German nicknames
 

Does anyone know what nicknames were used by the German army or soldiers for their armor? We're use to the names used for their arty, i.e. Wespe, Brumbaer, Hummel, etc..
I would like to be able to think of PzKw III & IVs and SPs like my namesake StuH 42 by a nickname while playing the game. Maybe one of our Deutsche Freundin would be able to help. I don't know if the Heer used nicknames as commonly as the allies did/do. Thanks

Re: German nicknames
 

StuH42
tried a google search on military nicknames, german and found
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossar...rman_military_
terms

not exactly what you where after but worth a look anway.

Re: German nicknames
 

Certain weapons did have official names, such as Tiger and Panther, others such as PzIII and IV didn't - probably they didn't have any bicknames as well, at least I never found names for those tanks, for example.

Nicknames are called 'Landser-Ausdruck' (soldiers' slang: Landser= something like a grunt= ordinary foot soldier in the egrman army): Certain infamous, badly-working or dangerous weapons, but also generals, standard army procedures, etc, received appropriate nicknames from the common soldiers - the best example I can think of would be the the 3,7cm Pak being called 'Panceranklopfgeraet' (tank-knocking device... free translation ;-)) as it proved to be ineffective against medium-armored tanks. Another one: 'Rommel-Spargel' (Rommel's asparagus) for the wooden poles erected by the thousands throughout the west to deny open spaces to glider landings; the Wehrmacht used captured russian 7.62cm universal field gun/AT gun in considerable numbers, called 'Ratsch-Bumm' by the soldiers (something like Whamm!-Bang! ;-)), and the Katyushas were, as you might know anyway, called Stalinorgel; the russian submachine guns such as the PPsH-41 were called Molotov-Guitar; a shot wound serious enough to guarantee you a ticket back home is called 'Heimatschuss' etc...

There are many more... I even got a WW2 encyclopedia where a lot of this soldiers' slang is mentioned, if you want more on that!

Re: German nicknames
 

Sorry cant resist posting this,
The Russians called the M3 lee "coffin for 5 comrades".
Chuck.

Re: German nicknames
 

LOL - we should collect more of this. Again, I couldn't find many nicknames for weapons - most of them are for other things. Some more examples: 'Eisbeinorden' - a medal for taking part in the disastrous fighting in russia in winter 41/42 - an Eisbein is a typical german dish, a pig's leg bone, and word-by-word this would be translated as 'icy leg' , hehe...

'Bildungskanone' ('educational gun') - field library

'Betonorden' ('concrete decoration') - medal for taking part in building the 'Westwall'

Re: German nicknames
 

point to ponder though; how many of the American/British tank 'nicknames' were those of the soldiers and how many the work of the properganda departments. Most of the allied armour is named after generals; the british SP artillery after clergymen (why was that does anybody know?) and before the outbreak of the war both the British and Americans simply made do with an alpha numeric designation.

evan

Re: German nicknames
 

Hi Even
I think I read somewhere that people thought the priests platform where the 50 cal firer stands resembles a priests pulpit, hence the name. The convention of naming by catagories comes from the british navy
Best Regards Chuck.

Re: German nicknames
 

US meat tin-cans were sometimes called "Second front" among Russian soldiers http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: German nicknames
 

I dunno if it was a name the Germans or hapless American tankers gave the Sherman but I read somewhere it got the nickname of "Ronson" cos of the way it lit up after being hit. And somewhere else I saw the Germans calling the Tiger "Furniture Van" (Soz, dont know the German for that), due to it's err... manouverability. (That might have just been a one off and not generally used cos I only read it in one source).

Re: German nicknames
 

'furniture van' = Moebelwagen - that was the widespread nickname for the Flakpanzer IV because thats what it looked like with its high all-round skirts- maybe also a less-common name for the Tiger I, never heard of it though.