BCB "Combat Survival Tin"

[SMARTY]

I have to agree there. Survival tins can be an exercise in how many items can be crammed into a tabacco tin. With that in mind most of the said items are miniture or of fewer quantity than actually needed. Also I agree with the mobile phone as a means of alerting rescue agencies. I carry a PLB in my kit. Every environment will need the contents of the tin to be adapted etc. My kit is layered and carried as required.I have had the chance to study a lot of survival kits from military ejection seat contents to liferaft kits. Personally I'm not a fan of miniture items. A recent study concluded that the average time to rescue from notification is 48 hours. With that in mind my survival kit contents concentrates on shelter fire and signalling for rescue. Pack your own kit and practice with it.

 

[BushcraftBaird112]

Your not supposed to boil the water in the tin your supposed to purify it the 2 litre bag that is shown in the picture.

 

[BushcraftBaird112]

And to be honest I dont really carry a survival tin for means of survival. Its more of a back-up kit those moments such as “what was that cracking sound” as you stand on your compass or “where did I put those matches”.

On the link below there is a page showing an emergency kit like I have descibed.

http://www.woodcraftwanderings.org/equipment.html#EmergencyKit

 

[He' s left the building]

Survival tins can be an exercise in how many items can be crammed into a tabacco tin. With that in mind most of the said items are miniture or of fewer quantity than actually needed...

That's also my main reason for not liking these kits, I was once 'advised' to buy one until a mate put me straight and told me that if all I needed was the knife and matches, I should just take a proper knife and a lighter. We were in a tropical climate at the time and therefore didn't need to consider taking any shelter or water. This would obviously be different if we were in the desert/woodland/mountain/etc.

I'm also of the opinion that any 'back-up' or emergency items should be of the usual quality/size/etc. Condoms for water carrying, space-blankets for shelter, tiny penknives for heavy use, etc would be next to useless in most situations.

Of the times I've been in real danger, once was at -14C in Bavaria and I didn't have a jacket, another was over 47C in the desert and my engine coolant-pump cracked, a survival tin wouldn't have been of any immediate use in either situation.

The origins of these kits is military E&E and therefore the starting point is that the evader would be dressed and carrying the usual accoutrements (water-bottle, poncho, bayonet,etc). To market these kits as complete survival kits is therefore based on a flawed concept.

What does Mors Kochanski recommend? Firstly, he specifies the environment (boreal forest) and then he selects full sized 'common or garden' utility items (knife, billy-can, warm jacket). Baccy tins are for baccy!

 

[sandbender]

"...Baccy tins are for baccy!..."

I keep a first aid kit in my baccy tin.

 

[He' s left the building]

I keep a first aid kit in my baccy tin.

The intended use of the contents of the baccy tin (smokes) will kill you, so I suppose I'm happy with your first-aid kit!

Baccy tins are for Band-Aids?

 

[Hangman]

I did my aircrew survival cadre with the aircrew survival kit (not too disimilar from the Lofty Wiseman kit) (the old one not the current issue one).

With a decent knife and knowledge it will help keep you alive.

I can see why there might be some feeling about the mobile phone issue, many fools I helped pull of the hills often had naff all to help or prevent there situation such as warm, and / or wet weather clothing or map or compass but many had a mobile as some sort of talisman that they assumed would summon some instant International Rescue type mob.

When they found that they had no signal and had to rely on being declared overdue or one having to wander of the hills to raise the alarm thye found out realities of searching for someone, as good as RAF SAR are we could take our time of we had to perform a full on search for lack of knowledge of our call's location.

 

[He' s left the building]

... many fools I helped pull of the hills often had naff all to help or prevent there situation such as warm, and / or wet weather clothing or map or compass but many had a mobile ...

In that situation, a 'survival-tin' would have been as much use as a mobile with a flat battery and no signal, ie very little.

'Prevention' kit: map and compass.

'Survival' kit: warm/waterproof clothing and footwear.

 

[He' s left the building]

And to be honest I dont really carry a survival tin for means of survival. Its more of a back-up kit those moments such as “what was that cracking sound” as you stand on your compass or “where did I put those matches”.

On the link below there is a page showing an emergency kit like I have descibed.

http://www.woodcraftwanderings.org/equipment.html#EmergencyKit

I hope that you don't take my comments the wrong way, but you appear to have cut and paste your comment above from the website link?

In addition, your original post, ie the 'review' of this product is not much more than a cut-and-paste from the retail advertising blurb of the product?

Have you got any commercial interests in the sale of this product?

 

[BushcraftBaird112]

I cut and pasted the review to give the viewers the basic facts and then I just wanted to see what there opinions were on the product. And not in any part of promoting its sales.

 

[Mistwalker]

..... but I have managed to instantly kill at least one mobile phone by falling into water with it......

That's where these come in handy and here's a link to the review I did on my first one.

http://www.bushcraftuk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38045

 

[Bumpy]

How do you manage to press the buttons and speak into it when it's in that case?!

 

[Tengu]

This Aussie mk 3, what does it contain?

Says she the list junkie

 

[Bumpy]

Tengu - In answer to your question about contents of the kit you may find this link useful:

http://www.equipped.org/cooperkit.htm

Cheers!