German Marine Light Infantry, Late War?

[Doc Twilight]

Hello, folks -

I'm betting one of you has the answer here. I was going over some stories and anecdotes from the war in one of my wargames supplements while waiting for a coat of paint to dry... (fun stuff, isn't it?), and I came across a reference to German "Marine Light Infantry" in 1917.

I was curious about these fellows. Can anyone tell me about their uniforms (ie: would they be different), their deployment, etc? Might be an interesting alternative for the Central Powers portion of my WW1 project, as I haven't found the right Austro-Hungarian models yet.

-Doc

[Plynkes]

I never heard of "light" being used in that context, but Marine Infantry generally refers to Seebataillon troops. Along with Matrosen regiments they formed the Marinekorps Flandern, which as you can guess by the name was stationed for pretty much the entire war at the very top end of the line, on the Flanders coast opposite the Belgians and Brits.

While at the start of the war they fought in their striking dark blue uniforms with light-infantry style shakos, they were in field grey by 1915 and by the end of the war only really distinguishable from a German army soldier at a glance by the gold litzen on their collar and their white shoulder straps with gold anchors.

The Matrosen fought in their blue sailor uniforms to start with, but you see them in field grey later, too (both field grey sailor suits and army-style uniforms).


Again, don't know where the "light" comes from. Might just be because the Marine Infantry uniforms made them look like Jaegers. Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree here, entirely, though.

[former user]

I would pretty much second that

the seabattalions were expanded to larger formations and originally kept their european uniforms, which had the chakos (in blue). they had Khaki only as colonial uniform.
"Light Infantry" might be traditional naming because they were formed as such in their original intended role (and consequently given the chako, although I saw a picture of the cavalry troop in Tsingtao with Pickelhaube)

[Chris Dale]

For uniforms of the Seebatallione / Marine Infantry on the Western Front see www.germancolonialuniforms.co.uk scroll down to "Marine Infantry" then "Seebatallion Field Grey Uniforms".

For photos of them see- http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=72&t=112842

Hope that helps,
Cheers
Chris