German 4th Marine Brigade at 2nd Ypres April 1915

[Will Bailie]

Greetings!

I hope this is the correct place to ask this question:

While reading up on the Second Battle of Ypres (research for an upcoming Contemptible Little Armies game), I have found that the German Fourth Army had the 4th Marine Brigade in reserve.

Since I'm always looking for an excuse to add in more and different kinds of troops into my games, this got me very excited.  What sort of troops would have been found in this brigade?  Seebatalion, matroses, others?  Would they have simply worn the same feldgrau and pickelhaube as other German troops, or would this give me an excuse to put some sailors on a Western Front battlefield?

Can you recommend anywhere that I can find more information on the 4th Marine Brigade?  The Germans could certainly use some variety in this battle, especially as the Entente side has French reservists, Bats d'Af, Zouaves, Tiralleurs, British regulars, Canadians (including Highlanders) and the Lahore Division (Sikhs, Gurkhas, Pathans and more).  All the Germans get are lots and lots and lots of Feldgrau - and frankly, I'd like a chance to paint something else!

Thanks in advance

Will

[Helen]

Hi Will,

There maybe some learned folk here who can assist like Dominic, but can I suggest the following two links and request information from there:

Great War Forum

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showforum=4

Axis History Forum

http://forum.axishistory.com/

Hope this may assist you.

Best Wishes

[dominic]

Hi, I'm pretty new to WW1, so I'm not really into all the details of the various troop types.  However, some cursory reading up til now gives me the impression that the Marine Divisions of the German army were comprised of Seebataillone.

Hope this helps

[Will Bailie]

Thanks, Helen and Dominic,

I will follow up with those two fora.

Regards

will

[Will Bailie]

Great advice, Helen, I hit paydirt right away!

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=73186

Assuming the 4e Marine Brigade had the same composition in April 1915 that they had in December 1914 (only 4 months, so plausible):

- 4e Marine Brigade with the 4e and 5e Matrosen Regimente, 3e Landwehr Eskadron of the IX Armee korps and the 1e and 2e Marine Feldbatterie and the 3e Marine Pioniere Kompagnie

I will take it that this means I can have matrosen hanging around the edges of my 2nd Ypres battlefield!  Time to get an order off to Brigade Games for some German sailors.

Thanks!

Will

[Chris Dale]

Hi, I'm pretty new to WW1, so I'm not really into all the details of the various troop types.  However, some cursory reading up til now gives me the impression that the Marine Divisions of the German army were comprised of Seebataillone.

The Marinekorps Flandern consisted of both Marine Infantry Regts (Seebatallion troops) and sailors regts (Matrosen Regtimenter) side by side...

Cheers
Chris

[Hywel Dda]

If you scroll down the page on the this link you'll see a very interesting pic of a Matrosen Abteilung with captured Belgian MG carts - I am assuming still on the Western Front - definitely all in naval rig
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=145992

[ushistoryprof]

If you scroll down the page on the this link you'll see a very interesting pic of a Matrosen Abteilung with captured Belgian MG carts - I am assuming still on the Western Front - definitely all in naval rig
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=145992

Now that is cool, aan new use for the Brigade dog team miniature, replace Beligums with Imperial Navy troops and you get two uses out of one mg model.