Ruck Up

Submitted by Eric Daniel

Next to boots, the most important piece of kit you have on the fireline is your pack.  Your line gear is literally your home away from home.  Everything you need to survive the next 24-72 hours, not to mention save your life, needs to be in that pack.  At the same time, your line gear needs to be durable (firefighting is a rough and dirty business after all) as well as bearable (you’re going to be wearing it, after all, pretty much full time so it can’t be a back breaker.)

Unfortunately, as a firefighter “draftee” (i.e. Guardsman turned firefighter) the line gear you get issued leaves a lot to be desired.  Like the Alice packs of old, the FSS issued gear is functional, just not very ergonomical.  When I was a professional firefighter, the best gear I ever used was from Eagle.  In addition to being solidly built (all Eagle products carry a lifetime warranty) the Eagle packs also distribute weight well.  In addition to large, and thick, shoulder straps, the Eagle packs have padded waist belts, which allow you to distribute the weight between your shoulders and your hips (this also makes for a more secure load; the last thing you want is a pack flopping about on your back as you move up and down the fire line.)

The pack I originally used was the Eagle Warrior.  This is a front-loading pack (by front loading it has a large zippered flap on the “face” of the pack which exposes the whole pack when opened) that has room on the belt for four 1-liter canteens as well as “fusee” (road flare) loops for 8 flares (for doing burnouts.)  The pack I have now is the Eagle Commissioner.  The Commissioner is a top load pack, in that it lacks the large main zipper, and instead, is accessed from the top of the pack (the top is covered by a fold-over flap that is held in place with adjustable fastex clips.)  The advantage I see in the top loading over the front-loading is your pack isn’t deadlined if the zipper fails (not that eagle won’t repair the zipper mind you, but you’d have to send the pack in to get that done.)  The Commissioner also allows you to pack a “hydration system” (camelback bladder) which saves you from having to pack canteens, though I still carry two simply because they’re easier to fill, stream-side, than the bladder is.  The Commissioner also features a detachable main pack, which allows you to walk the line with just your fire shelter and canteens.  Finally, as with the Warrior pack, the Commissioner is pretty indestructible and it too carries the Eagle lifetime warranty.

Combat Weather Forecasting

Submitted by Eric Daniel

“All stations this net, this is Charlie Niner-Two, stand by for air temp and pressure update, over.”

In Armor, weather updates are a critical element to the tank’s fire control system.  While the FCS can automatically sample some data, such as wind speed, inclination, and turret traverse rate, it can’t tell what the ammunition temperature, air temperature, and barometric pressure are.  In these cases it’s up to the crew to manually enter this data.  In the case of ammunition temp, this is simply a matter of reading the temp off the ammunition temp gauge, but getting air temp and baro pressure require outside assistance.  In peacetime, this data can be had from the tower (C92) or the TOC, both of whom get the information from Range Control.

What do you do, though, if you’re in combat, on the attack, and there is no tower, and there is no range control?  In 1991 we learned that you “just run with it.”  The Army has published “fleet” values published in the back of the tank’s TM (Technical Manual) for baro pressure and temperature for given months of the year and regions of the globe.  Unfortunately, these values can be wildly off base.

Our solution was to invest $50 in a wall mounted “weather station” from the PX.  The three instrument “station” had a clock, a thermometer, and a barometer, all bolted to a wood plaque which, conveniently, fit right behind the GPS “doghouse” and was visible through the TC’s (tank commander) FUP (Forward Unity Periscope, the big vision block in the front of the TC’s cupola.)  With our handy dandy weather station we were able to enter in relatively accurate (the barometer was analogue while the FCC accepts inputs to the hundredths so some guesstimation was required) values for the air temp and pressure.

Well, times have changed, but the need for weather data has not.  Fortunately, advances in technology have made portable weather stations cheaper, more accurate, more durable, and with a number of features ours didn’t have.

The Coghlan’s wireless weather station, for example is completely weather resistant, driven by a lithium battery, and is capable of sampling air temp, air pressure, humidity, heat index, and it can make local weather forecasts based on the previous 8 hours of sampling data. If you put the base unit in the ammunition compartment (hang the remote sensor outside) you can use it as a back up ammunition temp sensor as well.

Another option is the La Crosse Intelligent Forecast Station.  This unit, in addition to the features offered by the Coghlan unit, is also capable of predicting frost, fog, and snow, as well as “real-time” weather forecasts based on a 12-hour data sample.  The La Crosse unit also keeps time through an Atomic clock signal receiver, which makes it’s time keeping extremely accurate.