If it ain’t Rainin’ we ain’t Trainin’

 

Submitted by Eric Daniel

Had an interesting experience the other day.  My Guard unit went out for a three day jaunt into the wilds of Camp Pendleton to conduct some dismounted reconnaissance training.  Now, granted, we were technically “on base” but since we’re a leg unit, we have to support ourselves; no barracks, no latrines, no water sources, etc.  We were responsible for everything.

With this in mind, when I started to pack my kit, I had to pause for a minute to think about what I was going to do for some form of shelter.  That’s when it dawned on me that the Army really hasn’t advanced past the WWII era canvas shelter half when it comes to individual shelters.  Yes, they have great and wonderful expanding and self-erecting medium sized tents, which weigh 300 pounds and fit nicely in the back of a 1.25-ton trailer, but there’s nothing for the individual.

Now I’ve heard all the arguments about this before, “you can’t use a tent in combat” and  “you just need to use what’s available to you in the field, namely, use brush and trees or dig out a shelter” being the most often cited ones, but we’re not talking combat here, we’re talking bivouacking in the field.  Moreover, on most bases where you conduct training, chopping up the flora or digging in the ground is strictly verboten, so those really aren’t options.  The bottom line is, if you’re going to be out in the field for longer than a couple of days in really crappy weather, it’d be nice, tactical situation permitting of course, to have the ability to get out of the rain. Those gortex bivy sacks we’re issued now are nice for snow or a light drizzle, but in an out and out downpour you really can’t get into it fast enough to prevent the sleeping bag from filling with water, and that’s assuming that you jump in with all your wet clothes on.  In those situations, you’re probably better off just putting on your wet weather gear and trying to sleep through it.

So, I started doing a little research.  There are a number of companies out there that make good, ultra light, 1-man tents.  Unfortunately, most of those are alpine supply companies like MSR, The North Face, and Mountain Hardware and their products tend to be a bit, well, colorful (now this is not to say that these folk wouldn’t make one of their tents in a different color fabric as a custom order job, but that’s probably not a realistic option for the Joe looking to purchase one tent) and have a lot of parts.  In fact, the only company I found that made an honest-to-God military style tent was Eureka, who makes both 1-man and 2-man systems, with a reversible woodland/desert camouflage pattern rain fly to boot (as an added bonus you can opt to just use the rain fly as a stand alone shelter if you don’t need the additional wind protection.)  The only downside to the Eureka tent is weight; the one man tent, complete, weighs just over 6 pounds, though it is certainly something you could spent your entire military career sleeping out of.

Another interesting option, and certainly one of significant weight savings, was to go the engineered tarp route.  The folks over at Tarptent make some awesome, lightweight (18-oz. in the case of their 1-man shelter) shelters that are easy to set up, roomy, and keep the rain off of you, and the color is even reasonably tactical.  In addition, they also provide, free of charge and publically available on their website, the plans to build your own first generation tarptent out of what ever material you choose.

So my solution?  I snapped a couple of ponchos together, brought some bungees, 550 cord, and a handful of lightweight aluminum tent pins and lashed a lean-to to a tree limb and slept like a brick through two straight nights of continuous rain.  Granted it got the job done but I was completely dependent upon that tree being there for me to tie off on.  In the future I might have to look seriously into either some shock tubes I can erect to create a free standing dome for my ponchos one of those tarptents.

Shure SE110 Sound Isolating Earphones

 

Submitted by Tom Weber

I have had a set of Shure E2c Headphones for four or five years now and they are the best portable music accessory I have ever owned. I prefer their earpieces to the softer ones used on the Bose in-ear models. They came with a handful of different sized ear pieces to give a semi custom fit. The ones I found best for sound isolation were the orange compression foam version. The sound quality is excellent and I have found that I get better battery life out of my iPod since I don't have to turn the volume up as high to compete with outside noise. The cord is shielded with some nylon braiding and they came with a handy little zippered pouch that will go in a pocket or be clipped inside a bag. Shure now make an updated model called the SE 110. The assortment of earpieces is a little smaller, but still gives a good range of fits, the cord is still braided, but now made as a modular unit for use with remote controls. And as a bonus, there is a microphone adapter available, allowing you to use it as a complete hands free kit for any phone/PDA with a 3.5mm jack.

Check out the Shure SE110 earphones here.

Kenton Tuned Trajectory Compensator Turrets

 

Submitted by Dave

Those of you that don't use a Leupold scope aren't left in the cold, either. Kenton Industries makes custom turrets, (including windage turrets!), for many scopes.

ED – Dave, good call.  I came across the Kenton Tuned Trajectory Compensator turrets while looking up information on the Leupold ones.  As you mentioned, they offer turrets in several styles and for numerous manufacturers (Kenton listed Burris, Leupold, Mueller, Nightforce, Shmidt & Bender, Tasco, Zeiss, Bausch & Lomb, Simmons, Nikon, and Weaver.)

As with the Leupold turrets, when ordering from Kenton, you’ll need to provide some ballistic data; muzzle velocity, barrel length, average air temp, altitude and barometric pressure, as well as the ballistic coefficient.  From there you pick the style of turret you want, the incremental display preference, and any other information you want displayed.  In addition, Kenton will do a completely custom turret for personal handloads.

Check out the Kenton TTC turret line up here.

Leupold Custom Bullet Drop Scope Turrets

  

Submitted by Eric Daniel

As I mentioned previously, my solution for storing ballistic data for my M-14 was to write it on the retractable tape.  While I was thoroughly satisfied with the performance of the Leupold retractable tape, I was always on the lookout for something easier (if such a thing could be found.)

Well, as fortune would have it, not long after I left Iraq, Leupold came out with custom engraved turrets for rifle scopes.  Tell Leupold what cartridge you’re shooting, the bullet weight, bullet type, ballistic coefficient, muzzle velocity, average air temp and altitude you’re shooting at, and they’ll cut you a turret for your scope with range ticks on it, saving you the trouble of having to count the clicks yourself (you just rotate the turret to the desired range and you’re good to go.)  What I like about these is they eleminate the influence of battlefield stress on the situation.  You don't have to go through the process of counting clicks, which, with the .25MOA M1 turrets could be time consuming

Leupold can engrave the information on a variety of turrets, so you can select the ones that best work for you.  In addition, as in my case, you can have different turrets made for the different bullets that you’re shooting and just swap out the turrets as required (just remember to have your scope set to zero before you swap the turrets out since what is the 600m setting on M118LR will not be the same setting for 600m M80.)

Check out the Leupold Custom Shop here.

Tale of the Tape: Leupold's Retracting Chart

  

Submitted by Eric Daniel

Back in 2004 when I glommed onto that M-14, I was confronted, for the first time, with having to do my own bullet drop calculations.  While, as a tanker, I was quite familiar with the concept of ballistics, until now ballistic solutions had always been calculated by the fire control computer; in the end all I had to do was get a valid range and keep the dot on the target.  What I needed now was a ballistic table I could reference to tell me how many clicks I needed to adjust my scope for what ever range I’m shooting at, preferably one with some modicum of durability so that I didn’t have to keep re-inventing the wheel every time I went out (i.e no index cards in the pocket.)

What I settled on was a spring loaded tape device from Leupold which attached directly to the scope.  Essentially a very small metallic strip in a spring loaded housing, the tape was durable, compact, and reliable.  White in color, it was easy enough for me to list ballistic data for the three rounds I had access to (M80, M118LR, and M 728) for all the ranges I expected to shoot at.  Moreover, since I could write the information down with an alcohol pen, it was easy enough for me to wipe it down and change the data if I ever started using different rounds.

Granted, I only had enough room to list my data in 100m increments (while the iPod application will break it down into 50m increments) and there were no automatic calculations for windage, target motion, or shooter-target angle. But then mine didn’t cost $400 or run on batteries either.  More over, the tape wasn’t exactly NOD compatible, but at night I was using an AN/PVS-4 scope, which had its own built in BDC reticle, so it wasn’t a big deal.  At the end of the day though, what I had was a fully mission capable (at least for me it was) cheat sheet that allowed me to quickly reference range data.

Check out the Leupold retractable tape here.
 

Knight's Armament Bullet Flight

 

Submitted by Eric Daniel

I saw a blurb on this over at Defense Tech, and though it was worth making mention of it here. 

Bullet Flight is a BDC (bullet drop calculator) application for the iPhone and the iPod Touch.  Bullet Flight allows you to input projectile characteristics and store these parameters as discrete profiles for specific weapons and bullets (for example, you can save data as, M24-M118LR, M24-M118, M24-M80, etc.)

Based on the profile you select you enter a number of variables, including target range, air temp, air pressure, shooter/target angle, altitude, wind speed and direction.  Once all your numbers are in, the program calculates your windage and elevation corrections and displays these corrections for you as “clicks”; you don’t need to do the MOA/range math in your head to figure out what you input, the program just tells you up or down so many clicks, and you’re set.

On its face, I thought this sounded like a pretty cool tool – for the spotter.  While there’s no denying that this looks like to be a pretty useful tool (I’ll tell you up front now, I’ve not used this app, but comparing the attention to detail involved with it to what I used to do boresighting an M1A1 tank, it looks like they’ve thought of everything), looking at how KAC has it mounted (on the LH side of an M110 receiver) it looks like a sensory distracter.  The shooter should be focused on the target, not the iPod (I had similar issues when urban fire truck manufacturers started offering text generating heads up displays for the Engineers (drivers) to provide them with additional information on the fire they’re going to.  Additional information is great, but it needs to go to the engine Captain (sitting in the passenger seat) who can relay pertinent information to the driver, so that he can focus on driving.)

Beyond being a sensory distracter for the shooter, I’d be concerned about the device staying attached to the rifle; while it’s mounted on a throw arm rail mount for rapid attachment, the mount itself is hinged so that the iPod can flip in and out for the shooter to read the data, but will it stay “in” all the time, or will it flip out to snag on terrain, helicopter/humvee doors, and the like? Again, this isn’t a big deal if you keep the device in your pocket.

Also, is the unit NVG compatible?  It would suck if some sniper hidden on a hillside blew his cover by lighting up the back forty with his iPod just to get a firing solution.  Something else to ponder is the fact that the iPod Touch runs on an internal battery charge (6-36 hour continuous operation life span) so you either have to plug it into a USB compatible computer, wall unit, or solar charger to keep it running for any length of time.

Finally, there is the cost.  At $11.99, the application itself is the cheapest component in the entire system.  The iPod Touch starts at $229, the Otterbox armored box for the Touch is $49.95 (note, the app will run on either the iPhone or the iPod Touch, but Otterbox only provides a sealed environment armored case for the gen 1 and 2 iPod Touches) so out the door, this program is going to cost you almost $300 (not including battery charger source or the qd throw arm rail, I wasn’t able to find it listed on either the KAC or Otterbox websites.)

All told, at the end of the day you have what appears to be a pretty slick tool for sniper teams in the field, but it comes with a price tag and possibly some tactical limitations as well.

Check out the KAC Bullet Flight app. here.