GERMAN UNTEROFFIZIER BOTTLE GREEN SHOULDER BOARDS (GRENADIER )

WW2 German shoulder boards for Unteroffizier rank.  Made of bottle green wool and aluminum-silver tresse.  Has bottle green piping for Jagger Troops.

Has button hole for uniform attachment and black wool strap.  The rank tresse is the early shiny silver ones. 

Rank tresse was sewn onto the edges of the shoulder boards.  The early war tresse was originally shiny silver aluminum probably due to the ease of seeing this bright silver tresse the Germans quickly introduced the subdued tresse instead.  
 
After 1940 both silver and the subdued tresse was worn on the shoulder boards.

Check out our other shoulder boards of different ranks in all services with different piping Waffenfarbe colours in stock.

Prior to WW2 the German term Jäger came to represent light infantrymen whose civilian occupations (mostly hunters and foresters) made them well-suited to patrolling and skirmishing.

Instead of part of a large-scale military unit they were used on a more individual and independent basis.  Due to this Jäger was used to describe skirmishers, scouts, sharpshooters and runners.

Jäger is usually translated into English as:

• "rifleman" (in an infantry role) or "Rifles" (in regimental names); and
• "ranger"

In WW2 the new Wehrmacht revived the name.  Raised as "light infantry divisions" (leichte Infanterie-Divisionen) operating in rough terrain.

Their infantry regiments were called Jäger-Regimenter, and in 1942 the light infantry divisions were renamed Jäger divisions.