New "Sandbags" for the Marines

[Solid Knight]

How will we punish dirtbags now?

[hiberNative]

The product offers protection from mortars, grenades, rockets and improvised explosive devices. It has aluminum frames that connect using steel pins

i'd have to see it that that kind of punishment with my own eyes tbh.

[[R-MOD]Bob_Marley]

Originally Posted by Bamtoman

high-tech military sand

Hot damn I gotta get me some o that.

Seriously though, I don't see this replacing the humble sandbag in any meaningful way.

Too bulky and too expensive in compariosn imo.

[Sniper77shot]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Masaq

O' course, the bigass problem with it I'd imagine is the fact you have to ship an additional bucketload of armour plate out to the combat zone, instead of nice light sacks that you can fill with whatever the local earth is.

Nice idea though - and can certainly imagine it'd be useful when combined with sandbags - use the bags on the outside to lessen the force of impacts, the armour plate on the inside as the stopgap.

Good point, but sandbags don't offer the same protection. I think for Checkpoints they would be useful.

[Blaec]

Yeh, doesn't replace the sandbag.

However throwing up a well fortified checkpoint quickly and easily is a big advantage IMO.

The longer it takes to get your checkpoint up the less likely you are to catch anything.

[Harrod200]

Just wait until someone steps on one without shoes on though, that'll be a bitch...

I also doubt the sandbag will be replaced by these; how many empty sandbag bags can fit inside a single one? And how much do they weigh?

It probably is faster to assemble than a sandbag wall, and maybe a bit sturdier, but I doubt half as many can be carried by each man.

Also, isn't it gonna get really hot inside those structures, really fast in the conditions we're in at the moment? Don't sandbags offer a little bit of ventilation (though probably not much, still some)? Those are going to be like ovens...

[Liquid_Cow]

Originally Posted by Priby

The Marines Corps in December spent $797,400 on 14 kits of McCurdy’s Armor, a patent-pending portable wall system.

Let me see, 800K for 14 of these units, that's 57K each...

E-Tool: $30ea
Sandbag: $280 per 500 bags
Entertainment value of watching PFC Screwed-Up filling them: Priceless

So you can buy a platoon's worth of shovels and 100,000 sandbags for the price of one of these units. Yeah, lets buy something useful with that money like trauma plates or bullets.

Seriously, I do see these useful for setting up a hasty OP in a location where sniper fire is a threat, I've seen lots of pics/videos of sandbag OP's with hummer windows installed in them so troops can observe w/o getting their skulls ventilated by a hajji with a dragonov. Longer term OP's would still want a layer of sandbags on the outside of them as I'm sure an RPG would shred one of these things. Otherwise they are simply too expensive and too bulky to make it into wide spread use.

It reminds me of a Ronald Regan quote "sometimes the solution is inside the box"

[[R-CON]Tim270]

Looks like a direct RPG would just knock it over lol, is it even secured into the ground?

[sparks50]

I thought Hesco barriers were the next generation sandbags

But I guess each of these products have their own strengths.

[Pariel]

Originally Posted by Tim270

Looks like a direct RPG would just knock it over lol, is it even secured into the ground?

I can only assume it is intended to be slightly buried or something.

I had the same thought though.