Get the Bugs Out

Submitted by Eric Daniel

No one these days thinks much about potable water in the field.  When I was in Iraq in 04-05 we had a blivet farm on-site with 250,000 gallons of fresh water on hand, not to mention pallets of bottled water every 100 feet. 

Back in the “old” days though, drinking water was not a sure thing.  During the ’91 Gulf War, before the shooting started, our fresh water came in the form of a hyper chlorinated 400 gallon water buffalo delivered every week.  There was so much chlorine in the tank that you couldn’t consume the water until seven days past the fill date, to give the chemical a chance to evaporate.  Some days we’d get an early “drop” and have to stare at the buffalo for a couple of days while we waited for the born on date to expire before we could drink it (though before that time it was great as wash water.) Once the shooting started though, you were down to drinking out of your jerry cans.

Those days, however, are long gone.  Nowadays, folk drink their water out of a bottle, and before every mission they’ll toss a couple cases of the “good” stuff in their vehicle and head outside the wire (by the way, if your unit is one of those who opts for the 5-gallon jerry cans filled with bulk water, that’s great, and I’m not bagging on those units that did that.  All I’m saying is the units I worked with didn’t do it.)

Unfortunately, I think this is a bad practice to get into.  As soldiers, we can’t always rely on mountains of bottled water everywhere to meet our needs.  There may come a time when you’re going to be out and about and you’re going to have to make your own water, the old fashioned way.

To this end, I have taken to packing a portable water filtering pump.  My choice is the MSR Miniworks EX water filter.  Hand operated, the EX will filter 1 liter/min, and with a combination of charcoal/ceramic filter element, the EX can be cleaned and maintained for years of field service (there are no accessory parts to pack and it does not require tools for field stripping.)

The EX filter will strip out anything larger than .2 microns, which accounts for most bugs like crypto and giardia, as well as particulates (sand, rocks, etc…)

A word of caution though, the EX IS NOT a purification system.  It will not kill viruses, and it will not sterilize the water.  If you’re going to use the EX to filter drinking water, I’d also suggest you use a secondary means of actual purification, such as boiling or iodine (or their equivalent) pills.

Despite this limitation I still prefer the EX over total purification systems.  Purifiers typically require the addition of a chemical agent to purify the water, and are not designed to operate without it, so if you lose (or run out of) the chemical, the purifier becomes dead weight.  At 16 oz. the EX is also fairly light and easily packed.

Check out the MSR Miniworks EX here.

Have Coffee, Will Travel

Submitted by Eric Daniel

Ok, here’s the situation.  You’re a coffee junkie who happens to be a NASA astronaut, not to mention having a doctorate in chemical engineering, trapped in a weightless environment where the lack of gravity makes it impossible to enjoy that mandatory cup of joe in the morning.

Solution?  Fabricate yourself a zero-g coffee cup out of a piece of overhead plastic from your handy dandy shuttle flight data file book, which is exactly what NASA astronaut and engineer Dr. Donald Pettit did.

The problem in space is that, with a lack of gravity, there’s no way to draw the liquid out of the cup (if you think about it, one normally brings the cup up to the mouth and tilts it to either “pour” the liquid into the mouth, or in the case of hot fluids, such as coffee, bring the surface of the liquid close to the mouth where it can be sipped.)  In space, no matter how you tilt the cup, the liquid is not coming out.  This is why astronauts have traditionally consumed fluids from pouches, using straws to draw the liquid out.

Well, Dr. Pettit, having worked with Los Alamos labs on a variety of experiments, including reduced gravity fluid flow and problems in detonation physics (yes, he’s a rocket scientist) applied the same technological concepts to his coffee cup design that rocket designers do to their zero-g fuel tanks.  Zero-g fuel tanks are shaped like a traditional aircraft wing (airfoil), with a large rounded edge (the leading edge) and a sharp angle on the other (trailing) edge.  As Dr. Pettit explains in this video, “If the angle (of the trailing edge of the airfoil “cup”) is less than 2 x (90-contact wetting angle), then the fluid will be drawn up out of the coffee ( by wicking action created by the interaction between the fluid and the angled surface of the cup.)  This will allow you to sip, not suck, a fluid out of the cup as the wicking action will continue to draw more fluid up from the bottom of the cup.

Granted, this little discovery isn’t on the same order of criticality as the “Franken-filter” NASA engineers had to come up with for the lithium hydroxide CO2 scrubbers on the Apollo 13 lunar module, but it’s still pretty slick.

Nick's Hot Shots

Submitted by Ernie Wells

I have been doing wildland fire for 14 seasons and I have to agree that a quality pair of boots goes a long ways. I wear a pair made by a company called "Nicks" and will never buy another pair of boots off the shelf again. I am going to get a pair made to wear with the new Navy working uniform.

ED – Ernie, I assume the Nick’s you’re referring to come from Nick’s Custom Boots, out of Spokane, WA. 

The wildland boot they offer, the Hot Shot, is fully NFPA 1977 compliant.  It’s of all-leather construction, available in five “sizes” (8”, 10”, 12”, 14”, and 16” tops, though NFPA requires boots with at least 10” tops), features rebuildable welt construction, and can be ordered in two styles; traditional, and lace to toe.

In checking out their website I came across an interesting photo (the one shown above.)  One issue that many folk complain of with boots of this nature is the “bite” that occurs on your instep.  We referred to this as “white bite” and accepted it as the price you paid for wearing the boots.  Well, according to Nick’s, if you follow the lacing pattern featured here, which they describe as the 2-1-3 pattern, you will eliminate the bite issue.  In addition, they also offer an interesting take on boot break in, which I’ve never heard of, but I think I’ll give it a go with my next pair of boots.

Get a pair of Nick's here

Combat Information Management

Submitted by Eric Daniel

One of the side effects of my participation in the 1991 Canadian Army Trophy (CAT) tank gunnery competition was I became a voracious note taker.  Between logging boresight data, referencing range maps, and plotting positions, my gunner’s station became cluttered with paperwork. 

My solution to this was to employ an aviator’s kneeboard.  Used by pilots to keep vital information organized and close at hand, a kneeboard is essentially a small notebook strapped to your thigh.  Kneeboard styles run the full spectrum, from the simple, single panel clipboard, to the extravagant tri-fold design with built in fuel management calculator. 

The one I opted for was large and simple.  It was a tri-fold design, meaning it had a central panel with a rigid aluminum plate in it to serve as a writing surface, along with flap pockets on either side for storage.  The left hand flap was a zippered compartment which could hold note cards, casualty feeder cards, my artillery protractor and what not, while the right hand flap was faced with a piece of clear plastic, which allowed me to insert a folded section of map, as well as apply graphic overlays on.  The kneeboard attached to my leg via a single velcro strap, and was easily removed.

While I have since moved on to a custom built one (those crafty folk in Korea can make anything) in looking at what’s out there now, if I had to pick again, I’d go with something along the lines of either the ASA tri-fold, in either the standard or long board configuration.  Both are simple, rugged, have all the features I was interested in, and are cheap (the long board will run you about $32.)

Check out ASA kneeboards here

Sailing the Sandy Seas

Submitted by Eric Daniel

For those of you who were ever on the M60 series of tank, one of the nifty features it had was a built in compass.  While this might not seem like a big deal, it did offer you the ability to navigate on the fly (with a conventional compass you’d have to stop the tank, dismount, get away from all the metal, and shoot an azimuth, not exactly the most streamlined of processes.)

This feature, regrettably, was omitted from the M1 series, as well as not appearing on humvees (funny thing that, not giving scouts a built-in compass.)  Our solution to this dilemma was to install a “boat” style compass behind the GPS doghouse (right next to the weather station.)  The compass wasn’t fancy, it only ran us about $25, but it was illuminated, fluid stabilized, and weatherproof. 

The neat thing about boat compasses is they can be tuned.  Watercraft generate their own magnetic fields, which needs to be compensated for, not to mention the variations in the local magnetic field, and so by using one of these compasses we were able to zero out the magnetic influence of the tank, as well as compensate for the local variations.  The large viewing area of compass made it easy to read through the FUP (Forward Unity Periscope) and the fluid dampening prevented the compass ball from flailing about uncontrollably as we went cross country.

That was 15+ years ago.  I know there are all sorts of high speed navigation systems out there both military (Blue Force Tracker et. al.) and civilian (I own a GPS now) but I still like to carry a compass as a backup (the Earth has never let me down.)  Boat compasses, also have evolved greatly.  The top end ones now include GPS as well as other navigational features, but the base line model still does the trick for me.  The Ritchie D-55 Explorer, for example, is fluid stabilized, internally illuminated (the night light is low visibility green) and can be configured for either 12 or 24 volt operation (you can wire it into your dome light controls.)  It’s got internal dampers and field compensation controls for stability and accuracy, and a detachable base so you can remove it for storage (since the base is flat you can Velcro the unit to the top of the turret, the dash, where ever.)

Check out the Ritchie D-55 Explorer here