Portugese Uniforms

Discussions on all aspects of the First World War not covered in the other sections. Hosted by Terry Duncan.
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Matt Walker
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Portugese Uniforms

#1

Post by Matt Walker » 14 Apr 2006, 11:08

Hi, just wondering if anyone could give me a description of the portugese equipment, uniform and basic weapons used in the Great War. Pictures would be great.

Thanks in advance

Animal
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#2

Post by Animal » 25 Apr 2006, 13:17

According to "Army Uniforms Of World War I" by Andrew Mollo and Pierre Turner(Blandford Press, 1977), the Portuguese wore a grey uniform almost identical in color to the French bleu horizon, with a single-breasted tunic with stand collar and fly front. It had parallel breast patch pockets with pointed flap and button, but no side pockets. The shoulder straps were made of matching cloth, and there were 2 buttons at the back of each cuff. It was worn with matching pantaloons and puttees. The greatcoat was double breasted with a large fall collar and half belt fastening at the back with 2 buttons, while officers had a single-breasted greatcoat with 6 buttons down the front, pleated patch breast pockets, and and slanting side pockets all with buttoned flap. Officers generally wore the issue tunic, but some had open tunics with grey shirts and black ties, and some had tunics with large British-style "bellows" side pockets. Matching breeches were worn with brown leather field boots, or ankle boots with leather gaiters, as was customary for the era. Officers had the Sam Browne belt, while the men wore webbing based on the British 1908 pattern. Headgear was either a British-style peaked garrison cap with a matching cloth-covered peak and natural-colored leather chin strap(silver lace for officers), the front of which had the arm of service badge, or the British-style steel helmet, often fluted.
Rank was indicated on the cuffs of the tunic and overcoat for officers, and on the shoulder straps for enlisted ranks as follows;

Private 1st class- 1 diagonal silver lace stripe on a cloth slide on the shoulder straps.
NCO's- 1-4 narrow silver lace bars across a dark blue slide.
Warrant officers- White metal or silver-embroided coat of arms within a laurel wreath on the shoulder straps.
Company officers- 1 diagonal[ensign], and 1-3 gold lace bars on both cuffs.
Field officers- 1-3 narrow above 1 medium gold lace bars on both cuffs.
Generals- 1-3 5-pointed silver stars on both cuffs.
Generalissimo- 7 5-pointed stars.

Arm of servive was indicated by an oxidized or silver embroidered metal badge worn on the collar and the front of the cap. Some badges and regimental numbers were embroidered in dark blue and worn on the upper on both arms. The principal badges were;

Generals- 5 pointed star.
General Staff- Arm badge on cap& collar; G.A.P. on sleeve.
Infantry- Crossed rifles and regimental number on sleeve.
Machine gun units- Crossed machine gun barrels.
Cavalry- Crossed sabres.
Field artillery- Exploding grenade.
Garrison artillery- Crossed cannons.
Engineers- Fortress.
Sappers and miners- Crossed sword and axe on helmeted cuirass.
Bridging troops- Anchor.
Signals- 5 pointed star with 6 lightning bolts coming from the center.
Transport- Spoked wheel.
Military secretariat- Crossed sword and quill.
Administration- Crossed sword and rifle superimposed on wheel.
Medical- Aesculapius rod w/2 serpents.
Veterinary- Same as above, but w/1 serpent.
Aviation- Winged rotary engine.


Animal
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#3

Post by Animal » 25 Apr 2006, 13:20

The Portuguese used the Mauser rifle in 6.5mm, along with the Lewis light machine gun and Maxim medium machine gun.

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Einheriar
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#4

Post by Einheriar » 16 Jul 2006, 03:29

Here the portuguese insignias on this excellent website :

http://www.uniforminsignia.net/index.php?p=state&id=120

However, i don't know if portugueses had woring those insignias during the WWII, or if it were just the actual insignias

Yours

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Kim Sung
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#5

Post by Kim Sung » 16 Jul 2006, 15:35

Wondeful site, thanks! :D

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Cristiano de S.O Campos
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#6

Post by Cristiano de S.O Campos » 25 Jul 2006, 19:57

Hi

I speak Portuguese, i´m Brazilian


That´s a best website about portuguese uniforms in europe.
http://www.viriatus.com/WWI_CEP_soldados.asp


http://www.viriatus.com/WWI_CEP_02.asp

Cheers

Cristiano Campos

Rio de Janeiro
Brazil.

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Matt Walker
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#7

Post by Matt Walker » 31 Jul 2006, 16:07

Thanks a lot for all the great info :D

Does anybody know whether there was any practical reason for the grooves in the m/915 helmets?

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Cristiano de S.O Campos
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#8

Post by Cristiano de S.O Campos » 01 Aug 2006, 18:40

Hi Matt


The grooves was created in portuguese helmets based in a old XV century helmet.
And to resist more inpacts.


you speak spanish?

http://www.cascoscoleccion.com/portugal/por16.htm


Anymore doubt about portuguese army, i can solve.

Cheers

Cristiano.

Rio
Brazil.

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cj
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#9

Post by cj » 24 Aug 2006, 07:09

Matt Walker wrote:Thanks a lot for all the great info :D

Does anybody know whether there was any practical reason for the grooves in the m/915 helmets?
Anyone know which helmet was more common amoung the Portuguese? The British style or the grooved Portuguese, because I've seen photos with both, but mainly British style. Also, can anyone elaborate on the Portuguese airservice during the war? How many planes employed? How many shot down? What types of Aircraft were most common? Were there any Portuguese aces? Who was the top scoring Portuguese pilot? What was Portuguese airpower in Africa like?

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Sewer King
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#10

Post by Sewer King » 14 Sep 2006, 03:56

Cristiano de S.O. Campos wrote:The grooves was created in portuguese helmets based in a old XV century helmet. And to resist more inpacts.
The fluting in the helmet crown was similar to that of so-called "Maximilian armor" of the 16th Century, as told in this link.

"In Germany and other parts of western Europe, a change in fashion around 1500 resulted in emphasis shifting from the slender Gothic form ... to a rounded and heavy outline of the armor. Until about 1540, raised ridges became a more frequently used type of decoration, and the surfaces mainly of German and sometimes of Italian armors were covered with groups of flaring or parallel ridges, a fashion sometimes erroneously referred to as "Maximilian armor."

British experiments with these fluted helmets may well be covered in Bashford Dean's 1920 book, A History of Helmets and Body Armor in Modern Warfare, still a leading reference for the rise of military armor in World War I. Dean was a master armor historian at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (the source of the above link) who served as a wartime consultant for helmet design with the US Army Ordnance Department.

IIRC, the flutes were thought to add extra resistance to shrapnel and other projectiles striking across two or more of them, in the way that an arched bridge span bears a load better than an unsupported straight span of the same construction. This might not have borne out in tests, or at least any more protective than the plain shell. Whatever added strength the flutings might have had could theoretically be cancelled by the weaknesses between them.

There was also another experimental British helmet, of the same standard shape, which was stamped out with a domed surface instead of the flutings -- small, 1/2in domes all over the crown. Apparently there were enough of the fluted ones made that may have passed to Portugal, but not these.

The classic British helmet was a relatively hurried design that was meant to be quickly cold-stamped from Hadfield steel. Whatever the less-than-thought merits of reinforcing its crown, the flutes or domes would probably have worn the stamping dies more. Or at least added a fraction more to labor and cost of production.

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Sewer King
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#11

Post by Sewer King » 26 Sep 2006, 03:25

I found my reprint copy of the Bashford Dean book, A History of Helmets and Body Armor in Modern Warfare (Tuckahoe, New York: Carl Pugliese, 1977). It is still a leading reference on World War I Allied steel helmet development written by one of its leading designers. But it does not call the fluted Portuguese helmet a remainder of British experiments

from pages 160-61:

"A helmet designed for the Portuguese General Staff was submitted in 1917 to the British Director of Munition Supply, Mr. John MacIntosh, who caused it to be supplied in some number to the Portuguese troops, It is a hat-shaped casque ("chapel" or wide-brimmed "cabasset") weighing about two pounds ... It is corrugated on its sides and its general appearance suggests somewhat the Portuguese headpieces of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.. It is made of a mild steel and has about the ballistic resistance of the French [helmet], or 300 to 400 foot-pounds for shrapnel ball, forty-one to the pound. Its appearance is distinctive, rather good-looking, its fluted surface offering a range of shadows -- but not materially strengthening the casque. The fluting may even have rendered the helmet more apt to be injured, for its ridges tend to hold the fragments of shell, etc. (of low velocity), which might have otherwise glanced aside. The measurements of this helmet are as follows: height 5 1/2 inches, length, 11 3/4; width, 9 7/8; width of brim, 1 5/8.

"Body armor does not appear to have been provided for Portuguese troops; in case of need they had at hand the light breastplates furnished to the British forces."

----------------------------------------------------

This sounds strange. Why would the British have designed a weaker helmet for the Portuguese?

The only reason I can think of is that a fluted design would have been harder to stamp in the "Hadfield" manganese steel of the standard British helmet. But even if no Portuguese soldiers had to risk their heads in action with this fluted helmet, it seems to have been a conscious decision to use mild steel and not the Hadfield stock.

Incidentally, Dean also illustrated an experimental model of the French "Adrian" helmet which had a fluted crown. But unlike the Portuguese one with vertical fluting, this classic Adrian was fluted horizontally. There was also some French use of horizontally-fluted leg armor. Dean wrote that the Americans also investigated fluted helmets or armor, but showed no examples in his heavily-illustrated book.

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Re: Portugese Uniforms

#12

Post by Ladies From Hell » 09 Apr 2008, 12:58

Perhaps I can shed a little light. I used to own a WW1 Portuguese steel helmet of ribbed design. Unfortunately, I don’t have it anymore. I remember the bowl was of quite a deep pot shape, oval in plan and the slightly sloping rim was of constant width all the way round too – therefore the outer edge of the rim was oval on plan too. The vertical ribs radiated down the crown, finishing at the bowl’s base. The edge of the rim is interesting as it did not have a separate edging tacked over it. There were two stamped air-holes, one each side.

Internally, this helmet had a basic form of lining. The internal of the bowl was lined with rough pale-coloured blanket material (such as used in British Army bedrolls and later as utility blankets in WW2). This helmet was painted a khaki colour.

I also used to own an original set of volumes of periodicals (I forget the name), published during the Great War. At the time, these would have been available individually, monthly, from newsagents and would log the progress the war as it was happening. The set I owned were complete right up to the end of the Great War (WW1) and were a professionally bound set of these periodicals, starting in 1914 and progressing right through the war. They were fascinating as they described things as they happened (or as censorship allowed them to report) on a monthly basis. Though I don’t have them now, I recall a photo and brief description from a 1915 issue – I think around October. The studio photo showed a head and shoulders shot of a moustached British soldier, wearing his khaki service tunic, wearing this ribbed steel helmet. The caption stated that this was the new British Hadfield protective steel helmet which was going to be issued to British soldiers. This was long before Portugal entered the war on the allied side of course and it was clear at that time that this helmet was intended for British use.

In the meantime however, an alternative design, the Brodie helmet, was being designed, which was adopted by the British. I used to have 3 examples of Brodie helmets:- a standard issue bearing 3 striped blue markings of a brigade of the 51st Highland Division, a variant with a wire rail under part of the rim for a protective chain-mail curtain and a third helmet used by American troops in 1917-18. I have to say that for me, the Brodie helmet felt lighter than the ribbed version, the internals were superior (though not as good as the WW2 version), the shallower bowl was oval while the rim was circular – giving a wider rimmed silhouette seen from front and rear and narrow rim seen from the side and something I could never have picked up from a photo – the rim was bent a little more at the sides than on the general slope of the rim. So when the helmet was laid down on a table on its rim for example, not all the rim was touching the surface. You could see a slight curved gap front and back. Perhaps this was done to make them easier to pick up on a flat surface. But all my Brodie helmets had this feature. Very ingenious !

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Re: Portugese Uniforms

#13

Post by Wilthomer » 28 Oct 2008, 17:28

Here is a photo of a figure Portuguese WW1 soldier serving on the Western Front from a 2004 WW1 exhibit at the Portuguese Military Museum in Lisbon:

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b359/ ... oldier.jpg

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Re: Portugese Uniforms

#14

Post by Dr Rare » 16 Jan 2009, 13:57

Some of the links are not working for me.

I wonder were the Portuguese Cavalry also issued with the Helmet or just a cloth field cap?

Does anyone have any pics of Portuguese Cavalry of the era ?

Doc

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Peter H
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Re: Portugese Uniforms

#15

Post by Peter H » 29 May 2011, 00:14

From: http://revistaantigaportuguesa.blogspot ... %20mundial

"Soldados portugueses na guerra em França"
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port1.jpg
port2.jpg

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