My Collection- United States Army

[gi-rene]

The HBT Cap, fits nice and loose and you can even stick the brim to look like Sgt Rizzo from MASH. At the Front repro.

[gi-rene]

One of the biggest pains in the a** ever made....


In Detail:

[gi-rene]

My 10 pocket cartridge belt. It is an original and it shows. It is heavily faded and worn and a few of the nipples are pulling out of the canvas which makes them hard to open. I have purchased a replacement repro because it is more functional and I can stop tearing up a good one. You can see the empty Garand clips (can't keep ammo on base) and the pull tabs which denote this belt as a very early pre-war since those were made to enable a soldier to unbutton and pull up to get Springfield clips out.

[gi-rene]

The first aid pouch and packet. The tins were made in multitudes of ways. But this is a pretty common example. The field dressing is still inside along with probably very very bad sulfa... so throw that out but I can use the dressing in a pinch. It also makes a handy place to stick my business cards at public events and my earplugs at tacticals.

[gi-rene]

This is an original Mounted canteen cover. Exactly the same as the dismounted and all types of soldiers might have ended up with one. (latest re-enactor trend is that they are Airborne items, reason later). This is one I picked up at a gunshow to replace my dismounted original which had the wide strap in the middle tearing up on the canvas. The difference is that the two reinforcement straps are gone and the wide strip down the middle is much shorter, this thing flaps around alot which is why the damage didn't surprise me. They also both have the wool lining which keep water cool in hot weather.

[gi-rene]

A Canteen cup and how it sits in the cover. This is a '44 dated original and is fine minus the dings of use and such but the handle is a bit of a pain since the part that the slide slides down to lock it out is dented inwards. I can get one slid in to keep the handle out, otherwise I just hold the entire cup. The design is unchanged since the first of the designs (seen later) and the modern just has simplified skeleton handles.

[gi-rene]

An original canteen dated 1943, yet another unchanged design other than modern ones are plastic...

[cyberia]

Damn, gi-rene, this is great stuff. The pictures are sharp and large enough to see everything. Close up of the button was too cool.

Some of the gear would go great over in Non-Weapons Essentials!

[gi-rene]

These are the canteen and cup that came with my mounted cover. These are 1918 dated. They are obviously early because both are made from aluminum. I've heard debate on whether it is safe to drink from the canteen. It is made of aluminum but the solder is part lead. Some guys have these and haven't had a problem...

As for the key things. A mid-later canteen cup has a "sharp" edge, as you can see earlier models had a rolled lip. Also earlier canteens have a smooth appearance with solder on the side seams while later models have that edge 3/4 up.

[gi-rene]

Finally now that we are done touring the belt, lets move back to the pack. Starting with the "Meat Can" and "Meat Can Pouch". All are originals and the utensils and kit are dated 1944. The cool part is that they knew how to make man's spoons back then and I usually use it to eat cereal, its friggin huge!

Not too noticeable but the end tab pulled off and I used pliers to pop it open and then stuck the canvas back in and crimped it tight, but the strap itself is short and this will probably become another item I will eventually replace.