Parachute container padding

[Peace]

I was studying some pictures of the marshalling areas in England prior to Normandy, and I noticed that the padding used between the A-5 end caps wasnt made by sewn together griswold bags, seems that other types of padding were used. Could these be issued items, or where these sewn up by the riggers aswell?

 

Plz see the pictures:

 

[Peace]

This is a roll of padding i have in the collection, made up out of 12 griswold bags.

 

 

And this is the padding I think was used in the pictures...

 

 

What do you Airborne buffs think?!

[Johan Willaert]

Indeed a blanket and a piece of canvas....

 

Next time you're at my place, I'll show you...

 

JOhan

[carl1944]

Do I spot 2 BARs in the background?! Nice

 

Best regards

Carl

[con50582]

I wish I had an A5 bag. Some of the padding was the horsehair type used to pad the field suspenders, it came then as it does now in huge rolls. I have also seen blankets used and some bundles that were missing all the center and were just held by the straps. Let me know if you want to part with that A5 bundle or find one in a barn near Bastogne

[Peace]

Con,

 

I might have something for you then.

 

I'll send you a pm

[piperl4]

I have a number of T5's and every other chute used in WW II but I wanted to see what a reproduction looked like for some displays I wanted to set up and not have 5000.00 tied up in it. So I ordered a T5 chest pack from a Company that I do not think I could say on here but was not in the United States. What I got was the most horrable looking reproduction that could be made. There was not a single square inch of it that anyone took any time to do a quality job on. I paid 397.00 for it knowing I could have bought the same in FL from a guy who makes a very nice one but you never know what is out there till you look around. The stitching was not streight in one spot the parts were cut without a pattern the stencel for TOP for example the O and the P were completly black with no open space in the O and the P and it look like it was done with a magic marker. It did not have any tie downs for the rubber bands so if you wanted to put in a Canopy like I like to do there was no way to stow the lines. The binding was a real mess and there was not one smooth radius around the edeges and the pleates were so bunched up and the stitching which was spaced at 3/16 was run back and forth numerious times till it looked like a big bulk of thread. The eyelets for the bungees were totally wrong and off center by 1/2 inch. The crux of this is unfortunatly I cannot show the world what a terrible peice this was but before you order one from outside the US think twice. I bought it with full knowledge that it most likely would not be a 100% reproduction of a T5 but was willing to review a T5 reproduction that was at least 85% accurate. This did not come close to even 40% so while I knew what I was buying was not going to be great my goal was to see what was out there and give an honest review of it compared to original T5's that are out of the price range of most people. I will stay with the US ones from now on. I did write a coutious letter not demanding my money back as I was resolved to lose that when I ordered outside the US but I listed the 10 most outstanding mistakes in both quality and in originality with the statement that I was not writing it in Anger but to help him make a better product. So far no response, and I assume I will either get a nasty one or none at all.

[torch42]

I have a number of T5's and every other chute used in WW II but I wanted to see what a reproduction looked like for some displays I wanted to set up and not have 5000.00 tied up in it. So I ordered a T5 chest pack from a Company that I do not think I could say on here but was not in the United States. What I got was the most horrable looking reproduction that could be made. There was not a single square inch of it that anyone took any time to do a quality job on. I paid 397.00 for it knowing I could have bought the same in FL from a guy who makes a very nice one but you never know what is out there till you look around. The stitching was not streight in one spot the parts were cut without a pattern the stencel for TOP for example the O and the P were completly black with no open space in the O and the P and it look like it was done with a magic marker. It did not have any tie downs for the rubber bands so if you wanted to put in a Canopy like I like to do there was no way to stow the lines. The binding was a real mess and there was not one smooth radius around the edeges and the pleates were so bunched up and the stitching which was spaced at 3/16 was run back and forth numerious times till it looked like a big bulk of thread. The eyelets for the bungees were totally wrong and off center by 1/2 inch. The crux of this is unfortunatly I cannot show the world what a terrible peice this was but before you order one from outside the US think twice. I bought it with full knowledge that it most likely would not be a 100% reproduction of a T5 but was willing to review a T5 reproduction that was at least 85% accurate. This did not come close to even 40% so while I knew what I was buying was not going to be great my goal was to see what was out there and give an honest review of it compared to original T5's that are out of the price range of most people. I will stay with the US ones from now on. I did write a coutious letter not demanding my money back as I was resolved to lose that when I ordered outside the US but I listed the 10 most outstanding mistakes in both quality and in originality with the statement that I was not writing it in Anger but to help him make a better product. So far no response, and I assume I will either get a nasty one or none at all.

 

 

 

I'm not sure of the rules on this forum but cannot see for a second why mentioning the name of the manufacturer with comprehensive pictures showing all the faults could possibly be looked at as bad considering all you'd be doing was educating an entire forum as too the dangers of dealing with this particular manufacturer...I'd love to know who this outfit is seeing as I'm currently looking for a display cheapy,but can't if I don't know the name.

[ww2imp]

Having manufactured these, and seen better close up photos of riggers packing A-5s, the center roll is nothing more than canvas sheeting with long sheets of burlap for padding. If you look at the photo you will notice that the sheets are very long. Anything thicker will make rolling up the sheeting very bulky. Yes they also used flattened and stitched together rifle containers, but those were field expedient retrofits by riggers. The A-5s in the 505 PIR photo at the top were the canvas sheet and burlap sheet version.

 

I love the photo at the top. It is of the 505th PIR getting their equipment bundles ready. If you look carefully you will notice how they painted the end caps. I can't tell exactly why but I would be willing to guess (guess mind you) that they painted them with luminous paint that glowed in the night or in just white paint for easy finding in the foliage.