How do you explain this painting which depicts a French infanterist wearing what appears to be a metal almost...

How do you explain this painting which depicts a French infanterist wearing what appears to be a metal almost stahlhelm-esque helmet? The artist Édouard Detaille died in 1912 and this helmet design originated in 1915...Also general uniform thread

Cant confirm anything about the helment but look at that dudes fucking face, he looks like he saw the ghost of his grandfather crawl up his rectum

pic related is a 19th century french artillery officers helmet. Although probably not the helmet in your painting, the concept of wearing a rounded bowl on one's head is not a 20th century concept

why is Veeky Forums historically illiterate?

I'm more weirded out by napoleon's extra joint in his femur.

>French infanterist
engineer in siege armor. a specialist troop in specialised equipment for the contruction or destruction of field works under fire

This is 17th century armour for sappers, it's not unusual for sappers to get things that wouldn't look out of place in WW1

How badly did you need to screw up to get assigned sapper duty? You've got a slightly better survival rate going in front of a firing squad.

Maybe a prototype?

I read 'sapeur pompier de soissons'(Fireworker of Soisson) on the front user, it's not an artillery helmet, that a fireworker helmet.

You volunteered, the pay was fantastic

this there are plenty of people who don't care about their lives, they watched their wife and kids die of smallpox or something and stopped caring how long they live, so if there is an opportunity to risk their lives to get 5 times the ordinary salary they'd take it

As others said this is the gear of French combat engineers that had to dig trenches or build bridges under enemy fire. This became even more difficult during the Napoleonic wars as the British introduced shrapnel shells.
So in a way this was a foreshadow of WWI were metal helmets were reintroduced for infantry to protect against shrapnel and even metal cuirasses were used.

The main reasons why the whole French army wasn't equipped in metal helmets and cuirasses like in the early 1600s was probably the huge cost and the fact that it would slow down the troops too much in an age were marching armies across long distances as fast as possible was crucial, so they were used only by specialized units.

It's not exactly a well known subject.

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More images with sappers.

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Wow that was informative and very interesting.

neat, I never the French employed Samurai

That's just an evolution of the lobster-tailed pot helmet.

Forgot the image.