kamouflage.net camouflage data

The soldier in the foreground wears a hooded Tarnhemd (German: camouflage smock) camouflaged in the later Sumpfmuster 44; the hood is tucked inside the collar. The Tarnhemd worn by the soldier in the background is camouflaged in Sumpfmuster 43. [Image: Daniel Peterson/The Crowood Press Ltd.]

Wehrmachts-Sumpfmuster 43
Greater German Reich

Late in 1942 or early in 1943, the Wehrmacht ('Defence Force') issued another distinct camouflage pattern, which has come to be known as Wehrmachts-Sumpfmuster 43 ('1943 defence force marsh pattern'). It is also called water pattern, marsh pattern or tan and water pattern.

Like Heeres-Splittermuster 31 ('1931 army splinter pattern'), this new camouflage comprised wood brown and medium green polygons on a on a light grey-green or tan background, overprinted with a random pattern of green dashes. Unlike Heeres-Splittermuster 31, though, the edges of the wood brown and medium green elements were burred, to reduce their artificial appearance.

Wehrmachts-Sumpfmuster 43 was only the first of what eventually became a whole family of camouflage patterns. Indeed, evolutions and variants of Sumpfmuster were used for more different types of regulation military garment than any other pattern ever to be used by German armed forces.

During World War II, most of the items that had been manufactured in Heeres-Splittermuster 31 and Luftwaffe-Splittermuster 41 ('1941 Luftwaffe splinter pattern') were superceded by versions manufactured in one or more Sumpfmuster designs. The only excpetion appears to be the Zeltbahn 31 shelter quarter, which continued to be produced in the Army splinter pattern until the end of the war.

Versions of Sumpfmuster were also used after World War II. In the mid 1960s, for example, the Bundesgrenzschutz ('Federal Border Guard', BGS) adopted a camouflage pattern — Bundesgrenzschutz-Sumpfmuster ('Federal Border Guard marsh pattern') — that was closely based on the Wehrmachts-Sumpfmuster 43. In fact, the two patterns are so nearly identical that many of the better fake Wehrmacht uniforms were made from Bundesgrenzschutz-Sumpfmuster material.

However, the post-war use of camouflage patterns based on Sumpfmuster was not restricted to the Federal Republic of Germany. The Republic of Austria, the Republic of Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia have all used forms of this camouflage pattern.

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