In WW1, the Army issued wool overcoats to its troops to combat the frigid temperatures of Europe. In the static war that was to be the "war to end all wars," it was a simple solution. This solution was expected to solve the problem of winter cold in World War 2. However, the nature of war had changed, and troops were more mobile, battlefronts were ever shifting, and soldiers needed to be maneuverable and unencumbered. The overcoat had quickly become outdated. Troops often discarded the coat in favor of layering with more compact items. In Bastogne, soldiers who had been stuck with the garment found that the long design of the coat dragged in the snow. The body heat would melt the snow just enough before it refroze as ice and started smacking at the knees. Ingenuity as a result of necessity, some soldiers actually cut the jacket with their bayonets and knives to make it shorter. When the M43 Jacket came around, soldiers snatched them up... which often resulted in supplies trickling from the rear echelon and barely reaching the front.
Several patterns of overcoats were issued. The early enlisted men's wool overcoat are double-breasted with exposed six brass buttons. The buttons have a raised eagle design. Later patterns changed these buttons to plastic with the same eagle pattern. The post 1939 revisions have pleats in the back, to help with movement, and a long split up the tail to not hinder running or crouching. Some other revisions had a single front, though those aren't too common to find. It's also possible to find them with standard plastic buttons, but they typically weren't issued this way. You may also come across a shorter version of the overcoat, but this was issued to officers.
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