samdamonjr
8 June 2002, 08:32
www.geocities.com/equipmentshop/flexibleonequartcanteens.htm
The Curse of the hard-shell plastic G.I. Canteen: Flexible plastic 1 quart canteens are here to solve Soldiers' problems
100 feet over Nijimegan Drop Zone, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Looming ominously below the Paratrooper under full T-10D canopy is a hard-packed earth runway hard as concrete, too little altitude and no forward thrust to steer clear, he knows he is going to go in for a hard landing. The best he can do is pull a two-riser slip in the opposite direction of the gusting winds and hope it takes some power off as it slams him into the runway.
Feet and knees together!
Elbows in to the side, head looking out onto the horizon...then a slow pause, an eerie silence and the ground rushes up and whacks the Paratrooper ready to roll into a parachute landing fall....as he slams and rolls into the runway all is well--the shock is dissipated until......
He reaches the two hard shell plastic canteens slung low under his butt on his load carrying harness...the roll violently stops as his body smashes into these two hard objects not budging an inch against the runway. Something must give and its the Paratrooper's muscles and bones which are bruised. The energy finally spent, he releases a canopy riser to prevent dragging and slowly checks himself over and gets up to collect his parachute and turn it in----very painfully----he is lucky he can walk, others break backs and hips.
10 miles behind hostile Arab Lines
An Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Paratrooper patrol is moving quietly into an ambush position to kill a terrorist leader in a motorcade. They have marched all night and are thirsty, so they stop to drink some water. Since they have hard-shell plastic canteens, only one Para will remove a canteen and will pass it around the patrol until its completely empty because a half-full canteen will slosh around making noise which could get everyone killed by revealing their presence to the enemy. The Para who donated the water gets an empty canteen to carry around in his fighting load.
Continuing into their ambush site, they take up positions and wait. As the motorcade approaches one of the Paras sneezes from the cold he caught from one of the other men while sharing canteens. An Arab boy nearby spots the Paras and shouts an alarm. The motorcade stops and reverses direction as guns fire throughout the valley. The hunters have become the hunted.
So why are we still using hard-shell plastic canteens?
Consider the current G.I. 2-quart canteen.
Its made out of soft, flexible plastic.
If you land on it in a parachute jump, it will give way and actually act as a cushion. As you drink water you pinch the sides so there is no trapped air for the water to slosh around and make noise. When you empty your canteen you are not wasting space on your load carrying belt or in your rucksack carrying an empty shell, you squeeze the 2-quart into a ball and stash it until you find a water source to fill it up again. You can use the pouch it came from to carry M4/M16 carbine/rifle magazines. Civilian backpackers have known for years to use collapsible water bottles (canteens) to efficiently use carrying space and save weight.
Why hasn't the U.S. military?
The 1 quart canteens the Army uses are not made like the larger 2 quart canteen--flexible and collapsible. However, spreading two quarts of water into two makes for two small bulges rather than one large bulge which helps when crashing through vegetation and crawling under wire. So Soldiers wear two 1-quart canteens rather than one large 2-quart on their belts. But this all begs the question...why not make the 1 quarts canteens out of the same soft, flexible plastics as the 2-quarts?
This conclusion is exactly what U.S. Army Natick Labs realized 2 years go for its upcoming 21st Century Land Warrior (21st CLAW) program. See photo on top of this web page! The 1-quart canteen made out of flexible soft plastic is ready for Soldiers to use; IT HAS A NATIONAL STOCK NUMBER (NSN)....all we need is to get them to Soldiers from the official U.S. Army canteen manufacturer:
Ordering Information
The Lighthouse Store
P.O. Box 14959 Seattle, WA 98114 - 0959
Voice (206) 322-4200
TTY (206) 324-1388
Fax (206) 329-3397
www.lighthousestore.com
Stock # Description Unit Cost
CN 0040 1-quart canteen, collapsible $7.20
NSN 8465-00-NIB-0041
Canteens come with NBC mask drinking tube interface cap.
Add your state sales tax, and shipping/handling for the box nedded to send the number of canteens you ordered.
PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!
In fact, the flexible 1-quart canteen greatly improves the water flow through the drinking tube of your M40 Field Protective Mask because the canteen body can be squeezed. Edgewood Arsenal Tests (Chemical Biological Defense Command) showed 2 times the water flow rate while drinking through the new Joint Services Proective Mask using the flexible 1-quart canteen compared to old, hard-shell plastic canteens.
The Curse of the hard-shell plastic G.I. Canteen: Flexible plastic 1 quart canteens are here to solve Soldiers' problems
100 feet over Nijimegan Drop Zone, Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Looming ominously below the Paratrooper under full T-10D canopy is a hard-packed earth runway hard as concrete, too little altitude and no forward thrust to steer clear, he knows he is going to go in for a hard landing. The best he can do is pull a two-riser slip in the opposite direction of the gusting winds and hope it takes some power off as it slams him into the runway.
Feet and knees together!
Elbows in to the side, head looking out onto the horizon...then a slow pause, an eerie silence and the ground rushes up and whacks the Paratrooper ready to roll into a parachute landing fall....as he slams and rolls into the runway all is well--the shock is dissipated until......
He reaches the two hard shell plastic canteens slung low under his butt on his load carrying harness...the roll violently stops as his body smashes into these two hard objects not budging an inch against the runway. Something must give and its the Paratrooper's muscles and bones which are bruised. The energy finally spent, he releases a canopy riser to prevent dragging and slowly checks himself over and gets up to collect his parachute and turn it in----very painfully----he is lucky he can walk, others break backs and hips.
10 miles behind hostile Arab Lines
An Israeli Defense Force (IDF) Paratrooper patrol is moving quietly into an ambush position to kill a terrorist leader in a motorcade. They have marched all night and are thirsty, so they stop to drink some water. Since they have hard-shell plastic canteens, only one Para will remove a canteen and will pass it around the patrol until its completely empty because a half-full canteen will slosh around making noise which could get everyone killed by revealing their presence to the enemy. The Para who donated the water gets an empty canteen to carry around in his fighting load.
Continuing into their ambush site, they take up positions and wait. As the motorcade approaches one of the Paras sneezes from the cold he caught from one of the other men while sharing canteens. An Arab boy nearby spots the Paras and shouts an alarm. The motorcade stops and reverses direction as guns fire throughout the valley. The hunters have become the hunted.
So why are we still using hard-shell plastic canteens?
Consider the current G.I. 2-quart canteen.
Its made out of soft, flexible plastic.
If you land on it in a parachute jump, it will give way and actually act as a cushion. As you drink water you pinch the sides so there is no trapped air for the water to slosh around and make noise. When you empty your canteen you are not wasting space on your load carrying belt or in your rucksack carrying an empty shell, you squeeze the 2-quart into a ball and stash it until you find a water source to fill it up again. You can use the pouch it came from to carry M4/M16 carbine/rifle magazines. Civilian backpackers have known for years to use collapsible water bottles (canteens) to efficiently use carrying space and save weight.
Why hasn't the U.S. military?
The 1 quart canteens the Army uses are not made like the larger 2 quart canteen--flexible and collapsible. However, spreading two quarts of water into two makes for two small bulges rather than one large bulge which helps when crashing through vegetation and crawling under wire. So Soldiers wear two 1-quart canteens rather than one large 2-quart on their belts. But this all begs the question...why not make the 1 quarts canteens out of the same soft, flexible plastics as the 2-quarts?
This conclusion is exactly what U.S. Army Natick Labs realized 2 years go for its upcoming 21st Century Land Warrior (21st CLAW) program. See photo on top of this web page! The 1-quart canteen made out of flexible soft plastic is ready for Soldiers to use; IT HAS A NATIONAL STOCK NUMBER (NSN)....all we need is to get them to Soldiers from the official U.S. Army canteen manufacturer:
Ordering Information
The Lighthouse Store
P.O. Box 14959 Seattle, WA 98114 - 0959
Voice (206) 322-4200
TTY (206) 324-1388
Fax (206) 329-3397
www.lighthousestore.com
Stock # Description Unit Cost
CN 0040 1-quart canteen, collapsible $7.20
NSN 8465-00-NIB-0041
Canteens come with NBC mask drinking tube interface cap.
Add your state sales tax, and shipping/handling for the box nedded to send the number of canteens you ordered.
PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!
In fact, the flexible 1-quart canteen greatly improves the water flow through the drinking tube of your M40 Field Protective Mask because the canteen body can be squeezed. Edgewood Arsenal Tests (Chemical Biological Defense Command) showed 2 times the water flow rate while drinking through the new Joint Services Proective Mask using the flexible 1-quart canteen compared to old, hard-shell plastic canteens.