Editing Nazi Equipment (section)

===Misc===
[[File:Stalhelm.jpg|200px|thumb|left|The Distinctive Stahlhelm. The Germans lucked out on helmet design during WWI]]
* '''''Stahlhelm'':''' The many variants of the iconic German helmet were derived from the medieval sallet and first appeared during the Great War. The purpose of these helmets was to keep shrapnel out of one's head. It was better than its contemporaries, as its design provided increased protection to the sides and back of the head. Not to be confused with the spiked Prussian ''Pickelhaube''. Used by pretty much all German infantry personnel except for the Fallschirmjäger (paratroopers), since it was impractical to jump with it. The paratroopers had a special version of the helmet that removed the front and back flanges, giving it a much more streamlined appearance. The basic design would go on to become the basis for most modern helmets, especially as the shape was well suited to wearing a headset under it. 

* '''''Uniforms and Insignia'':''' As emblematic of the Nazi regime as the MP-40, the Totenkopf, and the Stahlhelm, the uniforms of the Wehrmacht and the SS are famed for their stylish yet sinister appearance. The stylishness was provided by companies such as Hugo Boss (yes, ''that'' Hugo Boss, athough he didn't design the uniform, as the design came from the SS itself, Boss was simply the biggest and most well-known contractor) who received lucrative contracts from the government to make uniforms for the armed forces, while the sinister-ness was provided by the Nazi fondness for [[Imperium of Man|eagles and skulls]] as decorative motifs and the use of black as the prewar uniform color of the SS. Several patterns of uniform were produced, but the most iconic is the M36 pattern field tunic; whenever Nazi grunts appear in a video game, movie, or TV show, odds are they'll be wearing an M36. The ''Schirmmütze'' peaked hat is equally iconic, especially when it appears with the ''Totenkopf'', the infamous skull-and-crossbones insignia. A variant known as the ''Knautschmütze'' was produced that lacked the wire stiffener of the ''Schirmmütze'' and became known as the "crusher cap"; it was especially popular with tankers who had to wear headsets over their caps. The M43 field cap was initially issued to mountain troops, and then later issued in tropical, panzer crew, and regular infantry variants; you may be most familiar with its appearance as the sexy Nazi chick's hat in the final part of ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade''. The Nazis pioneered camouflage clothing for infantry personnel, creating a variety of patterns, including ''Splittertarnmuster'' (splinter pattern), ''Platanenmuster'' (Plane-tree pattern, worn by the Waffen-SS), and ''Leibermuster'' (Leiber pattern), the latter of which inspired the iconic ERDL camouflage uniforms used by the US Army, Marines, and Special Forces in Vietnam. Following in the footsteps of the Reichswehr, the Wehrmacht used a system of colored trim and piping on uniforms to indicate a soldier's branch of service, known as ''Waffenfarbe'', or "corps colors". There were colors for every possible branch from infantry to engineers to war correspondents and veterinarians (on a side note, ranks were a confusing mess with among other weirdness had a special inbetween grade specifically for fortress engineer and farrier NCOs above all other enlisted specialists); some of the most common were white (infantry), golden yellow (cavalry, reconnaissance), meadow green (panzergrenadiers), and rose-pink (panzers). The Nazis also inherited the ''Totenkopf'' from the Reichswehr, who in turn had used it because of its long association with elite units in the Prussian and Imperial armies, so the Nazis adopting it was probably inevitable. It became the official insignia of the SS and was worn by both regular army and Waffen-SS panzer crews, [[Fail|which led to a lot of army tankers being shot on sight by Allied soldiers who assumed they were SS]].

*'''''Stielhandgranate'':''' Often called "stick grenades" or "potato mashers," these are those grenades on sticks you always see the Germans using. Used by popping off the metal cap at the end of the stick, giving the cord which doubled as a fuse a good yank, and throwing it at your target (of course, before the fuse went off). The Stielhandgranate is what is called a "offensive" grenade, known nowadays as a "concussive" grenade. The difference is that an offensive grenade uses explosive pressure waves to kill an enemy, thus allowing you to use it while advancing without getting a face full of shrapnel, while a defensive grenade (like the US "pineapple" grenade) uses shrapnel to kill an enemy, affecting a much larger area but also putting you in the blast radius, hence they were designed to be thrown over the wall of a foxhole or trench line at advancing enemy troops while you keep your head down. The reason the Stielhandgranate had the stick was to give more leverage when throwing it as compared to a round grenade. It actually worked pretty well, but nonetheless history moved past the concept and grenades on sticks didn't keep.
**'''''Geballte Ladung'':''' Take your grenades off of their sticks, wrap them all up around one stick grenade, and tie them around it with something. You see, as the Stielhandgranate was basically just a head of TNT lit up after the fuse at the end of the stick reached the explosive filler in the head, cramming more of these explosive heads around one will lead to a bigger boom when that one goes off, like planting more TNT on the same detonation location will, though the added weight would reduce the range advantage of hurling it by the stick and made it harder to carry them en masse (regular Stielhandgranates were only barely harder to attach to someone than actual sticks and soldiers could easily cram them just about anywhere on their person). This "bundled charge" was improvised for use against harder targets, like armored vehicles (though it didn't take long in World War II for this to become useless against tanks) and buildings. Six/Nine explosive heads fit nicely when tied around one stick grenade's head on the horizontal plane parallel to the head's circular ends, which was the usual upper limit for this improvisation, though logically it would be quite possible to tie even more around the grenade while making it even more difficult to throw and making it more resemble an explosive charge that you can't expect to throw very far with a stick in it.

*'''''Nebelwerfer'':''' A family of weapons whose very name means "Fog/Mist Thrower"; they were listed as smokescreen launchers before the war to get around the Treaty of Versailles, but in truth were rather deadly artillery pieces designed to deploy chemical munitions; though barring a few isolated instances on the Eastern Front, chemical weapons were never used in any meaningful capacity during the war, likely because Hitler had survived gas attacks in the last war and drew the line at using them himself, along with the fact that using chemical weapons would invite retaliation in kind. These types of weapons included some mortars, but more importantly, rocket artillery. Between the wars, there was a fair bit of interest in new rocket designs, as conventional artillery was either strictly regulated or forbidden by the Treaty of Versailles, and the Nazis knew they had a use for that. These rockets were inaccurate, but you could easily fire a whole bunch of the things off at once for a good saturation bombing, though thanks to the smoke you had to scoot away afterwards or the other side would drop their own artillery right on top of you. The rocket based system made a very distinctive sound. The Germans nicknamed the thing "Heulende Kuh" (Bellowing Cow) and US troops would come to call them  "Screaming Mimi" and "Moaning Minnie".
**In the later phases of the war, the Germans would also mount the launcher onto a half-track and designate it a "Panzerwerfer" (Armored Thrower). In many ways a German analogue to the BM-21, the Panzerwerfer saw intensive use during the Battle of the Bulge.

*'''Goliath:''' A remotely controlled mini-vehicle on treads, stuffed full of explosives. They were driven up to an enemy tank or a bunker and then blown up. (Games Workshop stole the idea and design for the Imperial Guard [[Cyclops Demolition Vehicle|Cyclops]].) Good idea, but the execution was lacking since Radio Control wasn't good enough yet. They had a cable like some sort of bargain remote-controlled car which limited their range dramatically, and cutting this would utterly defeat the weapon. (At least it's not as bad as the Russians and their kamikaze dogs which they trained to run under tanks, that is, THEIR OWN TANKS, but I digress...) On the flip side, American soldiers often made great fun with captured Goliaths by riding them around as the tiny thing could carry quite a load. 

*'''[[Flamethrower|Flammenwerfer]]:''' A werfer zat werfs flammen.  Your standard flamethrower in both name and function, though there wasn't much use for it, as there were no real trench battles like in WWI where people sat in <s>comfy</s> little (hell) holes and took potshots at each other. This is not to say they weren't used, but unlike the trench wars of WWI most of the fighting was mobile rather than static. For added nastiness, some bigger ones were mounted in Flammpanzers, able to shoot hundreds of liters of sticky, burning fuck you over distances exceeding 50 meters. Getting issued one was generally regarded one of the least desirable jobs on all sides of the war. Flamethrower operators were prime targets for reasons that should be obvious, but because they were bringers of an especially unpleasant kind of death, everyone shot them on the spot when they surrendered. It also bears mentioning that actually firing a flamethrower is a ''very'' unpleasant sensation. Some veterans of WWII battles where they were used are known to have mentioned that [[Grimdark|they can't stand the smell of roast pork anymore]].

*'''8.8cm flak gun:''' Known as the "Acht-Acht", this is THE German gun of WWII, and it sums up the German experience in the first part of the war: never being truly ready, but very clever and doctrinally flexible. The 88mm was designed as an anti-air weapon (Flak standing for ''Fliegerabwehrkanöne'', or AA gun) built to throw a high explosive shell as high into the air as it could so that it could explode somewhere in the same ballpark as the enemy plane and put one piece of shrapnel into something important and bring it down, which is a role it performed throughout the war. However against heavy Allied tanks such as the British Matilda 1 and French B1, the German tanks of the time had no ability to penetrate their frontal armor. The 8.8 cm flak gun, however, were able to deal with enemy tanks at unparalleled ranges, thanks to the high muzzle speed required to fire their explosive shell so high into the air. So the guns were pulled to the front by a certain Erwin Rommel during the battle of Arras, the barrels lowered, a French-British tank-heavy counterattack stopped, and it snowballed from there. In case you're wondering, the reason why the 88s had antitank rounds was because they had a secondary role in busting enemy bunkers and fortifications, hence why an ANTI-AIR gun had an AP round. Germany quickly pushed to have both a proper PaK version of the 88 (Pak standing for ''Panzerabwehrkanöne'', or AT gun) that had a lower profile, was easier to move around and had a shield to stop stray bullets from decimating the crew. They also started designing a tank armed with the 88mm as it became clear that the tanks they were fighting were only going to get stronger, which is why the Tiger I is a metal slab with a huge gun: its job was to get an 88mm gun into the battlefield as fast as possible. Using AA guns as AT guns was such a good idea that the US did the same thing with their 90mm AA gun, converting it into the primary armament for the M36 tank destroyer and the Pershing tank, and so did the Russians with their 85mm gun for the upgunned versions of the T-34 and KV-1. The Imperial Guard Basilisk cannon looks almost exactly like the Flak 88.

*'''2 cm Flak 30/38/Flakvierling:''' Remember the "Acht-Acht"? Now add two of these smaller guns to each flak 88 site, hill, hedge, ditch and rooftop in Europe and watch the fireworks. The German answer to the question of "enuff dakka" in a more reasonable package than the MG42 was this little bastard, which was like an American .30 cal [[Bolter|firing explosive ''and'' armor piercing rounds]]. Obviously devastating to infantry and aircraft, it even rained sufficient hailstorms of rounds that damaged and threw off approaching lightly armored vehicles enough to make a difference, and given luck, it could rip through tank tracks too. And the Germans made 150,000 of these fuckers. And those 150,000 Bolter-Expies, these unsung weapons, did more damage and inflict casualties than any other weapon during the Normandy landing and the push inland. [https://www.quora.com/In-WW2-why-did-the-Germans-never-develop-heavy-machine-guns-like-M2-Browning-for-their-half-tracks-SP-guns-and-tanks/answer/Allyson-Kliff As explained here.]

*'''Kooky Coal Chemistry:''' Germany lacked a lot of strategic resources, but if there was one thing they did have in bulk, it was coal, and by gum the Nazis did their best to make the most of it. Germany had been a leader in industrial chemistry well before Hitler came to power, but the prospect of independence from foreign imports was like catnip to ultranationalist wack-a-doodles such as the Nazis. German companies worked out ways of making gasoline, rubber, lubricants, and even freakin' margarine from coal. However a fair number of these methods were also rather expensive and needed a lot of resources to work (using 4.5 tonnes of coal to make 1 tonne of gasoline), with only synthetic rubber catching on in the postwar period (so much so that Standard Oil of New Jersey, who had the exclusive rights to make the synthetic rubber in the US stemming from an odd business deal struck in the 20s was basically forced via presidential decree to make the process common knowledge) and the South Africans using coal hydrogenation during the apartheid era because of sanctions.

*'''Kriegslokomotive (War Locomotives)''': Also known as Kriegslok. During the 1930s the Nazis cut funds and resources to the German State Railways/Reichsbahn while increasing it's workload, running it ragged. It got so bad that they only kept things going by plundering most of France's railways for locomotives and rolling stock. Eventually they found a solution: make lots of really stripped down simplified locomotives with a short lifespan that would be good enough for the length of the war. Like many things the nazis made, lots of these were built by Slave Labour.

*'''The S-mine:''' The Sprengmine (jumping mine), or, to use the name US soldiers gave it, "Bouncing Betty", was one of the most widely used and most effective weapons of its class. When triggered, it 'bounced' about three feet into the air before exploding at about waist height in an 'air burst', able to inflict casualties (the military definition of the word meaning more then just dead) at up to 140 feet. And it had a tendency to not kill you, but maim you. [[Grimdark|A deliberate decision, as the Nazis estimated that a wounded soldier takes up a lot more resources than a dead one.]] Later in the war, some were made out of glass and even pottery, with minimal metal parts, to make them even harder to find. Suffice to say they still haven't found all of them... 1.93 million S-mines were made and it was widely copied after the war. The damn things are still killing people to this day as old mines are stepped on and the explosive proves itself still good. While the S-mine is hardly unique in that regard (unexploded US aircraft bombs and shells make up the bulk of what they still find in Germany, around 2,000 pounds per year according to the Smithsonian) land mines, like the S-mine, are still dug up by the truckload in North Africa.

*'''Pervitin:''' Not a traditional weapon as such, but a key element in why the Nazi's blitzkrieg tactics were so effective. Pervitin was a methamphetamine drug that provided the base recipe for today's crystal meth and which was distributed to all members of the Nazi military. Its powerful stimulant effect enabled the German infantry to fight harder for longer and was essential in the breakneck races from the border to the battlefield. With all of the line troopers hopped up on this drug, which later incorporated cocaine for increased effectiveness, Nazi forces could keep fighting effectively well after their enemies were worn out. At least until their supply lines were cut and addiction/withdrawal symptoms crippled them all, that is. The use of Pervitin was cut drastically after the France campaign for that reason (and for fear of long-term side effects, especially when discipline issues started mounting), though many pilots and tank crew members still used it readily, especially during Stalingrad (with the hilarious side effect of turning into an on-the-spot popsicle when the crash came). It could also be issued for important operations. The idea that all Wehrmacht soldiers were drooling junkies is funny, but wrong. It has a fascinating legacy that lasted much longer than the Third Reich did. The Bundeswehr and NVA (Armed forces of Communist East Germany) kept stockpiles of it well into the '70s for emergency use and for paratroopers, as did the US Army in Vietnam. The first climb of Mount Everest in 1953 also saw extensive use of Pervitin and President John F. Kennedy used it to treat his chronic back pain. 

*'''''Hs 293 & Fritz-X'':''' Another German WWII oddity, the Hs 293 and Fritz-X were basically remote-controlled bombs and the grand-parents of modern precision-guided ammo. In an effort to improve bombing accuracy without having to dive at the target, they came up with this idea: take a huge bomb, add small wings with control surfaces, actuators, a radio receiver and a big flare up the bomb's arse so the bombardier can see where it's going (and a rocket booster in the case of the Hs 293); and then add a radio transmitter with a joystick in the airplane so the bombardier can correct its descent. There you go, highly precise steerable bomb. It actually worked really well, but not without drawbacks: drop altitude was limited, since the bombardier needed to keep a line of sight on the flare, like all radio transmission it could be jammed and lastly the bomber had to remain in level flight during the bomb's entire descent to allow the bombardier to steer it. Ultimately the bombs only saw limited anti-ship use, the combination of limited drop altitude and level flight made the bomber a way too easy prey for any fighter defending its target. Still, they were pretty efficient weapons in the right circumstances as the ''Roma'', the ''Littorio'' and the ''Warspite'' can attest to.

*'''Kettenkrad (Sd. Kfz 2)''': Those stylish tracked motorcycles were built as a light general-purpose platform that could do basically anything, from reconnaissance to lying down telephone and radio cables and towing light antitank guns and artillery pieces. A very solid design in general, it was very maneuverable for its weight, had great off-road capabilities and was very easy to drive; if you knew how to drive a motorcycle you could drive a Kettenkrad. This was achieved by a rather complex steering gear that used the front wheel to steer it when making turns of about 8°, when making sharper turns a mechanism slowed down one of the tracks. It remained in production and use throughout the entire war and even after it, as its engine was about on par with that of a small tractor and decommissioned Kettenkrads quickly proved a popular and cheap asset for farmers, foresters and even firefighters in Germany after the war. It was so popular, in fact, that production of new Kettenkrads was only ceased in 1951, making it, the Gewehr 98, Volkswagen, and a version of the MG-42 the only pieces of German military engineering whose production run outlived the Nazi regime. 

*'''Kübelwagen''': In the 1930s, there were not many cars in Germany. With domestic production being pretty low, the Nazis thought that it would be a big propaganda boom if they could fix that. As such they gathered up a bunch of German engineers to try to design a car that was A: reasonably comfortable, B: got good fuel economy and C: was cheap and easy to mass produce so that the Average Aryan Arbeiter could afford one and began building a factory to mass produce them. This People's Car was the first iteration of the Volkswagen Beetle, with production beginning in 1938 to much fanfare. But in truth only a small number of them were made as civilian cars by the Reich and those that were made were given away to party members as presents. More of them however were converted into Kübelwagens, the Nazi equivalent to the [[Jeep]].

*'''''Zimmerit''''': Ever wondered why so many WWII German tanks look like someone covered them in putty and hence why they're such a bitch to model? This stuff is the reason. ''Zimmerit'' was a thick paste consisting of barium sulfate, polyvinyl acetate, zinc sulfide and some filling material that was applied at the end of tank production in thick layers with spatulas, giving it its distinct look. ''Zimmerit'' served as a reliable protection against magnetic anti-tank grenades like the German ''Hafthohlladung'' or . . . nothing. No other nation other then Germany deployed a magnetic anti-tank mine during the war, though concerns that the Hafthohlladung could be easily copied made the idea of Zimmerit a decent idea at the start of the war. However rumours about it igniting after sustaining hits lead to an order to cease production and application of the stuff on tanks. The rumours were never proven, but applying the stuff took days at best and by 1944 the German High Command didn't really want to bother with it anymore, especially since rocket propelled antitank weapons like the bazooka had made magnetic mines obsolete anyway.

*'''Jerry Cans''': Yes, the instantly recognizable jerry can is in fact a German invention, which given that the Germans were derogatorily known as 'Jerrys' does make a lot of sense in hindsight. Designed by Wehrmacht engineers in the late 1930s as an improvement over their predecessors, which required special tools and funnels to fill, a task that was tedious and took up a lot of time, not to mention how bulky they were. The perfection of the jerry can design cannot be understated; it's easy to stack, fill, takes up fairly little space and you can carry around a lot of them. The Germans were aware they had struck logistical-design gold and troops were under orders to destroy their cans rather than risk their capture, but unfortunately for them the design was brought to the Allies' attention when the American Paul Weiss traveled with a German friend through the entirety of India and realized that his modified car had no storage for reserve water. His German friend, who happened to have access to the a stockpile of jerry cans, brought them with him on the tour (though also fortunately for the Germans, it wouldn't be until 1943 that any of their enemies would mass-produce the can). After the tour, Weiss shared the design with the American military, who reverse-engineered the thing and issued it to every motorized company in the US Army.

*'''The Gas Chambers''': Industrialized Evil: One of the darkest inventions of the Nazis, the gas chambers were used to facilitate mass genocide on an industrial scale, human sacrifice on the level of factory farming. Anyone the Nazis deemed "undesirable" were sent to be executed regardless of age, although those capable of sustained labor were worked ragged first in camps before being sent to their deaths. Jews and Romani, Africans, educated Slavs, physically and mentally handicapped people; if you didn't fit into Adolf Hitler's insane dream of an All-Aryan Ubermensch World, you were sent to die a horrid death by Zyklon-B. The gas chambers were the result of a concerted effort to find the most efficient way to kill large numbers of humans covertly and with minimal involvement. At first, the victims of the Holocaust were simply lined up and shot by ''Einsatzgruppen'' death squads, but that was too messy and was deemed to hard on the men doing the butchery. Vans with the exhaust funneled into the rear compartment were used next, but these were seen as too costly in terms of fuel and machines. They finally hit on the idea of stationary extermination facilities using rat (and delousing- Zyklon B was first developed for killing lice in barracks) poison, and built them in concentration camps that were designed to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. The prisoners were ordered to strip and told that they were to be deloused and given a shower prior to their work assignments. Once inside the chambers, the Zyklon pellets were dropped in, killing the screaming, terrified victims within 20 minutes. The chambers were vented, the bodies removed to crematories, and the process begun all over again. A cold and chilly logical methodology to achieve the goals of rampant hatred.