Military equipment of the 20th century: Danish M/46 helmet

M/46 helmet

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The M/46 helmet was a failed attempt to make a helmet to replace the large amount of British Mk. II's, Mk. III's, Mk. IV's and Swedish M/37 in service with the Danish army in the aftermath of WWII.

Production began in 1946 and was undertaken by the company Glud og Marstrand. The same company that produced the M/23 helmets before the war.
Right after the war they had begun production again and approximately 4700 M23/41 helmets for the navy were produced. Glud og Marstrand were the only company in Denmark with the capacity to produce the M/46 helmets in the numbers needed.

The M/46 helmet borrowed the shape of the shell from the Swedish M/37 helmet. For the untrained eye they look almost similar. The liner is often the best way to tell which one is which. The M/46 were made with two different type of liners. The first liners were scavenged Mk. II helmet liners! Later they made a US Style liner with webbing and plastic for the helmets used by the civil defence. Both type M/46 helmets used a US style chinstrap. Made out of khaki webbing.

The chinstrap bales are fixed and spot-welded in place making the straps prone to breaking when used over a long period of time.

They are found with a greyish / green coarse paint job. ( they mixed the paint with sand) and a smotth grey paint job. (For CF use)

A total of 30.000 helmets were produced, and most ended up with the navy (they stopped using them in 1951) and the Civilforsvaret (civil defence). It was never adopted by the army (officially), since they adopted the US M1 helmet in 1948. (M/48)

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