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Wound dressings, Mk2 helmets & nets

Article about: I’ve started this Thread to ensure the topic isn’t lost in another loosely linked topic

  1. #11

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    Canadian medic
    Attached Images Attached Images Wound dressings, Mk2 helmets & nets 
    Regards,

    Jerry

    Whatever its just an opinion.

  2. #12

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    This is one I have in my collection with net and first field dressing. The net is very tight, almost stuck to the helmet in places; rust bleeds through onto the net. Some damage to the net in places you would expect - top and rim.

    Whether that dressing has always been there - will never know. It would be good to add more examples here, especially any with provenance?

    Wound dressings, Mk2 helmets & nets


    Wound dressings, Mk2 helmets & nets


    Wound dressings, Mk2 helmets & nets


    Wound dressings, Mk2 helmets & nets


    Wound dressings, Mk2 helmets & nets

  3. #13

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    With 58 Pattern webbing the First Field dressing was always either on the shoulder strap or belt. The shoulder strap used was always the opposite one to the soldiers dominant side so as not to interfere with the firing of the personal weapon.

    One fact hammered into you as a soldier was that the first field dressing held a pint of blood, this was an indicator as depending how many has been soaked through would indicate how much loss the injured person had suffered and what action might be needed. The other first field dressing lessons were never use your own dressing on someone else, you might need it later! And that the cover was rubberised so as to be capable of being placed on a sucking chest wound to stop the ingress of dirt or contamination or air escaping.

    The best use for the first field dressing was to get a spare one, open it up and put the safety pins inside you breast pocket, (for just in case use) and put the dressing in your Mk4 helmet as extra padding to actually make it comfortable!

  4. #14

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    Quote by vegetius View Post
    With 58 Pattern webbing the First Field dressing was always either on the shoulder strap or belt. The shoulder strap used was always the opposite one to the soldiers dominant side so as not to interfere with the firing of the personal weapon.

    One fact hammered into you as a soldier was that the first field dressing held a pint of blood, this was an indicator as depending how many has been soaked through would indicate how much loss the injured person had suffered and what action might be needed. The other first field dressing lessons were never use your own dressing on someone else, you might need it later! And that the cover was rubberised so as to be capable of being placed on a sucking chest wound to stop the ingress of dirt or contamination or air escaping.

    The best use for the first field dressing was to get a spare one, open it up and put the safety pins inside you breast pocket, (for just in case use) and put the dressing in your Mk4 helmet as extra padding to actually make it comfortable!
    I agree entirely and whilst the original topic subject is the field dressing on the Mk2 (plenty of Mk3 examples here already) this is a useful adjucnt to the discussion of why it was so positioned.

    THE main point is ease of access not for the casualty but for anyone coming to his aid. The location will always differ according to formation or even down to unit policy but it will always be standard amongst a particular group. It doesn't help if you have to look for it in a crisis!

    Certainly during my time the FD was never attached to a helmet but as Rod says, to the webbing.
    Your helmet might come off but your webbing would be very unlikely to do so unless you were so mashed up that all the FD in the world would be no help. So, the obvious place was on the shoulder of the webbing yoke. The favoured means of attachment was always army issue black masking tape (aka Black Nasty) which was very unlikely to come off by accident but would easily rip off because of the weave of the tape itself. The use of the inner surface of the packet as a seal is well known and it works (I won't elaborate on that but it does). The principle that the NATO dressing holds a pint of blood is useful also when followed through to the concept that once three have been used (one on top of the other of course in an attempt to staunch the bleeding) if the bleeding is still not stopped there is little point in using a 4th and something else needs to be done.

    Anyway, back to FD on helmets, this is so subjective (because the net and dressing are likely to have been removed and replaced multiple times) that only 100% bombproof provenance will support that idea of "originality".

    In the end though, what is the importance of something you can probably never substantiate with 99.9% of helmets? Even if you could it still makes no difference to authenticity does it? It is like trying to prove something had been in a trouser pocket for 75 years! How do you know what is in there if it has never been out? I know the FD is visible under a net but it is the same principle.

    As long as the helmet, FD and net are all period originals then all is good for me but I won't pay a ridiculous premium because some Ebay spiv insists the set is "wartime original"

    Regards

    Mark
    Last edited by Watchdog; 11-19-2020 at 12:04 PM. Reason: Typo
    "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature with no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

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