Frag Out! Magazine

despite a fact that in poland for several years it could be observed an intensive development of the re-enactment teams which focuses on the battles, which were conducted on the eastern front during the first World War and military units which participated in them, for a longer time virtually has not functioned a reconstruction of the struggles performed in the trenches of the Western europe. at the beginning of 2013 a small group of the enthusiasts made a decision on starting a new chapter of this history, establishing the american expeditionary forces re-enactment group. this nation-wide reconstruction project soon concentrated reenactors with a rich experience, gained within such groups as the 101st airborne, panzer lehr or the big red one. they set themselves a goal of reenacting the "doughboys'" - american soldiers which from april, 1917 crisscrossed the atlantic ocean, in order to became a part of the american expeditionary forces (an informal term of the american soldier originated from doughs which were eaten by them in great amounts on the front). Despite the Yanks joined the fights virtually in the last half of the year of the great War, they were able to participate in the wide range of the key battles which decided about its final result. Within the short time they virtually created on the old continent almost a two million people structure armed with latest technology weapon systems. a combat training and experience of the average american soldier left – at least in april, 1917 – a lot to desire, nevertheless his enthusiasm, freshness and strong morale were factors which enable to breathe new life in the entente troops. immediately it should be noted that the americans at the moment of signing a ceasefire only began real preparations to form the armed forces which were supposed to sweep the prussian armies. We decided to focus on the h-company, 7th regiment, 3rd infantry division. the combat trail of the 3rd division which was formed from the units of professional army, included a service in the chateau thierry sector, st. mihiel and the maas-argonne offensive. "the third" got famous particularly during the third battle of marne where remained steadfast towards the attacking germans, thus earning its nickname as the "rock of the marne". the distinctive unit insignia is a blue square which symbolises losses of the great War and three crosswise white stripes which symbolise operations in which a unit was involved. the insignia developed at the end of 1918 was officially acknowledged and then has accompanied soldiers which serve in the unit from the second World War, through the war in korea, up to the modern times. however, we are not going to restrict exclusively to re-enacting this unit and we are open for adjusting our figures to the needs of the specific scenario in which we take part. The first months of our activity we spent on extending our knowledge and filling gaps in our field gear. as in many cases we blazed a way, a large amount of its parts was not available for us at the beginning. the most raging was a lack of the weapons but we quickly managed to acquire the appropriate replicas of the springfield m1903 rifles or the chauchat mle15 machine rifles. in other cases, in order to fulfil our needs, we had to start our own home made manufacturing. REENACTING

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