Description
Physical description
Canvas web parachute harness with attached canvas parachute pack fitted to the rear of the harness. The harness is comprised of a wide light tan coloured belt that is secured around the wearer's abdomen and features a large white metal sliding adjustable buckle & brown leather runner. Sewn to left & right front sides of this belt are straps that pass over the shoulders & cross at the back, being permanently attached to the belt at the rear. At the intersection of these straps at the front sides of the wide belt are two metal 'D' rings, intended to fit the main parachute rigging lines. Sewn to the rear cross straps is the parachute pack, made of earth-coloured canvas. The shoulder straps continue from the wide abdominal belt and run in one continuous length, having two leg straps joining that wrap around the legs and are secured by white metal 'D' rings/spring clips. Above the abdominal belt, crossing the chest, is a narrow web strap with adjustable metal buckle that secures & tightens the harness further.
The canvas pack comprises a square shaped bag that is fastened in four overlapping envelope sections, three of the four featuring metal grommets. The fourth (lower section) has a cord attached that threads through the grommets for closing. Above the outside of the pack is an open elasticated section that would have contained the horizontal exposed static line, and fitted left & right of the pack are two short straps, secured by blue painted metal press studs, where the static line continues.
Label
The German parachute arm (Fallschirmjäger) of the Luftwaffe had used a succession of parachutes designed and developed by Professors Hoff and Madelung of the German Air Ministry's Technical Equipment Division. The Ruckenpackung Zwangauslosung, or RZ system began with the first pre-war RZ 1; but early in 1940 an improved RZ 16 model began to see service, although this too had severe faults with many fatal malfunctions being evident. The most widely used was the RZ 20 which came into operational service in 1941 and remained in use by the Fallschirmjäger for the rest of the conflict.
Strangely despite German prowess for successful design and development of all military equipment and weapons, the RZ system was full of disadvantages for the user. Unlike the Allied Irvin system where the parachute had vertical 'lift' webs attached front and back of the shoulders to unite the two groups of shroud lines, the RZ system copied the old Italian Salvatore design where the shrouds were attached to the harness only by a 'V' shaped rope strop that joined this single point to 'D' rings fitted behind the hips of the web waist belt. The signature of the German parachute soldier was his bold head-first exit from his aircraft, a necessary manoeuvrer for horizontal flight & an essential precaution as the parachute canopy developed. The body shock was bad enough as the canopy opened and jerked his body, but If he were to exit feet first, as the Allies, the violent smack caused by the canopy opening would flip him upside down and tangle his legs in the rigging.
Secondly, he had no method of steering once he descended and had no influence of his flight path, there being no 'risers' to control the direction or speed of descent. Fallschirmjäger would kick at the air in an attempt to fall safely and were trained to land in a front fall position, a highly dangerous and inefficient practice which lead to many bone fractures and the reason for the issue of knee pads.
Once landed, the soldier could not collapse the canopy and had no control over his parachute if the winds continued to inflate it. He could drift and be dragged in whatever direction with catastrophic consequences, his only recourse was to cut the lines with his issue gravity knife. Finally, unlike the Allied and even the Luftwaffe aircrew parachutes, he would then have to undo the belt and spring-clip buckles to get out of the harness, there being no single quick-release box.
Most of these difficulties were remedied by the design of the later RZ 36, designed in 1943, but this triangular shaped canopy with better control possibilities never saw operational service, possibly because the Fallschirmjäger saw fewer occasions to be operationally air-dropped since the costly Crete campaign.
Printed in black ink to white linen label, sewn to webbing strap.
Gerat............. Anforderzeichen......... Fl......
Bauart........... Hersteller...................
Tag der Herstellung.....
Werk Nr.........