MORE MISSIONS FOR THE SLEEP MAT!

MORE MISSIONS FOR THE SLEEP MAT!

WORKING WITH THE CURRENT SLEEPING MAT?
The issue closed-cell sleeping mat is a good piece of equipment. It floats (several can make a river raft), is lightweight (less than one pound) and prevents 15 degrees of heat loss if you body is in direct contact with the ground.

British Special Air Service (SAS) troopers were the first to use them in combat in the Arctic weather of the Falklands. Still, most Soldiers don't take mats to the field because they are a "comfort item," taking up space when leaves can do the job, excepting freezing temperatures.
First, buy your own $5.86 mat from clothing sales or a used one from DRMO on Knox Street (call 396-5298 for the next cash sale.) Unless, you are six feet, four inches tall, cut the top off, saving the material to act as knee/elbow pads for your BDUs (see details in future AES articles). Trim two to four inches off the width (unless you're as wide as a Sumo Wrestler) by using a year stick/marker pen to apply a straight line off the sides of the two tie-tapes. Use scissors for a precise cut or knife point on a flat surface. Your mat is now a compact size for carrying inside your ruck or outside without sticking out and snagging on vegetation as you move.
Lay the reduced-size mat down on trails that you cross to prevent footprints from being left there for the enemy to see. The "scroll to the road" Patrolling technique should incorporate one or more mats for this purpose. The VC/NVA used straw mats throughout the 2nd Indo-China War to cover their tracks at road crossings.
There is one application where the full-size sleep mat is needed: Medical evacuation. If two long lengths of Type XIII parachute harness webbing is sewn by parachute Riggers, off-post sewing etc. to the mat in an "X" shape with the ends sewn into loops as handles, the mat could be used as a non-rigid MEDEVAC litter by two Paratroopers with poles cut from trees or unsupported for short distances. A center length of webbing across the "X" would be for poles and/or a middle set of hands. The mat would slide across the ground/snow for one-man MEDEVAC of a wounded Paratrooper; like an expedient SKEDCO sled. The mat's handles could be tied to trees for a jungle hammock for sleeping off the insect infested ground or tent stakes over a fighting position to which dirt could be applied to act as overhead cover from enemy air bursts.
BETTER SLEEP MAT---THE STINGRAY?
It may bee too much to modify the issue sleep mat. A better way woyuld be to obtain the North American Rescue Products UNIVERSAL BROWN color and issue it to every Soldier as a sleep mat, evac litter, jungle hammock and overhead cover roof. Replacing several items with one that does all their functions at just 1.5 pounds, none of it dead weight.

The Stingray as depicted below has 6 handles for inserting poles or for the wounded Soldier to be hand carried. It can be "deconned" in a NBC environment without damage unlike current folding litters (NSN 6545-01-254-9551) and non-folding types, again saving the U.S. Army big $dollars$ in avoided replacement costs.

Next, develop two collapsing poles to insert into it to make a stretcher. The goal would be a folding stretcher by modules that can replace the current stretcher, something that can be placed on an aircraft etc.

Now that it can be upgraded to be a stretcher--------add all-terrain wheels to it so it can be an all-terrain, all-purpose cart.
Use the same wheels that the UT 2000 ATAC uses for commonality. The UT 2000 is also a Stokes litter body and would be along with the SKEDCO the primary evac means taken by 91B/C Medics and CLSers into the field; backed up by every Soldier with a Stingray and hundreds of your Upgraded Stingray stretchers with or without AT wheels.
Cost: $59.95
North American Rescue Products, Inc.
6469 Grommet Drive, Elkridge, Maryland 21227-6460
Phone: 410-799-2877 Fax: 410-799-4552 Toll Free:
1-888-689-6277
E-mail: NARP, Inc.
On the increasingly lethal battlefield, every Soldier must maximize his protection from the terrain. Men will get hit; they will need to be MEDEVACed immediately to save lives--not left to die as a makeshift stretcher is thrown together from ponchos/tree limbs.
Paratroopers cannot exit 36-inch wide C-130 Hercules jump doors with current issue seven-foot long stretchers. Like the Israeli Airborne, our Paratroopers should have MEDEVAC capability down to the squad level. A quick, low-cost capability by adding webbing to the sleep mat or buying the Stingray in bulk is the first step to enhancing our Airborne Warfare capabilities.

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