Coastal artillery was the responsibility of
the Kriegsmarine, and most of the weapons employed in this manner were captured
or obsolete weapons, their role was a defence against invasion, rather than
proper coast defence against naval attack many of these guns were mounted in
defensive works of either turrets or casemates
Uniforms
Generally the branch of service color for
Coastal Artillery and land-based KM units issued feldgrau uniforms was gold.
Officers sidecaps had gold piping, the soutouch for enlisted me was also gold
in color until the soutouch was done away with in 1941 or 1942.
Shoulderboards were of the older style
square mitre-design rather than the rounded ends of WH, SS and LW personnel and
did not have any piping on them. They were in feldgrau or bottle-green and had
either the winged shell or crossed anchors motif on them - either embroided for
non-commissioned men or raised metal insignia for officers.
Collar Litzen was the standard three bars,
with the center bar white, and the shorter bars either side being golden.
There are exceptions. The Officers Visor
cap and the NCO's Visor sometimes had bottle-green piping (not gold as you
might expect) and sometimes feldgrau piping.
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Marine Artillery Units were trained as
ground artillery. There are several accounts of Naval Artillery Forward
Observers during the Market Garden operation. Coastal batteries were used against
ground targets all the way up the French coast, that is, if they could be
turned towards the landward side.
Also, something to keep in mind, Naval
Artillerymen are trained to hit moving targets such as ships, not much of a
stretch to hit relatively stationary ground targets and the like such as a
battalion area or a road junction. Coordinates, angles, grids, and trajectories
are calculated much the same and a big shell is a big shell regardless of the
target...
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