Part of the Osprey Mk II and Mk III body armour set included a pouch holding a helmet bag. The helmet bag is designed to give a soldier a safe place to stow his helmet when it is not needed, somewhere it will be secure, out of the way but easy to access if it needs to be quickly donned. A lot of troops issued with the PLCE sets used a climbers carabineer usually attached to one of the shoulder straps or the waist which was used to clip the Mk 6 helmet to. The Osprey system gave troops a dedicated bag for this and although I do not have the pouch it is stowed in, I do have the mesh bag:
The bag is designed to be large enough to fit a Mk 6 helmet in reasonably snuggly so that it doesn’t rattle around:
The neck of the back has a drawstring and an adjustable strap allows it to be attached to the Osprey system:
As well as the drawstring, two large Velcro panels are also provided to help secure the neck:
I am not sure how popular this helmet bag was in service as I have struggled to find much information on it, one thing I did find referenced was its use as a dump pouch for used magazines. In combat there often isn’t time to carefully stow used magazines away, but equally a soldier does not want to just drop them on the ground where they might get damaged, lost or stolen by the enemy. A dump bag is just an open bag that used magazines can be dropped into until there is a lull in combat when they can be put back into pouches. This large open mesh bag would probably be well suited to this role and would obviously not be needed for its primary purpose when contact with the enemy had been made.
My thanks got to Michael Whittaker for kindly letting me have this piece.
The front is covered with a set of PALS loops to attach pouches to:
The main feature of the side plate carrier is a large pocket that a ballistic plate can be slid into:
This is secured by a Velcroed flap. The rear of the panel has a set of straps to attach it to the rest of the vest:
A small label indicates stores details:
Interestingly the Osprey manual does not list these side plate carriers at all, instead just showing the larger cummerbunds that wrap entirely around the wearer’s body. This is a smaller and lighter alternative that just adds the plates to the side and was introduced as part of a mid life upgrade of the Osprey Mk IV to Mk IVA standard and allows the front ops panel to be retained whilst flank armour is worn.
The aircrew modular vest was developed by Beaufort to combine body armour with a life vest and give aircrew places to attach pieces of equipment such as holsters and pouches for escape and evasion purposes. The images from the company’s brochure show the features of the vest:
The holster can be seen on the right of the image. The holster is designed to carry a 9mm military automatic and a spare magazine. Here it is with a Browning Hi-Power:
A strap goes over the backstrap of the pistol to hold it secure, held in place with a lift the dot style fastener:
The spare magazine is held in a separate pouch on the front secured by a tape and press-stud:
The holster is made from soft cotton rather than the Cordua nylon most military equipment is today. The bottom of the holster includes padding sewn inside the fabric to help protect the muzzle of the pistol and to protect the wearer from the front sight of the automatic:
The back of the holster has a pair of heavy duty nylon MOLLE straps to allow the holster to be attached to the rest of the vest:
In this case it has been taped up with sniper tape to make a belt loop to allow the holster to be worn there rather than on the vest. The back of the holster has a sewn in label indicating it is made by Beaufort and is a ‘holster pocket’:
Although a well thought out system, the aircrew modular vest was not hugely popular as it was felt to be a bit delicate compared to other webbing out there and many aircrew dropped it in favour of other designs. This example is in Desert DPM fabric but it was also produced in standard DPM and in the newer MTP fabric. It is an unusual piece as far smaller quantities of aircrew equipment are procured when compared to standard infantry webbing so this is a nice addition to the collection.
This is made from woven nylon tape, printed in MTP camouflage, with a press stud fitting to allow it to be made into a loop:
This is passed through the MOLLE straps on the chest of the armour cover to allow a rank slide to be worn if the commander’s pouch is not used. Despite its simplicity, the manufacturers felt it worthy of inclusion in the instructions that accompanied the Osprey Mk IV armour:
Quite why this warranted a full page of pictorial instructions is beyond me, however one must never forget that some squaddies are not the brightest in the bunch and without clear instructions could possibly fail to understand the strap’s purpose! I apologise for this post being so short, but there is really very little to say about this one…
This change of fabric was presumably to give extra strength on a thin top flap that would otherwise be in danger of breaking if the more standard fabric had been used. The large top flap covers the base of the magazine and is secured with a large Velcro fastening to make it harder for the pouch to be accidently opened:
The magazine itself slides inside to make a secure fit, but one that allows it to be easily withdrawn:
The magazine used here is for a Browning Hi-Power, in service more modern magazines would have been carried, but this is the only double stack pistol magazine I have access to and illustrates the concept just fine.
The weight of even a full pistol magazine is negligible so one strap would be more than adequate. Under the strap is the standard Osprey label, printed on fabric and sewn to the rear of the pouch:
These pouches were not only used for carrying pistol magazines, but also occasionally saw service on operations to carry morphine syringes in a safe and secure pouch that allowed easy access in case of emergency. Although not what the designers had originally envisaged this sort of adaptation is typical of how soldiers use equipment when deployed on active service and this seems a very sensible secondary use for the pouch.
The lid is secured with both a tan plastic Fastex clip:
And a piece of Velcro to ensure the grenade does not come out accidently:
As with all these pouches, a pair of heavy duty straps are fitted to the rear to allow it to be attached using the MOLLE system:
And a small label is sewn to the bottom rear of the pouch with stores numbers on:
This is just a quick post this week as there is very little to say about this pouch that hasn’t been covered in other posts, however it has been included for completeness and to help make this series a useful reference to those researching the Osprey Mk IV.
A top strap goes over the back of the pistol and secures the gun into the holster with a simple press stud:
A plastic adjustment buckle is fitted to the rear of this strap to allow it to be tightened to hold different weapons effectively. The holster is designed to be used with the MOLLE straps and PALS loops of the Osprey system so two straps are fitted to the rear:
There is one long and one shorter strap to conform with the shape of the rear of the holster. Beneath these is a series of loops that allow the straps to be interwoven with the straps on the Osprey vest to allow a secure fit:
A label is sewn to the rear as well and indicates that this holster was manufactured in 2011:
Interestingly the design of holster is open at the bottom, leaving the muzzle of the pistol exposed:
This seems an odd choice for a piece of kit designed to be used in the desert where there is a high likelihood of dirt and dust getting into the muzzle of the gun. I suspect though that it was felt that gravity would remove most traces of debris that entered the barrel and it was better to allow it to fall away than leave it in the bottom of a holster where it would gather and could start abrading the weapon or turning into an abrasive paste with the oil coming off of the weapon.