It has been suggested to me that the reason the German artillery regiments had a ball instead of a spike on their helmets was so that they wouldn't poke each other's eyes out when bending and rising to serve the gun. Seriously.
Am I being taken for a ride here? That doesn't explain the Bavarian artillery, unless they wore a monocle in each eye.
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I'm afraid that old, old rumor remains as it was back then; utterly false. Headgear was a simple matter of visual unit identity. As information, the Bavarian artillery did not wear the ball, but rather the spike. So, if there were any merit to the supposition, Sepp would have suffered a disproportionate number of non-combat eye injuries.
"Sometimes things that are not true are included in Wikipedia. While at first glance that may appear like a very great problem for Wikipedia, in reality is it not. In fact, it's a good thing." - Wikipedia.
