British Rain Cape - What era?

[Masonk]

Seems odd that it's original intended use was a ground cover. It has lapels and buttons to secure them around the soldiers neck. Also, I assumed the area where the soldiers left arm would go is wider to allow for holding and shooting a rifle. So for all intents and purposes, I would think it would be identified as a rain cape first and ground cover second.

You gentlemen on the other side of the pond would know better than I, though!

[Masonk]

HaHa!..it was years ago when i was in cadets.We had to string two of these together in the pouring rain trying to get something approaching sleep to be woken up at about 4 in the morning by real soldiers doing an exercise with blank firers!Then back to the camp to have our breakfast spat in by the cooks.Happy days.

I'm not sure what is worse; getting drenched because of crappy equipment or the spat in food! With the scouts, we cooked our own food so at least I can say it wasn't seosoned with spit. Although, I can say some of the meals we cooked were questionable. A bunch of 11-16 year olds shopping for and preparing their own food. It was edible, but still....

[Battery Command Post]

Seems odd that it's origami intended use was a ground cover. It has lapels and buttons to secure the around the soldiers neck. Also, I assumed the area where the soldiers left arm would go is wider to allow for holding and shooting a rifle. So for all intents and purposes, I would think it would be identified as a rain cape first and ground cover second.

You gentlemen on the other side of the pond would know better than I, though!

Yes it is an odd piece of equipment by any standards. In it's original format, it was just a rectangular groundsheet, with the extra piece, buttons and collar being added somewhere around 1917, I believe. I would assume this came from soldiers using the sheet as a waterproof in the trenches.

Rob

[Adrian Stevenson]

I thought that I would show my wartime 1944 dated example. Bought out of the £1 pile at Anchor Surplus.

Cheers, Ade.

[davejb]

Ive still got two of my "ponchos come groundsheets" from my two sets of 58 webbing, i used to get wetter inside them than out, they always leaked from the seams, even the rubberised camo two piece waterproofs leaked and were bloody cold to wear