Crowe:
I've dug fighting positions with an e-tool, both hasty and standing with cover, and also with a full shovel off a 6X6. Latter is FAR easier, as I'm sure you know (!). Typically on FTX (Camp Beaurgard in Louisiana or Ft. Polk) the trick was to dig your position where someone else had dug one before and filled it in. But when you had to dig virgin ground in the dry season... my back just started aching from the memory.
This is of course true. A full size set of tools is far superior (and easier on the back). I'm just saying it is possible. The 6x6x6 pit was dug on virgin soil by a squad over the course of 3 hours, typically two in the pit digging. It sucked, but is possible. I think any quartermaster that has an eye towards efficiency in any FTX would be smart to "procure" full-size picks and shovels to greatly increase the speed of any earthworks.
I did chop down 2"-3" saplings with my US e-tool, so it did work as an ad-hoc ax. We often used ours as a monopod stool. (Fix the shovel blade (tight!) at 90 degrees, place handle on ground with shaft perpinducular to the same, and place your bottom on the flat of the blade.)
It works well as an axe. I didn't think about the monopod though, nice tip. The force you can generate with one is pretty frightening, I would take it over a knife as a self defense item.
As for my favorite military kit, I use a US miliatry canteen/cup as my water bottle of choice, and I still keep a poncho and liner handy. They are, after the p-38 and 550 cord, the some of the most versitile kit the US military ever developed. I'm still torn between by BW Mess tin and Swedish satinless steel one. And then there's the British mess tins and Pattern 58 water bottle... O, the choices.
.....CLIFF
(like, who else?)
The US Military Canteen/Cup have alot going for them, the kidney shape is really nice, rides on a belt better, doesn't roll, lip is closer to the ground if you are collecting from streams/puddles, and the nesting cup/pouches are just gravy. I hate the plastic taste they impart on water though, tolerable but unpleasant. Fortunately,
Nalgene make an equivalent now which is all that and transparent to boot.
Cheers,
C. Rowe
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