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As a kid in Boy Scouts, there was surplus WWII and Korean War equipment everywhere. As kids we thought it was cool because but when we put it to practical purpose, we bought civilian mountain climbing gear for long term use. The only thing we actually used was the mess kit/canteen.
With regard to the Helmet Chin Strap, in 1971, we were instructed to keep the helmet's chin strap attached behind the helmet. There were other ways using internal straps to keep the helmet on. But you still see photos from Vietnam of men dodging artillery and mortar fire holding on to their helmet. While jumping off the back of a 2 1/2 ton truck, my helmet flew off my head, did a 180 in front of me and chipped my tooth. That was while I was in Initial Entry Training in 1971.
Some reckoned if a grenade went off in front of you the chinstrap would break you’re neck lol , I would’ve thought if a grenade went off that close to you the chin strap would be the least of your worries 😂
@@spannaspinna that's a really big "it depends". The air pressure shockwave that comes off an explosion can be as devastating as the explosion. Because of the prevalence of IEDs it was a good idea to crack your bulletproof windows so the air pressure would have somewhere to go. That outweighed the risk of a random bullet making it through the crack. Up armored Humvees could protect you well enough from a medium sized explosion. However, if the air pressure couldn't escape... Well neither would you. Edit: I should add this only applies to being in humvee vs walking about.
"Chin strap pulls you neck in an explosion". Pure myth with no science. Any pressure gradient coming at you will be equal on the inside AND outside of your helmet. "Seems right" science usually is not science. A helmet will not "scoop up more pressure". Again, sounds cool, but it's not how that works. Too bad so many men probably got head injuries or even died because of "seems right" mythology. The tangling of the light weight straps or strings? That actually can happen.
The haversack is pretty much just a bunch of flaps trying to imitate a bag. Somebody in a high position must’ve liked them, if they kept producing them. The M1944 Field pack on the other hand is the ideal pack for US soldier as it had dividers, pockets, proper closing flap, rubber lining and as mentioned, straps to hold blankets/shelter half’s.
The "envelope" style goes all the way back to the revolution. After ww1 it was almost replaced by a rucksack very similar to the German and Bergan style, before the 1928 won out due to cost and yee old tradition.
@@wisconsinkraut3445 yup.... I'm a revolutionary war and civil war guy.... and it looks like a terrible, cheap version of the same thing being used since the late 1700's. But there was that bag AND a haversack which hung around your shoulder and was easily accessable.
It sounds a lot like the shelter halves I was issued when I was in the Marines during the '90s. By that time lightweight nylon tents with flex poles were already a thing yet the Marine Corps was still issuing these heavy pup tents that were a pain to set up and whose design had to date back to at least WWI.
@@Riceball01 We were issued the whole M1944 Deuce gear setup (with single M14 mag pouches, along with M14 rifles) and canvas shelter halves at Marine Corps OCS in 1975. Semper Fi!
Josh, I found your comment about someone in a high position must've liked them, if they kep producing them interesting. But I counter with: did any of these people in high positions ever try one on?!?!? and on a real jump?!?! ?!?!
Bet he didn't hate his rifle. And 40 pounds, is that a full load out? Seems like they'd have more crap. Actually now that I think about it by then the gear would be alot lighter, I still use a Vietnam Era LBE rig, I always forget about plastic being a thing.
I knew an old para called Don who lived in Paignton 15 years ago. He was a working class man but one of nature's true gentlemen - soft spoken, dressed impeccably, always tipped. He was one of the first 100 British paratroop volunteers, but never dropped operationally. This was because in 1940 the RAF wanted to know if it was practicable to parachute into the sea with the Mae West life jacket already inflated. Don was the volunteer selected to test this. The impact drove the Mae West upwards with great force, damaged his neck seriously and knocked him unconscious. He was too badly injured to jump again, but his experience may have saved a lot of aircrew lives.
I have heard that the leg bags were issued to the American airborne right before Overlord, as noted in the video. Even as a Canadian airborne reenactor, we explain that the leg bags do not get the best rap. The Headquarters company of 1can para jumped into Normandy with the weapons sections carrying vickers mgs and 3in mortars in them. Those men were particularly unlucky as they ended up in flooded fields and were unable to get them off. I think it is also of note that the British style of jumping (Out of a slower, lower bomber) that may have also contributed to their success with DUKE airborne forces. Still a good video, interesting and entertaining as always
The British jumped mainly out of DC3/C47s as well, it is just that the RAF aircrew were properly trained and obeyed their training and flew at the correct height and speed for paratroopers, whereas the American aircrews did not and as a consequence murdered a lot of the troops they were supposed to deliver. ETA the bombers the Brits also used, like the Short Stirling, were either equivalent or faster than the C47/DC3.
You are completely right, I have heard a lot of stories about how well the RAF crews did, and certainly about the shortcomings of USAAF crews. 1can para got a chance to train in both styles of jumping, the initial group trained at Ft. Benning, and later groups at Camp Shilo, who both taught the American system, including a reserve chute. Suffice it to say some of the Canadians were not happy to be switching over to the British style once they were folded into 6th airborne. There were certainly a lot of factors that led to those drops going the way they did, certainly more than can be listed here.
@@claverhouse1Murdered! That is extreem! De difference is that the Brit X type parachute had a slower opening. The opening shock was thus lower as oposed to the T5 parachute. Because of the higher jump they also had more time to release the kitbag.
@@jimomaha7809 The US use of the leg bag has all the hallmarks of someone making a decision to use them at too late a stage for those actually using them to train with and properly evaluate them. It's notable that this video does point out the propensity of soldiers to over-fill the assault vests on an "if it fits, it goes" principle, and the same thing seems to have applied to overloading the leg bags, probably more than their original specification, but certainly too much for the different jump methods/parachutes used by US airborne. Simple advice of "don't put more than [X weight] in it" may well have prevented most of the issues, but there seems to be a lot of evidence that simply how to use the bag was not explained.
in regard to the method of eliminating an enemy by grabbing his helmet and applying whatever method one sees fit, there are training manuals that expressly show just that method of sentry removal.
I'll bet WW2 Soldiers would have hated MOPP gear if CC2 was so bad, in fact I had my dad try on a MOPP suit and he said he would have hated to wear that in combat but at least it went over a normal uniform so you could ditch it if you had to, my dad was a WW2, Korea 3 tour Vietnam vet, his first taste of combat was at the age of 17 on June 6th D-Day jumping in with the 82nd Airborne with the 501st PIR
I remember a cold summer in Germany in 1993 where I used my MOPP suit in addition to my poncho liner to try to keep warm while I tried to sleep. It almost worked.
We were still using the steel pot when I enlisted in '86. The chin strap was snug and the snap would come undone with about 15lbs of pressure on the helmet. I never used mine for heating water in the field, but I knew other soldiers who did. It wasn't that I used something else, I could just go for 2 or 3 weeks before you could tell I hadn't been shaving...
@@Rugmunchersauce3 the video guy made a joke about Louie CK, a comedian that was cancelled cause it came out that he was just whipping his dick out and cranking it in front of female comedians while they were alone together. Then some other guy was trying to defend what Louie did but I guess he sobered up and deleted the shit he was drivelling.
Funnily enough; the assault vest, or jacket, may have been unpopular in 1944/45, but it definitely made a resurgence in the 90’s with the British Army. We exclusively used the Cop-Vest (close operations) which was exactly this item along with the Chest-Rig and Day-Sack. Chest rigs were ammo pouches on a harness that was worn on the chest, anything else that was an operational requirement was carried in the ‘day-sack’ which is a haversack, or a type of small bergan, if you will. The Chest-Rig, as it were, is a plate carrier without the ‘plate’, the CoP vest is now a ‘tactical’ kit-carry smock, and the Day-Sack is now a CamelBak mother-load ….. I’m just so surprised that this jerkin was in use then. I guess it wasn’t as popular then but the concept has definitely lived on. As a side note; the way MACV-SOG operated with their kit in Vietnam is pretty much how all NATO forces operate today. History repeats itself !
Sounds like it was the right piece of kit for the wrong time. Old, wool uniforms, wading ashore for an amphibious assault and this vest all add up to troops ditching the vest or forgoing it all together. 50 years later and it turns out to be the right gear for a different type of mission. I wonder how many other items have the same history.
It started to make a comeback in the US around the mid-'90s too. Towards the end of my time in the US Marines, new joins were starting to be issued load bearing vests in place of what amounted to suspenders and a belt. The first version were made from solid nylon while later version had a mesh in place of the solid nylon. But both versions were pretty minimalistic and only had mag pouches on them and were pretty open overall.
Yes exactly my thoughts. The old "Ops Vest" looks very much like a modernised version of the WW2 Assault vest, and was a mainstay in the British Army during the 90s/00s. Great bit of kit.
Those of us that were in Afghanistan started getting "combat belts" because we were fighting at 150m + and traversing the Hindu kush, the lower center of gravity helped quite a bit. My belt had 200 rds of 7.62, first aid and night vision on it. I had one pouch on my chest that I carried a pen and paper, an extra tourniquet, my ipod (probably wasn't supposed to have that but I never used it at a bad time), CLP, a spoon and a multi tool. The rest of what I carried went in an assault pack, water, more ammo, star clusters, smoke grenades. I'm sure I'm missing a few things in these lists, it's been a minute since 2011.
Dad hated the Firestone/ Goodyear Invasion Lifebelt known as the Donald Duck Belt. If improperly worn they would make a G.I. flip over upside down and drown with his feet in the air like a Duck. He also tested the Shark Repellent ( mostly ineffective.) Shelter Half’s were another item he despised.
Excellent vid! It's funny that the Brits, with wider brims on their helmets, didn't succumb to the same myth of the chinstrap being dangerous. Apparently, the bigger issue was getting Tommy Atkins to wear the thing at all, with berets or caps, GS being donned at the slightest opportunity, particularly by units with special ones...
Hi Bloke! "Chin strap pulls your neck in an explosion". Pure myth with no science. Any pressure gradient coming at you will be equal on the inside AND outside of your helmet. "Seems right" science usually is not science. A helmet will not "scoop up more pressure". Again, sounds cool, but it's not how that works. Too bad so many men probably got head injuries or even died because of "seems right" mythology.
The Haversack was done in a manner to be adjustable based on gear opted to be carried. Kind of based on pack bags used with horses. But for people, bad idea. To small, not fast, hard to put together.
Also, the earlier version (the M1910) had a problem in that people well behind the lines back in the US before American involvement in WWI had decided what soldiers needed in the field, and so designed the M1910 around exactly that. The problem though was that soldiers in the trenches of WWI needed a lot more stuff, stuff that they had no way of carrying, and had very little way of protecting from the mud of the trenches.
The haversack was designed to carry bivouac gear from one bivouac site to another. And it does well in that context. The 44 and 45 packs weren't much better for combat. IMO the Army should just have adopted the musette bag for everybody along with the pack board. Instead of reserving musette for officers and Airborne.
You also have to keep in mind that opinion is a big factor. My grandfather was a Combat Engineer in World War 2 and was at both Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge. Grandpa liked the Garand, but thought the BAR was the biggest POS in the entire war, could not understand why it was not belt fed (BTW Belgium had a couple hundred belt fed versions of the BAR pre-war) and preferred the assault version of the M1919, even though it was much heavier, because it had more sustained fire. Then again, while he was shooting it out with the Germans on several occasions, his unit specialized in tank recovery and bridge laying, so they were always deploying off the back of trucks, so weight wasn't an issue. Infantry guys would have probably had strong disagreement with him about the BAR.
Some people don't wear safety belts in their cars due to rare instances where they impeded the chances of survival. That doesn't change the fact that wearing safety belts in general saves lives. In fact, I suffered a broken neck, back, and tibial plateau due to my failure to wear a safety belt. Additionally, if anyone would have been in my car on the passenger side, I would have been a rather large projectile that could have crushed them.
My vietnam vet friends used very little equipment that was issued them. I used very little too in the Army late 80's. The sleeping bag and poncho was highly regarded.
Like what was said in the demonstration of the leg bag, the GI's weren't given proper instruction on how to use the leg bag. They over loaded them with everything but the kitchen sink. They were only designed to hold about 35 pounds. I know from talking to vets from E Co 506th PIR they had at least twice as much weight in them. I also heard from 506th vets that when they were being issued the double buckle boots they would disguise their jump boots somehow to make them look like double buckles. Jump boots were the way that paratrooper were distinguished from regular troops and they weren't going to give them up.
In regards to the strapped helmet being used against the wearer, it's only partly a myth; There are techniques that originate in Japanese Jiu-Jitsu that use a strapped helmet as a hand-hold so that the neck can be broken, and these techniques were also taught to some American forces, as well as British forces. They aren't terribly easy techniques to pull off in the middle of a fight, but if you have the opponent's back you can get an attempt at them, and you can certainly get an attempt after you throw an opponent or if you have the complete element of surprise. The techniques can also utilize the hair in lieu of the helmet, but that's harder to get a grip on, and most modern military haircuts prevent it completely. However, a knife or other weapon would be a far easier means to kill an enemy, so these techniques were mostly shown only to more clandestine troops, and even then, were eschewed for more knife combat training. These techniques are a part of some supplementary scrolls of Danzan-Ryu Jiujitsu which was taught to *some* American forces in WWII, and were a part of Fairbairn's knowledge, taught to British Commandos in WWII, as well as a part of Japanese teachings of course. But due to the above, it isn't recorded as being practiced as much as other techniques.
As a mountain guide and packer I see the relationship between the haversack and what I use for work. When I load gear or other stuff onto horses or mules you wrap it up in a canvas tarp or blanket and tie it onto the pack saddles. It works In A form very similar to the haversack. Just instead of a saddle, it’s two carrying straps holding it o to your back. Evolution of mindset and technology I suppose
I was an infantry officer in the Army during the mid 80's and part of my battalion's (and division) field discipline was keeping chinstraps connected. We had plenty of Vietnam veterans who never objected or brought up the subject that the chinstraps could injury or kill. I asked a number of combat veteran NCO's about it and not one put any stock into this story. Indeed just doing infantry "stuff" the last thing I wanted to do was use one hand holding my helmet (rather than two hands on my weapon) or go looking for it as it rolled away. I agree that an explosion close enough to harm you with the chinstrap will already have killed you by destroying your internal organs or blown you to bits. Good video. I am reminded a little bit of what my father dealt with during his tour in 44-45 in Europe.
The British version of a haversack is a canvas bag that was worn over the shoulder so it was weird looking at the US one and hearing it referred as a haversack
Much of the problem with the British leg-bags had nothing to do with the bag design, or indeed the training. Its failure was largely caused by US C47 pilots going too low, and dropping the troops at much higher airspeeds than they were designed for.
As a Gunners Mate in the mid 1970s, I actually had to learn how to pack and hump an M1928 haversack. I still have the instructions in my GMG 3&2 manual
The down-filled sleeping bag we had in Army Basic in 1967 was really good. We never fastened chinstraps on our steel pots, whether in the States or Vietnam.
I like the photo at about 5:27 of a soldier with his unit patch covered by the censors - but the obscuration is in a horizontal lozenge shape, so it's not hard to guess what unit it was!
@@cococock2418 It was censored at the time so that no inteligence could be gathered by looking at that photo if it fell into enemy hands. People arent censoring random unit markings 80 years later
You provide good content with historical references, thanks. When first saw the canteen cup so prominent, thought you would refer to the earlier versions having a fully rolled round edge that stayed too hot when drinking warm beverages as one would be apt to do in cold weather. The one shown is the updated version with just a beveled lip.
11:24 Learning how to properly load your pack with all the 💩 on the packing list is truly an art form. After the gear inspection the night before a hump I would let my boots load their packs how they thought they were supposed to do it. Then I would have my fireteam put them on try moving around then show them mine and walk with it. Exact same load but feels 20lbs lighter. After I proved my point make them dump everything and show them how I did mine. When your 1st nav point is named Cardiac Ridge you can't have a jacked up pack. That's how platoons end up doing ruck runs when everyone else is on Libo, and you start bringing your gas mask on platoon PT.😢
The concussive force of a blast can most certainly do incredible damage, look up how far the black tom explosion was from the Statue of Liberty and yet it was still able to damage her torch/arm - great content glad I found the channel 🤙🏼
The helmet thing lasted until the end of the Vietnam war, my grandpa who was a drill instructor told his men the same thing that was told to the ww2 and Korea men. So when he gave me his helmet, the straps were never used and kept in the back of his helmet. The only thing well used was the air cav back of the head strap to secure the helmet along with the strap.
my father and his post-Korea/early Cold War era DAV buddies confirm this…i called him on this and he had no response to the fact that concussion from the artillery barrage would have killed you before ripping your head off would
Thankfully my dad had a scientific brain, so he used his helmet straps in Korea. Always laughed at the guys who were gullible enough to believe they could hurts you. And since he worked radio in artillery he was next to huge concusive explosions (lost much of his hearing later in life) . It didn't pop his helmet off! It can't. Pressure gradients are equal inside and outside of the helmet. Benders don't "scoop up" more pressure.
It was well known that the GIs loved the "Lightweight Gas Mask" that was issued to them not for the mask itself, which was considered all but useless, but for the handy bag it came in. You see lots of photos of GIs with what amounts to an empty haversack but with a gas mask bag and extra canteen cover filled with stuff and a raincoat folded over the back of the belt, where it could be gotten at without unwrapping the whole mess. In 1944 the Army essentially copied the US Marine Corps modular pack and suspender system and used it until the 1960's.
Even more modern vests which replaced web gear were unpleasant to wear, not even getting into plated flak armor. More modern rucksacks weren't bad and the quick release tabs actually worked which was nice. This carries further into vehicles. As an armored vehicle crewman and commander we always removed the commander's and rigger's seats from our recovery vehicles because we were usually under manned, and couldn't field full vehicle crews. It allowed a full crew to sleep inside the vehicle as well as allowed for a lot more passengers if recovering an APC or IFV. There is a lot of stuff in the military which is more of a pain than is worth.
The helmet thing, while not WWII related, there was a Marine story I recall of a guy getting his helmet hit and it damaging his neck, nearly killing him. He then after words had a turkey like neck. It was the guy that got released from California jail into Ireland, forget his name but remember the story.
Something I find helps a Ton when packing the Haversack is to put everything I want to pack in a barracks bag or waterproof bag and then strap it into the Haversack
Your radio in the background looks just like my grandmothers which I lost in storage years ago. Might find another one someday. On the inside of the radio I had soldered a connection for plugging in a tape deck to the speaker.
A cocked M-1 helmet with its chinstrap hanging- is so cool looking. When we were issued the cavalier helmet back in 1985, our cool factor went down considerably 🤣🫡
My dad, who was in the Navy during the Korean War, told me that they were directed to unfasten their helmet chin straps if they were ascending or descending the down the side of ships when embarking or disembarking from smaller boats. The reason given is that if they fell, the sudden pull from the helmet’s buoyancy due to air trapped in it, could injure or kill them. I do find the idea of such buoyancy causing injury to be far more credible than blast pressure.
CT2 treated clothing was used up through the 1970s. General Quarters drills required certain individuals, like me, to wear coverall type garments that were soaked in that nastiness. They were stowed in a seabag in the repair locker. By the time we were all tucked and taped in the drill would be over. This was aboard USS Nimitz CVN 68 in 1978-1980.
Picked up an original 42 production haversack, someone had purchased it surplus and had stitched the side and bottom flaps together and removed the straps that close it on the horizontal axis all together. Almost not a terrible pack at thay point
As a modern infantry soldier seeing a ww2 marching order makes my back feel nice a modern ruck is vary low end 60lb to 80-110lb depending on your position in the company
Even between my 1st year June 02 and July 03, no plates to being issued plates. That was a big jump. Ironically we weren't universally issued plates until after we got back from OIF-I. I think a week or 2 before we invaded each rifle platoon were issued a dozen size medium plates and as long as they were all issued out it was by choice. So, the LT and most of the NCO's. I was a boot SAW gunner and I was 5'11 117lbs so I wore a x-small flak that the plates wouldn't fit into. I was pissed when I did get plates. I was still a SAW gunner a much stronger one by that time but even before I back to Iraq I was stationed in 29 Palms which was just as hot. Spare barrel for my M-249. Never did a barrel change in combat or a live fire range and back then if you were a grunt with 7th Marines you were running the 400 series ranges every month. Hell we only BZOed 1 barrel. We taught it but we only did it when competing against each other. 7lbs of pointless.
Idk if guys back then had laundry bags, but maybe stuffing all that crap that goes in the main compartment of the haversack in a laundry bag first then putting in there would work better...keep from loosing smaller items out of the bottom too. Great video!
When I was 8 years old, I started collecting WWII uniforms and equipment. An M1 helmet with liner was $5 at the surplus store... then again, WWII ended only 30 years by the time I was eight. My brother and I would head down to the surplus store every month with our allowance and money we made mowing lawns (yes, at eight I was mowing the neighbor's lawns). Back then there was no actual market for military surplus as Vietnam had just ended a couple years prior. Most WWII surplus was just repurposed to use as cheap camping gear. Had my brother and I known that there would be a market for milsurp from WWII we wouldn't have cut the uniforms down to fit our child-sized bodies, use US, British and German helmets as target practice for our .22 rifles. We had German gas masks, uniforms, sniper cammo, helmets and ammo pouches, belts, boots and bayonets from the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe along with tons of GI gear and US Marines gear from WWII. Dad made us sell it all at a garage sale in the early to mid 80s as it was filling up boxes upon boxes in our garage. If I still had half of what I owned back then I could easily outfitted a platoon of GIs and a few squads of Marines and maybe a squad of Wehrmacht (minus the weapons), but I did have a LOT of 30-06 machine gun links with spent casings. I bought them for fifty cents a pound (linked together with the spent casings). Closing in on being a senior citizen now, I would love to be able to go back and buy out that surplus store and keep everything they offered in a climate-controlled storage unit. I bought some weird items, too that would have brought a pretty penny today. I didn't know a "Mae West" Mk1 life vests would be worth anything. I just used them to float around in my swimming pool.
That’s an interesting question about the musette bag. Ether my grandfather was lucky and was issued one or he somehow traded for a musette bag, because he was always a private. Same goes with the assault vest. I think he just used it for his geology hobby.
We never wore our chinstrap when I was in 78-82. The only time we did was when we had to do a parade formation and do a pass in review for things like a change in command ceremony.
In the Army's FM 21-150 Chapter 7 for Sentry Removal it is actually taught to break a sentry's neck with a helmet secured with a chin strap. That FM is dated 1992.
Well, I was actually in the U.S. Navy from 1976 to 1984, and we wore helmets when we manned the guns and even in the Navy we were told not to use the straps on the helmets.
This video was great, I always like hearing about what we didn't like as far as gear went in the past, because it really just lets people have an appreciation for what we use now, and why it works the way it does. As for gear people DID like, could you do a Small Arms of U.S. Soldiers overview video? I know there are a few videos of each one individually, but an overall video comparing and contrasting the guns among their peers and the general reception of said weapons would be amazing.
I got to fleet just as the intercepter vest and molle gear was new issue fresh out the packaging. Some general never stopped to think that straight leg grunts wouldn't need to wear a MOLLE assault vest since we never went in the field without our flak jackets which had just as many slots as the vest. It wasn't until mid February 2003, a month before we invaded Iraq that someone realized that we could attach all our pouches to our flaks and not have to worry about the assault vest cutting into your neck or accidentally losing some pouch because you couldn't feel it directly attached to you. And I love this video. I got out in September 2005 and loss touch with my Marines, so I will be using this chance to do what grunts do best and bitch about every worthless piece of junk gear I was ever issued. Game on!
My grandpa told me the life jackets they were issued on the transport ship to North Africa didn’t float-found this out after they discarded them once they were safely off the ship
Battle vests - nice illustration of them depicted in Saving Private Ryan. Soldiers of the 3rd Canadian Div wore Commonwealth battle vests on D Day. I'm not sure if they all used them or just a selection. I've often wondered about the packs used in Kelly's Heroes. They seem pretty unique to me.
Great job! I think it should also be noted that the helmet-straps-ripping-your-head-off thing dates back to at least the early days of WWI, where all western armies had a version of the myth. From what I've been able to learn, there is very little factual information to suggest that any of this was true, but as we all know, once the men get attached to an idea, it takes on a life of its own. Interestingly, there also seems to be enough evidence to suggest that Russian troops, who did not generally have steel helmets as part of their kit, suffered notably more head injuries as a result, especially from artillery shrapnel, which, in effect, suggests that the opposite of this strap myth is actually true.
The US T5 parachute also had a faster and harder opening. Thus the US paratroopers would jump at a lower altitude. The harder opening shock probably helped more as the prop blast. (Unless they were flying too fast, what also happend.) As the British also the c47, prop blast was the same. The lower altitude also meant, if the bag was still on their legs, that they also had less time to lower them. The T5 also took more time to release, so during a waterlanding it was more dangerous.
I feel, like other armies, the idea of haversack was to have a buddy get stuff out for you vs taking it all off to get at it although the haversack design doesn't make that easy at least once you get away from the meat pouch, shovel or bayonet.
Interstingly there is an account by a Japanese medic which says that they pretty much believed the same thing about their helmet straps, though i doubt it was as widespread as in the US army
I know guys in the military who’ve said the modern helmet’s chin would snap your neck if you were shot in the head, forgetting the bullet and that most issued helmets aren’t really rated for rifle bullets.
My dad was in the Army in the mid-50's and he believed the chinstrap story. I remember him telling me about how a blast would break your neck. Seems like his training would have taught him better.
When I was in the Marines in 1974 thru 1978, we were taught to keep everything all of our 782 or "Deuce" gear (including pack, canteen, poncho, ammo pouch, etc.) unhooked and unbuttoned in case our AAV sunk or choppers went down into water. I always thought this was an EXCELLENT idea.
I have a 1945 combat and field pack that replaced the 1944 version and were used in the Korean war. I use it to carry my fishing gear. Both the combat and field pack were new old stock. It seemed like the military got the packs right by that time.
I spend a lot of time botching about the issued mainpack. It makes no sense to carry such a heavy pack with a plastic frame, and that's why most marines wind up buying an old Alice frame.
The water and the helmet part was for the marines when they were loading into their LVTS, if they slipped and fell off the cargo nets with a strapped helmet, it would do its damage to the wearer
Wow that haversack is BOOTY compared to the ones the marines used. Throughout the war it didnt really change until late when the roll top was introduced, it could be made to combine with the belt and suspenders or be its own separate bag, theyre super compact, even cute! 🥺
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Where do you get World War II uniforms?
hey do you reenact for the 502nd airborne out of minneapolis
As a kid in Boy Scouts, there was surplus WWII and Korean War equipment everywhere. As kids we thought it was cool because but when we put it to practical purpose, we bought civilian mountain climbing gear for long term use. The only thing we actually used was the mess kit/canteen.
With regard to the Helmet Chin Strap, in 1971, we were instructed to keep the helmet's chin strap attached behind the helmet. There were other ways using internal straps to keep the helmet on. But you still see photos from Vietnam of men dodging artillery and mortar fire holding on to their helmet. While jumping off the back of a 2 1/2 ton truck, my helmet flew off my head, did a 180 in front of me and chipped my tooth. That was while I was in Initial Entry Training in 1971.
Some reckoned if a grenade went off in front of you the chinstrap would break you’re neck lol , I would’ve thought if a grenade went off that close to you the chin strap would be the least of your worries 😂
@@spannaspinna that's a really big "it depends".
The air pressure shockwave that comes off an explosion can be as devastating as the explosion.
Because of the prevalence of IEDs it was a good idea to crack your bulletproof windows so the air pressure would have somewhere to go. That outweighed the risk of a random bullet making it through the crack.
Up armored Humvees could protect you well enough from a medium sized explosion. However, if the air pressure couldn't escape... Well neither would you.
Edit: I should add this only applies to being in humvee vs walking about.
Nice lie.
"Chin strap pulls you neck in an explosion". Pure myth with no science. Any pressure gradient coming at you will be equal on the inside AND outside of your helmet. "Seems right" science usually is not science. A helmet will not "scoop up more pressure". Again, sounds cool, but it's not how that works. Too bad so many men probably got head injuries or even died because of "seems right" mythology. The tangling of the light weight straps or strings? That actually can happen.
The haversack is pretty much just a bunch of flaps trying to imitate a bag. Somebody in a high position must’ve liked them, if they kept producing them.
The M1944 Field pack on the other hand is the ideal pack for US soldier as it had dividers, pockets, proper closing flap, rubber lining and as mentioned, straps to hold blankets/shelter half’s.
The "envelope" style goes all the way back to the revolution. After ww1 it was almost replaced by a rucksack very similar to the German and Bergan style, before the 1928 won out due to cost and yee old tradition.
@@wisconsinkraut3445 yup.... I'm a revolutionary war and civil war guy.... and it looks like a terrible, cheap version of the same thing being used since the late 1700's.
But there was that bag AND a haversack which hung around your shoulder and was easily accessable.
It sounds a lot like the shelter halves I was issued when I was in the Marines during the '90s. By that time lightweight nylon tents with flex poles were already a thing yet the Marine Corps was still issuing these heavy pup tents that were a pain to set up and whose design had to date back to at least WWI.
@@Riceball01 We were issued the whole M1944 Deuce gear setup (with single M14 mag pouches, along with M14 rifles) and canvas shelter halves at Marine Corps OCS in 1975. Semper Fi!
Josh, I found your comment about someone in a high position must've liked them, if they kep producing them interesting. But I counter with: did any of these people in high positions ever try one on?!?!? and on a real jump?!?!
?!?!
My dad was in Kuwait in the middle east and he hated all of his gear because 40+ pounds of gear in 100+ weather was not fun according to him
Just being in 100+ weather isn't a fun time.
The sand is irritating
Why go to Kuwait then ?
@@interman7715Op Desert Storm mate
Bet he didn't hate his rifle. And 40 pounds, is that a full load out? Seems like they'd have more crap. Actually now that I think about it by then the gear would be alot lighter, I still use a Vietnam Era LBE rig, I always forget about plastic being a thing.
I knew an old para called Don who lived in Paignton 15 years ago. He was a working class man but one of nature's true gentlemen - soft spoken, dressed impeccably, always tipped. He was one of the first 100 British paratroop volunteers, but never dropped operationally. This was because in 1940 the RAF wanted to know if it was practicable to parachute into the sea with the Mae West life jacket already inflated. Don was the volunteer selected to test this. The impact drove the Mae West upwards with great force, damaged his neck seriously and knocked him unconscious. He was too badly injured to jump again, but his experience may have saved a lot of aircrew lives.
I have heard that the leg bags were issued to the American airborne right before Overlord, as noted in the video. Even as a Canadian airborne reenactor, we explain that the leg bags do not get the best rap. The Headquarters company of 1can para jumped into Normandy with the weapons sections carrying vickers mgs and 3in mortars in them. Those men were particularly unlucky as they ended up in flooded fields and were unable to get them off. I think it is also of note that the British style of jumping (Out of a slower, lower bomber) that may have also contributed to their success with DUKE airborne forces. Still a good video, interesting and entertaining as always
And then there was the Joint Forces U.S. / First Canadian “ Tweeny Gear” …
The British jumped mainly out of DC3/C47s as well, it is just that the RAF aircrew were properly trained and obeyed their training and flew at the correct height and speed for paratroopers, whereas the American aircrews did not and as a consequence murdered a lot of the troops they were supposed to deliver. ETA the bombers the Brits also used, like the Short Stirling, were either equivalent or faster than the C47/DC3.
You are completely right, I have heard a lot of stories about how well the RAF crews did, and certainly about the shortcomings of USAAF crews. 1can para got a chance to train in both styles of jumping, the initial group trained at Ft. Benning, and later groups at Camp Shilo, who both taught the American system, including a reserve chute. Suffice it to say some of the Canadians were not happy to be switching over to the British style once they were folded into 6th airborne. There were certainly a lot of factors that led to those drops going the way they did, certainly more than can be listed here.
@@claverhouse1Murdered! That is extreem! De difference is that the Brit X type parachute had a slower opening. The opening shock was thus lower as oposed to the T5 parachute. Because of the higher jump they also had more time to release the kitbag.
@@jimomaha7809 The US use of the leg bag has all the hallmarks of someone making a decision to use them at too late a stage for those actually using them to train with and properly evaluate them. It's notable that this video does point out the propensity of soldiers to over-fill the assault vests on an "if it fits, it goes" principle, and the same thing seems to have applied to overloading the leg bags, probably more than their original specification, but certainly too much for the different jump methods/parachutes used by US airborne. Simple advice of "don't put more than [X weight] in it" may well have prevented most of the issues, but there seems to be a lot of evidence that simply how to use the bag was not explained.
in regard to the method of eliminating an enemy by grabbing his helmet and applying whatever method one sees fit, there are training manuals that expressly show just that method of sentry removal.
As of 2009, it was still in US Army manuals. I can't remember the actual name of it, but we called it the Soldier's Bible.
I'll bet WW2 Soldiers would have hated MOPP gear if CC2 was so bad, in fact I had my dad try on a MOPP suit and he said he would have hated to wear that in combat but at least it went over a normal uniform so you could ditch it if you had to, my dad was a WW2, Korea 3 tour Vietnam vet, his first taste of combat was at the age of 17 on June 6th D-Day jumping in with the 82nd Airborne with the 501st PIR
Your Dad was a bad ass!
MOPP gear was probably the worst piece of equipment I ever wore while in the army, a literal nightmare
I remember a cold summer in Germany in 1993 where I used my MOPP suit in addition to my poncho liner to try to keep warm while I tried to sleep. It almost worked.
MOPP gear sucked.
Fury from the sky!
We were still using the steel pot when I enlisted in '86. The chin strap was snug and the snap would come undone with about 15lbs of pressure on the helmet. I never used mine for heating water in the field, but I knew other soldiers who did. It wasn't that I used something else, I could just go for 2 or 3 weeks before you could tell I hadn't been shaving...
You had a gift. Are you of native American ancestry?
Absolutely no one asked.
"Hello, yes, the police? I'd like to report Louis C.K.'s murder."
Nobody would do that. We love Louis. The only people that dont are SJWs
@@Yourmomgoestocolledge would you trust him to be alone in a room with your wife or daughter?
@@justincase3230 Exactly
What?
@@Rugmunchersauce3 the video guy made a joke about Louie CK, a comedian that was cancelled cause it came out that he was just whipping his dick out and cranking it in front of female comedians while they were alone together.
Then some other guy was trying to defend what Louie did but I guess he sobered up and deleted the shit he was drivelling.
Funnily enough; the assault vest, or jacket, may have been unpopular in 1944/45, but it definitely made a resurgence in the 90’s with the British Army.
We exclusively used the Cop-Vest (close operations) which was exactly this item along with the Chest-Rig and Day-Sack.
Chest rigs were ammo pouches on a harness that was worn on the chest, anything else that was an operational requirement was carried in the ‘day-sack’ which is a haversack, or a type of small bergan, if you will.
The Chest-Rig, as it were, is a plate carrier without the ‘plate’, the CoP vest is now a ‘tactical’ kit-carry smock, and the Day-Sack is now a CamelBak mother-load …..
I’m just so surprised that this jerkin was in use then. I guess it wasn’t as popular then but the concept has definitely lived on.
As a side note; the way MACV-SOG operated with their kit in Vietnam is pretty much how all NATO forces operate today.
History repeats itself !
Sounds like it was the right piece of kit for the wrong time. Old, wool uniforms, wading ashore for an amphibious assault and this vest all add up to troops ditching the vest or forgoing it all together. 50 years later and it turns out to be the right gear for a different type of mission.
I wonder how many other items have the same history.
It started to make a comeback in the US around the mid-'90s too. Towards the end of my time in the US Marines, new joins were starting to be issued load bearing vests in place of what amounted to suspenders and a belt. The first version were made from solid nylon while later version had a mesh in place of the solid nylon. But both versions were pretty minimalistic and only had mag pouches on them and were pretty open overall.
Yes exactly my thoughts. The old "Ops Vest" looks very much like a modernised version of the WW2 Assault vest, and was a mainstay in the British Army during the 90s/00s. Great bit of kit.
Those of us that were in Afghanistan started getting "combat belts" because we were fighting at 150m + and traversing the Hindu kush, the lower center of gravity helped quite a bit. My belt had 200 rds of 7.62, first aid and night vision on it. I had one pouch on my chest that I carried a pen and paper, an extra tourniquet, my ipod (probably wasn't supposed to have that but I never used it at a bad time), CLP, a spoon and a multi tool. The rest of what I carried went in an assault pack, water, more ammo, star clusters, smoke grenades. I'm sure I'm missing a few things in these lists, it's been a minute since 2011.
Dad hated the Firestone/ Goodyear Invasion Lifebelt known as the Donald Duck Belt. If improperly worn they would make a G.I. flip over upside down and drown with his feet in the air like a Duck. He also tested the Shark Repellent ( mostly ineffective.) Shelter Half’s were another item he despised.
Excellent vid! It's funny that the Brits, with wider brims on their helmets, didn't succumb to the same myth of the chinstrap being dangerous. Apparently, the bigger issue was getting Tommy Atkins to wear the thing at all, with berets or caps, GS being donned at the slightest opportunity, particularly by units with special ones...
Thank you! And that’s neat, I didn’t know that
Hi Bloke!
"Chin strap pulls your neck in an explosion". Pure myth with no science. Any pressure gradient coming at you will be equal on the inside AND outside of your helmet. "Seems right" science usually is not science. A helmet will not "scoop up more pressure". Again, sounds cool, but it's not how that works. Too bad so many men probably got head injuries or even died because of "seems right" mythology.
The Haversack was done in a manner to be adjustable based on gear opted to be carried. Kind of based on pack bags used with horses. But for people, bad idea. To small, not fast, hard to put together.
Also, the earlier version (the M1910) had a problem in that people well behind the lines back in the US before American involvement in WWI had decided what soldiers needed in the field, and so designed the M1910 around exactly that. The problem though was that soldiers in the trenches of WWI needed a lot more stuff, stuff that they had no way of carrying, and had very little way of protecting from the mud of the trenches.
The haversack was designed to carry bivouac gear from one bivouac site to another. And it does well in that context. The 44 and 45 packs weren't much better for combat. IMO the Army should just have adopted the musette bag for everybody along with the pack board. Instead of reserving musette for officers and Airborne.
Can you make items soldiers loved
The discharge card …..
He’ll make that video as soon as they make an item soldiers love.
@@DanielsPolitics1 the m1 garand…
They are lucky they have something called a helmet.
@@parkerheberlig817 Except for the "M1 Thumb" problem. But that was a rookie issue soo....
You also have to keep in mind that opinion is a big factor. My grandfather was a Combat Engineer in World War 2 and was at both Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge. Grandpa liked the Garand, but thought the BAR was the biggest POS in the entire war, could not understand why it was not belt fed (BTW Belgium had a couple hundred belt fed versions of the BAR pre-war) and preferred the assault version of the M1919, even though it was much heavier, because it had more sustained fire.
Then again, while he was shooting it out with the Germans on several occasions, his unit specialized in tank recovery and bridge laying, so they were always deploying off the back of trucks, so weight wasn't an issue. Infantry guys would have probably had strong disagreement with him about the BAR.
Some people don't wear safety belts in their cars due to rare instances where they impeded the chances of survival. That doesn't change the fact that wearing safety belts in general saves lives. In fact, I suffered a broken neck, back, and tibial plateau due to my failure to wear a safety belt. Additionally, if anyone would have been in my car on the passenger side, I would have been a rather large projectile that could have crushed them.
My vietnam vet friends used very little equipment that was issued them. I used very little too in the Army late 80's. The sleeping bag and poncho was highly regarded.
Like what was said in the demonstration of the leg bag, the GI's weren't given proper instruction on how to use the leg bag. They over loaded them with everything but the kitchen sink. They were only designed to hold about 35 pounds. I know from talking to vets from E Co 506th PIR they had at least twice as much weight in them. I also heard from 506th vets that when they were being issued the double buckle boots they would disguise their jump boots somehow to make them look like double buckles. Jump boots were the way that paratrooper were distinguished from regular troops and they weren't going to give them up.
Assault jerkin. Something my friend has done a few time while traveling in a convoy.
I was JUST watching the first one of these. I keep rewatching WWW content along with other reenactors
The jerkin joke surprised me.
I have a meeting in 10 minutes and have coffee spilled everywhere.
I love your content, you help me when i have depressive episodes due to my bipolarity
thank you
Seeing gear that soldiers loved would be great, loving these types of vids
@World War Wisdom I second this idea
My day has become instantly better because of this video
my night for me
In regards to the strapped helmet being used against the wearer, it's only partly a myth;
There are techniques that originate in Japanese Jiu-Jitsu that use a strapped helmet as a hand-hold so that the neck can be broken, and these techniques were also taught to some American forces, as well as British forces. They aren't terribly easy techniques to pull off in the middle of a fight, but if you have the opponent's back you can get an attempt at them, and you can certainly get an attempt after you throw an opponent or if you have the complete element of surprise. The techniques can also utilize the hair in lieu of the helmet, but that's harder to get a grip on, and most modern military haircuts prevent it completely.
However, a knife or other weapon would be a far easier means to kill an enemy, so these techniques were mostly shown only to more clandestine troops, and even then, were eschewed for more knife combat training.
These techniques are a part of some supplementary scrolls of Danzan-Ryu Jiujitsu which was taught to *some* American forces in WWII, and were a part of Fairbairn's knowledge, taught to British Commandos in WWII, as well as a part of Japanese teachings of course. But due to the above, it isn't recorded as being practiced as much as other techniques.
Pressure wave being caught by the helmet is the only thing i can possibly think that would happen. They actually do test for that on modern helmets.
As a mountain guide and packer I see the relationship between the haversack and what I use for work.
When I load gear or other stuff onto horses or mules you wrap it up in a canvas tarp or blanket and tie it onto the pack saddles.
It works In A form very similar to the haversack. Just instead of a saddle, it’s two carrying straps holding it o to your back.
Evolution of mindset and technology I suppose
it’s familiar because it’s literally the evolution of pack bags used by cavalry…only instead of horses and mules it’s the soldiers carrying them
The fact that you had to speed up the footage of taking apart the haversack just shows how impractical it was 😂
I was an infantry officer in the Army during the mid 80's and part of my battalion's (and division) field discipline was keeping chinstraps connected. We had plenty of Vietnam veterans who never objected or brought up the subject that the chinstraps could injury or kill. I asked a number of combat veteran NCO's about it and not one put any stock into this story. Indeed just doing infantry "stuff" the last thing I wanted to do was use one hand holding my helmet (rather than two hands on my weapon) or go looking for it as it rolled away. I agree that an explosion close enough to harm you with the chinstrap will already have killed you by destroying your internal organs or blown you to bits. Good video. I am reminded a little bit of what my father dealt with during his tour in 44-45 in Europe.
The British version of a haversack is a canvas bag that was worn over the shoulder so it was weird looking at the US one and hearing it referred as a haversack
Much of the problem with the British leg-bags had nothing to do with the bag design, or indeed the training. Its failure was largely caused by US C47 pilots going too low, and dropping the troops at much higher airspeeds than they were designed for.
As a Gunners Mate in the mid 1970s, I actually had to learn how to pack and hump an M1928 haversack. I still have the instructions in my GMG 3&2 manual
5:37 He hit the cup and said "woAh" just as the school bell rang. Perfect timing.
The down-filled sleeping bag we had in Army Basic in 1967 was really good. We never fastened chinstraps on our steel pots, whether in the States or Vietnam.
I like the photo at about 5:27 of a soldier with his unit patch covered by the censors - but the obscuration is in a horizontal lozenge shape, so it's not hard to guess what unit it was!
Very cowardly to censor history
@@cococock2418 It was censored at the time so that no inteligence could be gathered by looking at that photo if it fell into enemy hands. People arent censoring random unit markings 80 years later
@@sharky9075 yeah you’re dumb. German happy symbols are absolutely being censored years later
You provide good content with historical references, thanks. When first saw the canteen cup so prominent, thought you would refer to the earlier versions having a fully rolled round edge that stayed too hot when drinking warm beverages as one would be apt to do in cold weather. The one shown is the updated version with just a beveled lip.
Wild. I actually love using the assault vest. Of course that's also because I know what I'm doing when it comes to packing it out
11:24 Learning how to properly load your pack with all the 💩 on the packing list is truly an art form. After the gear inspection the night before a hump I would let my boots load their packs how they thought they were supposed to do it. Then I would have my fireteam put them on try moving around then show them mine and walk with it. Exact same load but feels 20lbs lighter. After I proved my point make them dump everything and show them how I did mine. When your 1st nav point is named Cardiac Ridge you can't have a jacked up pack. That's how platoons end up doing ruck runs when everyone else is on Libo, and you start bringing your gas mask on platoon PT.😢
The concussive force of a blast can most certainly do incredible damage, look up how far the black tom explosion was from the Statue of Liberty and yet it was still able to damage her torch/arm - great content glad I found the channel 🤙🏼
Yes, knowing what gear was really liked by the GIs and Marines would be interesting and educational.
The helmet thing lasted until the end of the Vietnam war, my grandpa who was a drill instructor told his men the same thing that was told to the ww2 and Korea men. So when he gave me his helmet, the straps were never used and kept in the back of his helmet. The only thing well used was the air cav back of the head strap to secure the helmet along with the strap.
my father and his post-Korea/early Cold War era DAV buddies confirm this…i called him on this and he had no response to the fact that concussion from the artillery barrage would have killed you before ripping your head off would
That head strap was NOT just an air cav thing, since we also used it in the infantry in Germany. 1/39th Infantry forever.
Thankfully my dad had a scientific brain, so he used his helmet straps in Korea. Always laughed at the guys who were gullible enough to believe they could hurts you.
And since he worked radio in artillery he was next to huge concusive explosions (lost much of his hearing later in life) . It didn't pop his helmet off! It can't. Pressure gradients are equal inside and outside of the helmet. Benders don't "scoop up" more pressure.
Dude, epic office. Cuppa Joe from a canteen cup puts you way over the top. Well done, young squire, well done!
It was well known that the GIs loved the "Lightweight Gas Mask" that was issued to them not for the mask itself, which was considered all but useless, but for the handy bag it came in. You see lots of photos of GIs with what amounts to an empty haversack but with a gas mask bag and extra canteen cover filled with stuff and a raincoat folded over the back of the belt, where it could be gotten at without unwrapping the whole mess. In 1944 the Army essentially copied the US Marine Corps modular pack and suspender system and used it until the 1960's.
Even more modern vests which replaced web gear were unpleasant to wear, not even getting into plated flak armor. More modern rucksacks weren't bad and the quick release tabs actually worked which was nice.
This carries further into vehicles. As an armored vehicle crewman and commander we always removed the commander's and rigger's seats from our recovery vehicles because we were usually under manned, and couldn't field full vehicle crews. It allowed a full crew to sleep inside the vehicle as well as allowed for a lot more passengers if recovering an APC or IFV. There is a lot of stuff in the military which is more of a pain than is worth.
The helmet thing, while not WWII related, there was a Marine story I recall of a guy getting his helmet hit and it damaging his neck, nearly killing him. He then after words had a turkey like neck. It was the guy that got released from California jail into Ireland, forget his name but remember the story.
Nice video. Would love one about the stuff soldiers DID like!
Something I find helps a Ton when packing the Haversack is to put everything I want to pack in a barracks bag or waterproof bag and then strap it into the Haversack
I think you hit on the origins of the packs. The design was to make a pack that looked nice and neat when marching around while training in garrison.
Nice video world war wisdom
Also first
You do an incredible job bringing American military history to life. Thank you for your efforts and sacrifices to teach us.
the helmet strap myths reminds me of the arguments about seatbelts, very interesting
Your radio in the background looks just like my grandmothers which I lost in storage years ago. Might find another one someday. On the inside of the radio I had soldered a connection for plugging in a tape deck to the speaker.
A cocked M-1 helmet with its chinstrap hanging- is so cool looking.
When we were issued the cavalier helmet back in 1985, our cool factor went down considerably 🤣🫡
My dad, who was in the Navy during the Korean War, told me that they were directed to unfasten their helmet chin straps if they were ascending or descending the down the side of ships when embarking or disembarking from smaller boats. The reason given is that if they fell, the sudden pull from the helmet’s buoyancy due to air trapped in it, could injure or kill them. I do find the idea of such buoyancy causing injury to be far more credible than blast pressure.
CT2 treated clothing was used up through the 1970s. General Quarters drills required certain individuals, like me, to wear coverall type garments that were soaked in that nastiness. They were stowed in a seabag in the repair locker. By the time we were all tucked and taped in the drill would be over. This was aboard USS Nimitz CVN 68 in 1978-1980.
Picked up an original 42 production haversack, someone had purchased it surplus and had stitched the side and bottom flaps together and removed the straps that close it on the horizontal axis all together.
Almost not a terrible pack at thay point
As a modern infantry soldier seeing a ww2 marching order makes my back feel nice a modern ruck is vary low end 60lb to 80-110lb depending on your position in the company
Even between my 1st year June 02 and July 03, no plates to being issued plates. That was a big jump. Ironically we weren't universally issued plates until after we got back from OIF-I. I think a week or 2 before we invaded each rifle platoon were issued a dozen size medium plates and as long as they were all issued out it was by choice. So, the LT and most of the NCO's. I was a boot SAW gunner and I was 5'11 117lbs so I wore a x-small flak that the plates wouldn't fit into. I was pissed when I did get plates. I was still a SAW gunner a much stronger one by that time but even before I back to Iraq I was stationed in 29 Palms which was just as hot. Spare barrel for my M-249. Never did a barrel change in combat or a live fire range and back then if you were a grunt with 7th Marines you were running the 400 series ranges every month. Hell we only BZOed 1 barrel. We taught it but we only did it when competing against each other. 7lbs of pointless.
Idk if guys back then had laundry bags, but maybe stuffing all that crap that goes in the main compartment of the haversack in a laundry bag first then putting in there would work better...keep from loosing smaller items out of the bottom too. Great video!
When I was 8 years old, I started collecting WWII uniforms and equipment. An M1 helmet with liner was $5 at the surplus store... then again, WWII ended only 30 years by the time I was eight. My brother and I would head down to the surplus store every month with our allowance and money we made mowing lawns (yes, at eight I was mowing the neighbor's lawns).
Back then there was no actual market for military surplus as Vietnam had just ended a couple years prior. Most WWII surplus was just repurposed to use as cheap camping gear.
Had my brother and I known that there would be a market for milsurp from WWII we wouldn't have cut the uniforms down to fit our child-sized bodies, use US, British and German helmets as target practice for our .22 rifles. We had German gas masks, uniforms, sniper cammo, helmets and ammo pouches, belts, boots and bayonets from the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe along with tons of GI gear and US Marines gear from WWII.
Dad made us sell it all at a garage sale in the early to mid 80s as it was filling up boxes upon boxes in our garage.
If I still had half of what I owned back then I could easily outfitted a platoon of GIs and a few squads of Marines and maybe a squad of Wehrmacht (minus the weapons), but I did have a LOT of 30-06 machine gun links with spent casings. I bought them for fifty cents a pound (linked together with the spent casings).
Closing in on being a senior citizen now, I would love to be able to go back and buy out that surplus store and keep everything they offered in a climate-controlled storage unit. I bought some weird items, too that would have brought a pretty penny today. I didn't know a "Mae West" Mk1 life vests would be worth anything. I just used them to float around in my swimming pool.
The M1928 Haversack looks a right nause to use!
And I've used 1958 Pattern Britsh Military Webbing in my youth - that was bad enough!
You do a good job narrating this show.
That’s an interesting question about the musette bag. Ether my grandfather was lucky and was issued one or he somehow traded for a musette bag, because he was always a private. Same goes with the assault vest. I think he just used it for his geology hobby.
Humans are hoarders and collectors by nature. If we have an empty space like a pocket or a bag, we tend to want to fill it.
We never wore our chinstrap when I was in 78-82. The only time we did was when we had to do a parade formation and do a pass in review for things like a change in command ceremony.
By The 1st Battle of Fallujah I quit blousing my boots, wearing my chin strap, and started wearing only white socks.
Great video!
Oh yeah next episode on the most liked equipment is a good idea, i'd love to hear about that :)
Former paratrooper and they improved things completely
Maybe the haversack was to discourage looting 🤣🤣🤣
In the Army's FM 21-150 Chapter 7 for Sentry Removal it is actually taught to break a sentry's neck with a helmet secured with a chin strap. That FM is dated 1992.
Also the same FM 21-150 dated 1954 chapter 5 'Silencing Sentries' shows a similar technique
Well, I was actually in the U.S. Navy from 1976 to 1984, and we wore helmets when we manned the guns and even in the Navy we were told not to use the straps on the helmets.
This video was great, I always like hearing about what we didn't like as far as gear went in the past, because it really just lets people have an appreciation for what we use now, and why it works the way it does.
As for gear people DID like, could you do a Small Arms of U.S. Soldiers overview video? I know there are a few videos of each one individually, but an overall video comparing and contrasting the guns among their peers and the general reception of said weapons would be amazing.
Hey can you do a vid on the m1 carbine behind you pls ! I’m a big fan ! Greets from Belgium 🇧🇪
M1928 haversack mentioned. M1941 haversack superiority intensifies
I love your historical knowledge. Keep it up
I wanna see the “Most Loved/Liked” pieces of kit list!
I got to fleet just as the intercepter vest and molle gear was new issue fresh out the packaging. Some general never stopped to think that straight leg grunts wouldn't need to wear a MOLLE assault vest since we never went in the field without our flak jackets which had just as many slots as the vest. It wasn't until mid February 2003, a month before we invaded Iraq that someone realized that we could attach all our pouches to our flaks and not have to worry about the assault vest cutting into your neck or accidentally losing some pouch because you couldn't feel it directly attached to you. And I love this video. I got out in September 2005 and loss touch with my Marines, so I will be using this chance to do what grunts do best and bitch about every worthless piece of junk gear I was ever issued. Game on!
My grandpa told me the life jackets they were issued on the transport ship to North Africa didn’t float-found this out after they discarded them once they were safely off the ship
*angrily pounding my fork and knife on the table* I NEED MORE!
Battle vests - nice illustration of them depicted in Saving Private Ryan. Soldiers of the 3rd Canadian Div wore Commonwealth battle vests on D Day. I'm not sure if they all used them or just a selection.
I've often wondered about the packs used in Kelly's Heroes. They seem pretty unique to me.
Great job! I think it should also be noted that the helmet-straps-ripping-your-head-off thing dates back to at least the early days of WWI, where all western armies had a version of the myth. From what I've been able to learn, there is very little factual information to suggest that any of this was true, but as we all know, once the men get attached to an idea, it takes on a life of its own.
Interestingly, there also seems to be enough evidence to suggest that Russian troops, who did not generally have steel helmets as part of their kit, suffered notably more head injuries as a result, especially from artillery shrapnel, which, in effect, suggests that the opposite of this strap myth is actually true.
The US T5 parachute also had a faster and harder opening. Thus the US paratroopers would jump at a lower altitude. The harder opening shock probably helped more as the prop blast. (Unless they were flying too fast, what also happend.) As the British also the c47, prop blast was the same. The lower altitude also meant, if the bag was still on their legs, that they also had less time to lower them. The T5 also took more time to release, so during a waterlanding it was more dangerous.
I feel, like other armies, the idea of haversack was to have a buddy get stuff out for you vs taking it all off to get at it although the haversack design doesn't make that easy at least once you get away from the meat pouch, shovel or bayonet.
I just noticed your m1 carbine has a Bayonet lug woops! lol
HOLY FCK! That was a good joke and legendary burn on Lewis C.K.!....😂
Interstingly there is an account by a Japanese medic which says that they pretty much believed the same thing about their helmet straps, though i doubt it was as widespread as in the US army
I know everyone hates the Assault Vest, but personally I love it. It makes my DDay Impressions stand out in the sea of M28 Haversacks
Good job, Kid. Terrific presentation!! Ax
I know guys in the military who’ve said the modern helmet’s chin would snap your neck if you were shot in the head, forgetting the bullet and that most issued helmets aren’t really rated for rifle bullets.
My dad was in the Army in the mid-50's and he believed the chinstrap story. I remember him telling me about how a blast would break your neck. Seems like his training would have taught him better.
When I was in the Marines in 1974 thru 1978, we were taught to keep everything all of our 782 or "Deuce" gear (including pack, canteen, poncho, ammo pouch, etc.) unhooked and unbuttoned in case our AAV sunk or choppers went down into water. I always thought this was an EXCELLENT idea.
Is that the candy man Russell Stover? If so, that's amazing.
Was ÇC2 later sold as a rustproofing agent?
Sprayed inside hollow steel sections and leave them coated with a thick layer of wax.
I have a 1945 combat and field pack that replaced the 1944 version and were used in the Korean war. I use it to carry my fishing gear. Both the combat and field pack were new old stock. It seemed like the military got the packs right by that time.
I spend a lot of time botching about the issued mainpack. It makes no sense to carry such a heavy pack with a plastic frame, and that's why most marines wind up buying an old Alice frame.
31:28: Yes please.
Why download World of Warships when you can enlist in the United States Marine Corps?
I prefer the navy
Because theres not enough crayons to eat for everyone who plays World of Warships.
Rah
I enjoyed much of my Navy enlistment. Of course there were some downsides.
Nioj eht yvan
Seeing these makes certain I will never gripe about purses or underwire bras…ever.
The water and the helmet part was for the marines when they were loading into their LVTS, if they slipped and fell off the cargo nets with a strapped helmet, it would do its damage to the wearer
Wow that haversack is BOOTY compared to the ones the marines used. Throughout the war it didnt really change until late when the roll top was introduced, it could be made to combine with the belt and suspenders or be its own separate bag, theyre super compact, even cute! 🥺