WW1 IMPERIAL GERMAN M16 HELMET w/ LINER CHINSTRAP

The stamped, sheet steel construction, helmet retains a good portion of its original field-gray paint. The helmet has all three flat headed, liner retaining rivets, both dome headed chinstrap retaining rivets and both of the extended ventilation side lugs all intact. The interior of the helmet has the pre-May 1917 pattern, three pad leather liner with a leather retaining band intact. Pads are full. Shell is very well marked "G.B.N, 64" for "Gebruder Bing of Nürnberg" (size 64). Nice untouched M16 helmet with original chinstrap. The first "modern" steel helmets were introduced by the French army in early 1915 and were shortly followed by the British army later that year. With plans on the drawing board, experimental helmets in the field, ("Gaede" helmet), and some captured French and British helmets the German army began tests for their own steel helmet at the Kummersdorf Proving Grounds in November, and in the field in December 1915. An acceptable pattern was developed and approved and production began at Eisen-und Hüttenwerke, AG Thale/Harz, in the spring of 1916. These first modern M16 helmets evolved into the M18 helmets by the end of WWI. The M16 and M18 helmets remained in usage through-out the Weimar Reichswehr era and on into the early years of the Third Reich until the development of the smaller, lighter M35 style helmet in June 1935.