German Sawmilling

N

Nubsnstubs

Where is it???
Full Member
Messages
4,536
Reaction score
11,046
Location
Tucson, Arizona
First name
Jerry
Found this a few minutes ago. The beginning reminded me of a time in the Army in Germany while bivouacked in the forest outside a tiny village. About 12 Germans came walking up from the village right through our camp, all packing various lumberjack tools. One guy in a suit, just like one guy in this video, selected a tree. About four of the men started cutting it down with axes. When it felled, several more men with a different type of axe, started cutting off all the limbs. After the limbs were cut off the log, another couple men with a tool that looked like a narrow hoe that was straight instead of bent, started removing the bark. When all the bark was removed, they picked up the log and set it on their shoulders, and headed back to the village. This took them about 2 hours to mill. Have no clue what they were gonna do with the log. There was also snow on the ground then. This log was about 20 feet long and about 10 inches diameter. When they left, it was hard to see where they had worked as they cleaned up the mess and disposed it somewhere in the forest. It's something I'll never forget.

The video is in German. You don't need to know the language to grasp what they are doing. Check out the horse when they start to haul the log down the road, and then what the guy feeds the horse when the log is moved to the work area. The horse reacts just like a dog.




Dielsägen auf dem Schneideplatz means Die(The) saws on the cutting area. At least that's what my translater says.
.............. Jerry In Tucson)
 
Last edited:
Cool video. That's a bunch of tough old Germans!!
Guess I shouldn't complain about my aging old body. They make chainsaw milling look easy, lol.
Kinda neat how the handles of their axes where off set for the hewing process.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #4
woodtickgreg said:
Cool video. That's a bunch of tough old Germans!!
Guess I shouldn't complain about my aging old body. They make chainsaw milling look easy, lol.
Kinda neat how the handles of their axes where off set for the hewing process.
Click to expand...
Yep, those old guys are tough. I'm only good for about 20 ax swings every hour. Gotta take a break. What did you think of the "top dog" handling his end end of the rip saw? I also wish I could have seen how what the cutting edge looked like on the offset handled ax. ............. Jerry (in Tucson)
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #5
vegas urban lumber said:
the man in the suit passing out schnapps shots, starting out at 10:52, is priceless
Click to expand...
To us it look priceless, but to them, that's part of the job. German road crews I saw always had beer with them. Flip top bottles. They would open it, take a drink, close the flip top, toss the bottole on the ground without any cover from the sun, work about 20 -30 minutes, take another swig of that warm beer, toss down again, and work some more. When the bottle was empty, get another bottle and repeat. They didn't like cold beer, and the water was pretty hard there, so beer was better than the water.......... Jerry (in Tucson)
 
I've had my workout for the day just watching those guys. They sure earned that schnapps. The horse put in a fair day's work also.

Having spent 10 years in Germany on 3 tours, I've had a fair amount of time in their manicured forests. They are truly beautiful. I travelled plenty of those logging trails, but never ran across a crew like this. Most trails were wide enough for the tank and when they were not, well, we made our own.

If it was spring time when you were bivouaced, Jerry, and the log was as long as the tree was tall it might have been destined for the center of town to be decorated as a May Pole.
 
  • Thread Starter Thread Starter
  • #7
Tom Smart said:
I've had my workout for the day just watching those guys. They sure earned that schnapps. The horse put in a fair day's work also.

Having spent 10 years in Germany on 3 tours, I've had a fair amount of time in their manicured forests. They are truly beautiful. I travelled plenty of those logging trails, but never ran across a crew like this. Most trails were wide enough for the tank and when they were not, well, we made our own.

If it was spring time when you were bivouaced, Jerry, and the log was as long as the tree was tall it might have been destined for the center of town to be decorated as a May Pole.
Click to expand...
Tom, I was in Delta Co. and on this camping trip, I was supporting Alpha co. We arrived on October 6 and stayed for 6 days. My birthday is October 7th. I accidentally exploded my air mattress by using my trucks air supply to blow it up. That's another memory that can't be put to rest. It snowed that night and I had to sleep on a damn cold ground. I learned real quick that you use your lungs to inflate your mattress. My birthday present was A co.'s CO let me go back to Hielbronn to my company to bring back our Herman Nelson heater for their motor pool tent, as theirs didn't work and ours was brand new. I was saved by taking my mattress back and got another. Even though things like that was pure misery while actually there, I look back have a good chuckle at my actions. You gotta take into consideration, I was just a 20 year old kid, and we all did stupid things.

Tanks, huh. Armor?? And, if those guys had witnessed your tank making the trail wider, I'll bet your Battalion Commander got a bill. One of the orders we always got when we were in the field was "Do not touch the trees". That meant for the vehicles, dump trucks and our Lowboys. You scratch a tree, we had to let the commander know, and he had to contact the guy in the suit to evaluate how much damage was done so he could bill the US.

What I saw of Germany is it was possibly the cleanest place on Earth.. .............. Jerry (in Tucson)
 
Yeah, Jerry, we bought plenty of trees. Bought a lot of sugar beets, potatoes and road side fog markers as well. Occasionally a car that got too close and a piece of a house on that really tight corner. A tank company can do a lot of damage even when not shooting at something, especially if on line and not in trail formation. Each battalion had a LT designated as the maneuver damage control officer. He didn’t really control anything, just followed the formations and marked the damage on a map so when the forest Meister came calling we knew who the culprits were.

As for sleeping, didn’t use the air mattress much, although had one. Slept in the turret or on the back deck if there was time to sleep. While the back deck could be warmer (especially if the tank’s heater didn’t work and the engine was running) and you could stretch out a bit, it wasn’t the safest place. If the gunner or tank commander swung the turret that was a problem.
 
Tanks, huh. Armor?? And, if those guys had witnessed your tank making the trail wider, I'll bet your Battalion Commander got a bill. One of the orders we always got when we were in the field was "Do not touch the trees". That meant for the vehicles, dump trucks and our Lowboys. You scratch a tree, we had to let the commander know, and he had to contact the guy in the suit to evaluate how much damage was done so he could bill the US.
Click to expand...

I was in the 65th Combat Engineers, 25th Inf Div in the 70's and we had similar strict rules in Hawaii. There were very few training areas where you could drive a dozer anywhere you wanted. And any complaints from the public or the Hawaiian gov't went straight to the Div CO.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top