The concept of having a small pouch dedicated to the carrying of a first field dressing came to the Australian Army from the US in the Vietnam war. When the new 1988 pattern webbing set was being designed, this feature was carried over and small pouches suitable for carrying a dressing were incorporated into the new design, but produced in the Auscam pattern of fabric:
This small pouch is just a pocket with a top flap secured with a press stud:
Two different positions are provided for securing this flap dependent on whether there is a dressing inside the pouch or not:
The rear of the pouch has provision for two plastic locking bars:
These bars have featured a number of times over the last few weeks, but deserve closer inspection. Each bar is a stiff piece of olive green plastic with a pair of wedges on the top edge and little spikes along the inside to grip on the webbing it is securing:
When pressed together sideways the two wedges lock together and can only be undone with a pair of pliers and a lot of effort!
The dressing pouch can be worn in a variety of different places, it often seen on the shoulder straps of the webbing set, but in this instance, mine is attached to the side of one of the Minimi pouches:
Like the other components in the set, this piece was manufactured in 2010 by Wise Pearl Ltd and has an NSN number and /|\ mark stamped onto the underside of the top flap:
This is actually the second type of this pouch. The first was smaller, the same dimensions as the original green Case, FAD. The Field Dressings issued at the time simply wouldn’t fit into them.
This Case is larger to accept the dressing with the second snap being so that the lid would close tighter allowing smaller items (compasses etc) to be secured. The two Alice type clips on the rear made them more stable when attached to the suspenders, belt or pouches.
Thanks Darren, I hadn’t realised there were two variations.