polymer magazines were made out of flexible plastic, and were innovatively designed to sit at the waist at an angle, making them far more ergonomic to use than other designs. The only disadvantage to this is that the pouches have to come in pairs of left and right, complicating logistics somewhat. The pouches also have a flap over the top to stop the magazines falling out, fastened with both a popper and a clip. On the back of the pouches are two plastic clips, mounted at an angle, which fit onto the belt.

A KAZ01 setup of the KAZ 75 webbing, minus the poncho. The additional straps at the front, which would attach to the rucksack if worn, have been tucked into loops on the harness, which were also often used to hold grenades, bandages or the Glock Feldmesser 78 field knife.

The standard loadout was a single pair of pouches along with a belt/harness system. This system was adopted along with the Feldanzug 75 (Field Suit 75) uniform in 1975, with the whole soldier's loadout being referred to as the Kampfanzug 75 (Kampfanzug translates roughly as battle suit, and refers to both the uniform and web gear. This name is shortened to KAZ 75). Although the official name for the webbing in particular is Rustung 75, it is generally referred to just as KAZ 75, even though this technically includes the uniforms as well. The whole Rustung 75 system consists of:

• Nylon belt with Austrian eagle crest on the buckle (which is, incidentally, virtually impossible to undo if you don't know the correct technique)

  • Webbing harness

  • Large rucksack

  • Small pack

  • Magazine pouches

  • Canteen pouch

  • Entrenchment tool cover.

This equipment was designed to be modular, and could be worn in three different (official) ways, depending on the situation:

• • KAZ01:

    • Belt worn as usual.

    • Harness clipped onto front and rear of belt, with the extra front straps clipped to the magazine pouches.

    • Water bottle worn on right hip.

    • Poncho rolled and tied onto the back of the belt.

  • KAZ02:

    • Same as KAZ01, except the small pack would be worn on the back of the harness, hooked at the top. The straps attached to the magazine pouches are relocated to connect to the bottom of the small pouch.

    • Entrenchment tool/field shovel attached to small pack with the plastic loops.

  • KAZ03:

    • The large rucksack worn attached to the harness, where the small pack was in KAZ02.

    • The small pack fixed onto the plastic clips at the bottom of the large pack, and then fixed to the belt with the belt clips.

    • A sleeping mat would often be carried, rolled up, and then slipped through the straps on the large rucksack.

    • To accommodate the small pack, the poncho is moved from the back of the belt and tied to the large rucksack instead.

The buckle of a KAZ 75 webbing belt, showing the distinctive Austrian Eagle crest.

In addition to these items, a gas mask bag was worn in one of two ways: over the right shoulder, across the body, to rest at the left hip, where it would be affixed to the belt via a small metal hook, or hooked onto the back of the belt, with the shoulder straps tied out of the way. Gas mask bags were made both in K4 'pea dot' pattern and a greyish olive drab colour, with the cut being identical between the two. The K4 bags remained in limited issue at least as far as 1994, but were rapidly replaced with the grey-olive ones for front line units. The water bottle could be issued with either an old K4-pattern cover, or with a newer, KAZ 75 olive drab cover. The olive drab covers come with KAZ 75 clips to attach them to the belt. However, the K4 covers and belt loop fittings are designed for the old Stolla Wien belts, which were much narrower than the KAZ 75 equivalents, and thus have to be hooked onto a strap somewhere else with the metal clasp on top, rather than slipped on directly. As for entrenchment tool covers, it is far more common to see the olive drab pattern, rather than the K4 ones, which cannot be easily used with the wider belt of the KAZ 75 system.

A KAZ 75 gas mask bag. This is almost identical to the K4-camouflaged equivalent, except for being made from RAL7013-coloured material.

The various items of KAZ 75 equipment are typically fixed to the belt with either metal clips, not at all dissimilar to those on American ALICE webbing, or, on later examples, plastic ones made by Glock, who would of course later achieve fame for their pistol designs.

A comparison of the early, metal, ALICE-style fittings (R, fitted to a canteen pouch) and the later, Glock-made, plastic clips (L, fitted to a StG 77 magazine pouch).

The final item is the rain poncho, coloured in the same RAL7013 as seemingly everything else the Bundesheer used. This was rolled up and tied onto the belt with paracord for KAZ01 and KAZ02 setups, and folded up and packed near the top of the large pack (for easy access) in a KAZ03 setup. Earlier photographs sometimes show troops being issued with K4 Zeltbahns instead of olive drab ponchos, but these were superseded in a very short period of time, and were not in service (or not visibly at least) by the early 1990s.

N.B.: It is important to note, especially from a re-enactor's perspective, that while this describes the 'official' set up for the web gear, it was not at all uncommon for soldiers to wear things differently, changing the harness attachment points to be more comfortable, for example, or wearing their canteen pouches on the rucksack instead of the belt. There are also no shortage of weird and wonderful combinations between the two systems, including M 57 pouches on KAZ 75 belts, M 57 setups worn over KAZ uniforms, and, in a couple of photographs, even KAZ 75 magazine pouches worn with an otherwise standard M 57 setup.

Also, a slight afterword regarding magazine pouches: there were also magazine pouches made to KAZ 75 specifications for the StG 58, out of the same green vinyl, but these do not seem to have been made or issued in very large numbers, and are mainly only seen in photographs in manuals and not in the field. The early harnesses, which are often seen with these magazine pouches, also have a different system for adjustment and affixing to the later examples, with straps and buckles rather than hooks and clips. Rather than these pouches, though, the Stolla Wien leather ones seem to be far more commonly used, even with the KAZ 75 belt. How one is supposed to get those pouches onto the new-style belt is beyond me, I've tried experimenting with mine but I gave up as I didn't want to accidentally damage the pouches or get them stuck.

The label on a KAZ 75 harness.

You can click on any of the photos to see them at a larger size.

- Walter