east german kit assemblage

by quirble

6/23/2025

building an east german kit is pretty simple but also kind of bothersome because there's just a lot of information to get into and a lot of nuances depending on who you ask. hence why i'm writing this. duh.

STANDARD NVA IMPRESSION, [late] 1960s TO 1980s

essentially, there are sorta like... a few eras of east german kit you can do, as well as a few different types. i'm starting with whats familiar to me, and what basically everyone knows, a nice strichtarn impression.

depending on the era you're focusing on, there were 2 main types of uniforms; the first/early cut (from the 1960s to the 1970s) and the second/late cut (from the 1970s to the 1980s). there's a third uniform, the infamous UTV, that i'll get onto in another section.

depending on the impression you are going for, sometimes you'll see the older blumentarn appear. especially depending on era. don't worry though, while old blumentarn kit is extremely expensive, you'll hardly ever need to use it to make an accurate kit unless you're specifically going for certain things like a 60s kit. .

what you'll need for a standard kit:
a writeup on PC-98s
fixing an old CRT for my friend
my PC-9801RA2
my PC-9801RA51
my PC-9821CX2
my PC-9821 Valuestar V166
random PC-98 related stuff

utv and its consequences; the ddr copies western gear???

in the late 1980s, the NVA planned for a massive military overhaul project (to be rolled out in 1990, early adoption with LStR 40 came about in late 1988) that would hopefully get rid of a lot of issues, specifically with how oldfashioned a lot of their shit was. finally, the old and outdated webbing gear would be replaced with a new design*! finally, adoption of new kit would be considered! new rifles*! more stuff! however, due to [THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK], east germany ceased to exist, and west- i mean germany, immediately decided that they needed to downsize this newly acquisitioned and extremely expensive army they just stole- i mean absorbed. so they first accomplished their effective downsizing by firing all the east german women in the army. but also more importantly they decided to flood the surplus market with all the sweet unissued gear east germany had dumped money into manufacturing. oops...

the arguably biggest thing that the NVA planned was what is known as UTV (Uniformtrageversuch), a comprehensive change to the uniform and webbing systems. this is also the first big pitfall to look out for when making a kit. UTV gear can be distinguished from standard east german gear particularly by how odd it looks in comparison. the strichtarn pattern of UTV gear is slightly different (fabric feels arguably shittier for web gear), the webbing hooks are weird and metallic, everything is GREEN, etc.

the uniform difference:

notably, one of the first differences between UTV and normal is that the uniform cut is a lot more american-style. let's take the jacket. it no longer has shoulder boards for rank indication, instead using these panels on the left arm mounted above the arm pocket. it also now has the square accordion pockets of the american BDU. supposedly the material is a lot different feeling as well.

the webbing kit difference:

this is the big obvious difference that anyone can see and call you out for. as mentioned before, the webkit has green metal fittings! everything is in a very gross feeling strichtarn pattern,

this is fine i think

hopefully this is an adequate guide.