Tropical Rucksack

[craig_pickrall]

[craig_pickrall]

[craig_pickrall]

here are a few pics of mine,all are unissued,the mountain ruck has some shelfwear,the tropical ruck i got with 3 of the 4 waterproof bags.also the tropical was never refered as light weight only the light weight rucksack with tube frame. if things dont turn out sorry as im new at this.the light weight ruck is used but in very good shape.

 

Gasman while continuing to edit the manual TM 10-276 I ran across a listing for the Tropical Ruck where it is called light weight. Thought you might be interested.

 

[Any_War_Militaria]

On 10/2/2011 at 7:14 PM, Apache26 said:

That thing is wild! Are there any markings? If not, it is probably a post-war sporting goods knock off.

 

Did anyone determine the purpose of the Velcro strips on the ARVN pack? This definitely wasn't a field modification done by "some troops". Every ARVN pack has them.

you may not ever see this but I've been told by a few of my collector friends that the velcro on the inside of the shoulder straps is to prevent the pad from tearing due to friction.

[Apache26]

Hi, thanks for the input.  I forgot I even responded to this post or asked the question.  Perhaps like many things, the Velcro was a part of someone's greater purpose and all that remained of the idea were the Velcro swatches.  

 

Regarding the issue, use and availability of the ARVN packs, this thread did bring up an old and almost forgotten memory.  I believe that the ARVN pack may have received some limited issue and use stateside.  When I was a West Point cadet I saw two large laundry bins in the cadet gym filled with ARVN rucksacks.  This was in 1998 and I was a Plebe (first year cadet).  As a young collector, I already had a couple of ARVN rucks so I immediately recognized them for what they were.  I knew they were headed for some sort of disposal and I fantasized about procuring several for myself.  But, as a plebe my time was not my own and there was no way to sneak off and find a way to procure rucksacks whose origins were probably unknown to the people disposing of them.

 

This begged the question of why West Point would have had hundreds of ARVN rucksacks.  My supposition was that they may have been used as general purpose rucksacks for a time prior to the general issue of ALICE packs.  Since lightweight rucks and tropical rucks were all considered special issue items, it's possible that cadets trained with surplus ARVN rucks rather than making do with the butt pack.  That's sheer supposition.  I never thought to ask any "Old Grads" if they remember using goofy, canvas two pocket rucksacks rather than butt packs while they were cadets.

 

The ARVN pack may have been designed for use and production by the South Vietnamese, but the NSN and their availability in the U.S. collector's market for decades indicates that they were mass produced here.  The only ARVN ruck I still have was unissued and it still has the U.S. inspector's tags in it.

 

Anecdotally, I remember Dale Dye saying that the reason they used ARVN packs in "Platoon" was that they were more readily available than lightweight rucks.  The latter was still occasionally being issued on a "one off" basis at the time "Platoon" was filmed.   

[Any_War_Militaria]

On 1/20/2022 at 1:41 PM, Apache26 said:

Hi, thanks for the input.  I forgot I even responded to this post or asked the question.  Perhaps like many things, the Velcro was a part of someone's greater purpose and all that remained of the idea were the Velcro swatches.  

 

Regarding the issue, use and availability of the ARVN packs, this thread did bring up an old and almost forgotten memory.  I believe that the ARVN pack may have received some limited issue and use stateside.  When I was a West Point cadet I saw two large laundry bins in the cadet gym filled with ARVN rucksacks.  This was in 1998 and I was a Plebe (first year cadet).  As a young collector, I already had a couple of ARVN rucks so I immediately recognized them for what they were.  I knew they were headed for some sort of disposal and I fantasized about procuring several for myself.  But, as a plebe my time was not my own and there was no way to sneak off and find a way to procure rucksacks whose origins were probably unknown to the people disposing of them.

 

This begged the question of why West Point would have had hundreds of ARVN rucksacks.  My supposition was that they may have been used as general purpose rucksacks for a time prior to the general issue of ALICE packs.  Since lightweight rucks and tropical rucks were all considered special issue items, it's possible that cadets trained with surplus ARVN rucks rather than making do with the butt pack.  That's sheer supposition.  I never thought to ask any "Old Grads" if they remember using goofy, canvas two pocket rucksacks rather than butt packs while they were cadets.

 

The ARVN pack may have been designed for use and production by the South Vietnamese, but the NSN and their availability in the U.S. collector's market for decades indicates that they were mass produced here.  The only ARVN ruck I still have was unissued and it still has the U.S. inspector's tags in it.

 

Anecdotally, I remember Dale Dye saying that the reason they used ARVN packs in "Platoon" was that they were more readily available than lightweight rucks.  The latter was still occasionally being issued on a "one off" basis at the time "Platoon" was filmed.   

One of my good friends his dad is a West Point alumni from around the same time(sometime in the 90s) if you’d like I can ask him about the “weird two pocket rucksack” and get back to you with an answer asap

[Apache26]

Thanks for the offer, but if he graduated sometime in the 1990's, then he would have been issued a medium ALICE pack (same as myself).  In the 1960's - 70's it wasn't uncommon for cadets to attend Ranger School as a choice for summer training.  I'm thinking that they would have had use of these ARVN rucks around that time, and prior to the issue of ALICE sometime in the mid-1970's.  The best resource would be to look up photos in an old Howitzer yearbook from the early 1970's and see what cadets were wearing for field training and/or Ranger preparation.  I do remember seeing photos of cadets around that time wearing ERDL jungle fatigues while training for Ranger School, but I didn't see or take note of their packs.  I'm also not clear on what packs (if any) were worn in Ranger School around that time.  Mid-1960's Army documentary videos of Ranger School still show butt packs.  That's a far cry from the 70 - 80 lb. packs expected of subsequent generations of Rangers!