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Originally posted by Bill Murray
Let me see if I have this right. The apparatus attached over the windscreen of the Ford is the same thing contained in the canvas bag on the Kfz15 and is a multipurpose piece of kit.
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The bag is the thing itself.
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The reason I ask is that I looked through a half dozen books on German military transport just now and that same canvas bag can be found on literally every type of WWII era transport vehicle from the small Kfz up to the largest half tracks that had a folding forward windscreen. Not on every one by a wide margin but certainly at least on some. As a side note, I found no vehicles with that bag that had fixed or partly fixed, as on Hanno's Ford, windscreens.
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Exactly so, having been directed at some pictures from my German restorer, I too noticed the widespread use of the device. Like British kit especially, it gets lost, damaged or left somewhere safely so it can be accounted for!!
The desert was an entirely different matter where both sides did all manner of local ad hoc mods for their own convenience; this Ford is using a device from another vehicle, perhaps damaged or in for repair, maybe the Wehrmacht/DAK stores Gefrieter has conveniently "lost" one and the driver has a mate in the DAK "REME" who did a five minute mod to fit it whilst his boss was away.
Maybe the vehicle has been detailed as a staff car owing to DAK shortages and the using officer has just had his driver go to their "REME" with a chit to have one fitted as a local mod.
The Wehrmacht was just as innovative as we were, in fact perhaps more so, and all manner of "local mods" seem to have been carried out as the situation demands.
We do it to this day, the last Gulf War vehicles have all manner of locally made expedient mods, the UK APCs and Challengers have a heap of non-standard stuff hung around the outside, mainly for crew kit stowage, and end up looking like a tinkers cart.
So much so that vehicle recognition at range becomes difficult/impossible and this may well have contributed to the Challenger vs Challenger engagement which demonstrated the power of its main gun; Chally 2 is no match for its own gun.
R.