Human factors in military design and planning

Another Kraut autism thread.
First of all, let me point out that anyone who wants to make "shitty" jokes should probably leave now. Yes, this thread will be ripe with opportunities for such childish fun, but please attempt to keep it to a minimum.

We all know that humans do five things in life: Drink, Eat, sleep, shit and wash.
We also know that humans regularly go to war, where they must still eat, sleep, shit and wash regardless.
In this thread we discuss how water, food, sleep, shitters and hygiene tools are provided to troops on the battlefield in the past, present and future.

The importance of food and sleep are obvious. Certain foods and drugs can reduce the need for these two drastically, but a minimum is always required to stay alive and sane.
Taking a dump, or a leek, is a logical consequence of food and drink. MREs constipate you a lot, the but the material has to go somewhere, same goes for any drink you consume.
If your troops are in the same area for a long time (either during trench warfare, urban warfare, or inside of a vehicle) there is an obvious need to separate the troops from the feces, or face serious health issues.
Personal hygiene becomes much more important in long term operations. Not only did soldiers in WWI suffer from diseases such as the Spanish flu, or pox , but lice and other parasites were also very common. The same is true for the soldiers of WWII. Who would have though that a person who lives in the woods like an animal will eventually be as dirty as an animal?
To preserve the health, and thus combat readiness, of the troops regular personal hygiene procedures must be performed, such as washing of clothes, brushing of teeth, and a simple scrub with water and soap.
Shaving is also extremely important, since a clean shaved face not only makes NBC protection much easier. A clean shaved head doesn't allow lice to spread unnoticed as easily. Powders and poison gas can be used to remove the parasites from the clothing reliably. Before such means were available infantrymen tied their uniforms to rocks and threw them into a river or shallow lake. This would, so they hoped, drown the lice.
However the eggs of said lice were still there, and would hatch as soon as the clothes were put on again.

It becomes clear that providing food, time to rest as well as regular hygienic checks for your troops is an extremely important part of warfare and planning military operations. As the old German saying goes "Ohne Mampf, keinen Kampf.", no food, no fight.

But infantry is not the only branch of the military. During long distance flights pilots must occasionally use the toilet, or have a snack. Sleep becomes an important factor during long distance strategic missions as well. The Su34 features an on-board toilet, as does the GTK Boxer. Catheters can be used to extract urine from the bladder during long operations, but there is no catheter for shit, and diapers must still be changed or you risk skin infections.
Women in the military complicate this issue further, being unable to pee standing for one, they also have a tendency to bleed once a month, which can only be suppressed with tampons, pads, or the pill. And since no major military of the world is actively stockpiling any of these three items I can't see a future where women will be used for any long term military missions.

Would female only companies or even battalions solve this issue, or further complicate things? Are on board toilets truly necessary? Why are you always short on toilet paper when you are innawoods, and what would be a low tech option for the average strelok in the field to get rid of parasites and their eggs effectively? How fucked are you, if you have to take a dump in an NBC contaminated area? How many razor blades does Zig Forums pack when they go on an exercise? Shaving foam, or gel?
While this thread does bear potential for faggots to ruin it, I am convinced that it's topic has a great importance in warfare, and should be discussed.

Pls no poo in loo jokes, no fart fetish shit, no MUH WOMYNZ IN THE MILITARY bashing (the physical capabilities of females in combat has already been discussed to hell and back). Just keep flag-retardation out of this thread. I want to have a serious dicussion about the industrial output of the ottoma– erm… human factors in warfare and weapon design
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archive.fo/674hd
sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111101130200.htm)
telegraph.co.uk/news/health/alternative-medicine/4711987/In-hot-water-Have-a-bath-and-relax.html)
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Well, right off the bat we can discuss campfire soap, i.e. soap made from campfire ashes, some rendered fat from animals or oil, and some crushed up flower petals if you want a nice smell to it. That will go a long way towards hygiene. Ashes can also be dumped on top of human excrement to partially reduce the smell, so that's a two for one with constructive uses for it. So as long as you can start a fire and hunt local game, you can always keep mostly clean. Only issue is that the ashes need to be from a hardwood fire, soft wood won't work. It's also not as strong as regular soap, but it's better than nothing.

Ah, yes. The good old "kill a bear and turn it's fat into soap" strategy.
I remember writing a rather basic guide about it more than a year ago.

Putting women in their own units, if they must be in the military, would ease logistics as then feminine products only have to be sent to one location rather than a few packages doled out here there and everywhere which would likely lead to insufficient quantities in some areas if there is any sort of mishap with the supply chain.

Bar soap doesn't take up a lot of space, and a single bar lasts a long while. It's an item I would advocate for issuing in excess. The smaller travel bars could be tucked into any little nook or cranny in a soldier's gear.

Toilet paper is a more difficult situation. Not heavy but rather bulky. You will have to have a reliable supply chain or be very careful about its usage, but on an extended maneuver without resupply you're going to run out. Either we would have to wipe with leaves or other woodland detritus or hop in a river and wash off after every go. Neither is likely to be particularly hygienic and that soap is going to have to be utilized in its fullest to prevent the spreading of various fecal illnesses. I know MREs come with toilet tissue, but you're not always going to have MREs either. You can not rely on the supply chain always working.

Razors are another item like soap that you can tuck anywhere. Disposable razors are a waste of space IMHO. A double edged safety razor can give 4-6 shaves per blade, and a few dozen blades can fit in an area the size of a matchbox. MUCH more efficient space and weight wise than disposable razors. Same applies for shaving soap. No cream, gels, or Barbasol canned stuff. A bar of shave soap is compact and will last a long time. A safety razor, two dozen blades, and a bar of shave soap fits in a space less than half the size of just a can of Barbasol and can give you nearly 100 days of shaving if you're judicious about using your blades multiple times.

Taking a dump in an NBC area = pretty fucked, however there aren't many scenarios where you're going to be in an NBC area for an extended period of time. Can't eat either unless you've pre-prepared your canteen with some variety of caloric/protein mix perhaps as current issue gasmasks allow for the usage of canteens while wearing them. If you can just get the hell out of there is all the advice I have.

Lice is much less prevalent now and may not be as big of a problem. Make sure everyone has been checked for it before going out. Anyone who has it would have to stay behind until treated. Lots of shampoos and treatment for it, but it would be much better if such items didn't have to be taken into the field as they'll consume significant space.

Shitting inside of a vehicle in an uncontaminated environment is easy. Shit in a bag. Sounds kind of self-evident, but it really is about the most effective solution. Tie it up until such a time as it can be tossed out of the vehicle. May cause smell, but bad smells don't cause disease. Lack of hand washing does. Wash your hands then wash them again.

Innawoods hygiene
Starts at 2:20

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So I guess Germans don't fuck? :^) I know you said no jokes, but I don't care

Actually user, hair is naturally antibacterial. Shaving is like circumcision- sure it solves a potential problem, but it's not really a solution so much as being a sperg about things. Sure if someone gets lice, shaving is a good tool to use, but in general the hair/beard will both help them blend/mix easier with the civilian population (which is good because you want your soldiers fucking, just not paying child support/bringing kids home). Plus if conditions are unsanitary enough where parasites like lice spread, then your soldiers are probably also unsanitary enough that lice will not want to be around the soldier. Take care of those logistics as they become an issue, don't worry about it otherwise.

Im not sure womens only units actually would help that much logistically, since that would only reduce the penalty to supply throughflow on the distribution end. The biggest challenges with logistics all occur on the to-theater transportation, and through-theater transportation in which every container of sanitary pads would delay another contaner of something else. The simplest solution would simply be to require hysterectomies of female combat personnel. this may be upsetting but if we're working on growing back vets ballsacks theres no reason in the future we couldn't re-womb them. the correct solution is no girls allowed

in regards to razors, perhaps supply the razors with a rough metal handle so that they can be stropped to extend razor life. that said, there are chemical stubble removers and laser hair removal.

Can't wear a gas mask with a beard.

Just make it beard-accessible, dumbass.

archive.fo/674hd

pussy

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Adding to what said, tankers, for example, urinate in empty bottles if need be. We had a tanker on /a/, of all places, who related the horrors of having a female with a full bladder in your tank. See >>>/a/800802 and subsequent posts. Unfortunately, I couldn't find that pic of Yukari pissing in a bottle, neither for that thread, nor for this one.

On a related note, how often does a soldier in a modern, first-world army (e.g.; US/ Nato) get to shower/ bathe when deployed, assuming he's not engaged in frontline combat? How is the water quality and pressure? I know US Army has an entire detail of field engineers whose duty is to install and maintain field showers and bathrooms wherever they go (forgot what the career field is actually called) but I've read so many horror stories from ZOGbots who've been in Iraq about not getting a proper shower in months.

Now that I think about it, indians have an overlooked tactical advantage: They don't need shitters or even hygiene! They are at the very least 40% more efficient than everyone else.
India Superpower 2020 confirmed

And the Chinese will eat fucking anything so they've got that going for them. I really wish the two would go to war already. A war with 100 million combat casualties would be fucking epic.

Honestly I still stand by
Outside of certain ratings and scenarios, when is the majority of your military going to need air-tight gas masks? Safety respirators the likes of which you'd need for spray painting? Sure, and you can generally wear those even with a beard unless you're someone who grows a beard extremely quickly. Actual gas masks though? The only ones who might need those are toxic chemical cleanup crews and medical personnel among other specific ratings, and you can enforce those on an individual basis. Autism is nice, but we can assume that most nations will be following the geneva conventions to an extent and a group of dead soldiers from illegal chemical attacks are actually far more useful and a time-resource benefit due to just cause/negotiations with the international community compared to standard issuing gas masks to everyone. At most you might justify basic medical/house-painting respirators, but I doubt you need to worry about full-on respirators unless they're working with some nasty shit specific to their occupation.

The added benefits of allowing beards/general body hair are:

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I think this is part of an overarching theme I have with military logistics that aside from getting very basic supplies to your men and making sure they understand their orders, individual groups in the military should be able to operate with relative freedom, with most rules/regs being decided by their direct commander. The only one who should be allowed to decide what the ship/base's policies and ways it will go about its mission is the boat captain/base commander, and even then they should leave as much as possible up to individual "departments" or squads. As long as everyone is trained the same and has the same goals and expectations put on them, letting them think and work independently will always produce the best overall results for your military even if one or two groups fail. If your independent groups are failing across the spectrum, it's because of a failure in training, team building, or leadership on the part of your military.

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The vast vast vast majority of modern double edge razor blades are made from stainless steel and can't be effectively stropped. Iirc Treet black blades are still carbon steel and could theoretically be stropped inside a drinking glass or something. It's still not worth hassle.

Honestly with some wet wipes and maybe an exfoliating towel, you can take care of 95% of human skin waste issues. I shower pretty often because I go to the gym, but in my autistic days I'd buy a 30 pack of hand towels/washcloths from Costco/Sam's Club, wipe down with hot water every day, and apply a little fragrance oil to my body when y deodorant would occasionally run out while working outside in the sun all day. I felt a little "sticky," but I never felt dirty, and when I asked, none of my coworkers complained that I smelled bad (they actually mentioned I smelled better than them a lot of times). I know the Romans used to just glob oil on their bodies and then scrape it off to pull off all the dirt/skin oils/etc. and I know some ashes/mud/sand will exfoliate a lot of the unhygienic shit like dead skin cells.

Don't get me wrong, baths are preferable, but at least if you're a man, you can go months with just a little water and a towel, maybe an occasional swim in a nearby stream or a communal shower once a month. Women are shit out of luck because they actually need to shower, but women shouldn't be on the front lines or in the military in general anyways.

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I have to add to this the factor of intelligence.
If a platoon leader sees an empty town in front of him and hears enemy tanks in the distance he will of course order his men to take the town and dig in to face the tanks. This could be a bad move, if the enemy knows about them and is trying to encircle and starve out the town instead.
as much intelligence as possible must be provided to the direct leaders.

I really hate both sticky and oily feeling and I feel extra dirty for putting fragrance over BO.

Hot shower with soap is the minimal way to go; backyard made high-potassium green soap ( since the gay "gentle for your spoiled ass" industrial shit won't do the trick), full hot bath and then a shower and a good painful luffa scrubbing with soap and iodine solution would be ideal though.

Hygiene and the time taken to achieve it in a military
Public bath units on the divisional level

The GSDF have in their inventory the 野外入浴セット2型 - the Field Bathing Set Type 2. It features
and it is connected to the Field Water Purification set which can the clean and reuse the water for other purposes (i.e. toilets, cleaning tanks, watering your flower, "clean" water for local shitskins).

The set serves 1200 men in a day, and serves 30 men at any given time. In simple maths, that means you can have 40 bathing sessions each day and each man gets a 36 minute bath 24*60=1440(mins in day), 1440(mins in da)/40(sessions)=36(min per session), which maybe good for morale, but this is about hygiene; allocating 20 minutes (5 minute shower, 15 minute bath) for each man, you can get 70 sessions, and serve 2100 men in a day.

By having a dedicated bathing unit you eliminate the environmental damage (in the sense of smell, stagnation of the water) placed on local rivers, streams, ponds, and other water sources that the local populations, and your troops depend on as their source of clean water. Also it allows for the troops to rest their bodies and relax, and hot baths have been proven/thought to ease muscle pain, and colds. It's hygienic, morale boosting, and most importantly, contributes to a healthier fighting force.

Enjoy the ugly Gas Mask girl in her bikini show you through the entire thing in the mp4


(Elevated body temperature helps certain types of immune cells to work better, evidence suggests: sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/11/111101130200.htm)
(In hot water? Have a bath and relax; Bryony Gordon on the healing and restorative power of taking a bath: telegraph.co.uk/news/health/alternative-medicine/4711987/In-hot-water-Have-a-bath-and-relax.html)

Fuck, I didn't intend to embed that video; first vid related

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On the topic of Hygiene, shouldn't uniform cleaniness be something to note as well? I mean you could brought a spare fatigue, but its space that could have better used for other, more essential items. Also, i think there's no other alternative when it comes to doing laundry out on the field, either you try your best to wash it or wait for the camp to do yours there.

Truly, communal baths are the future of army baths. Sure, you sacrifice privacy but its also cheaper and strengthens male bonding. Just don't let in any AIDs in, and you'll be fine.

I was once hospitalized for a week and couldn't take a bath. Had to do with wipedowns with wetnaps. Most painful experience in my life, and trust me, I had my fair share of painful experiences and injuries. I breathed down the poor doctor's neck constantly and he still wouldn't let me go, and the only thing I had in mind was getting a proper bath when faced with the probability of having to go through an invasive, potentially life-changing surgery in case their current course of action failed.


Now here's a man after my own heart! You scrub and scrub, and you still feel the damned grime and oil sticking to you! God fucking dammit! You use a proper soap, and a proper, coarse washcloth/ washing mitt to shed your fucking skin like a fucking man! And you do it every day, with steamy, high-pressure water, like God intended.


Leave it to the Aryans of the East to (almost) solve the only problem I had with joining the military. According to wikipedia, a typical Japanese division is 6 to 9,000 men strong. So basically a bath every third day. And the water pressure seems adequate. Now that's better.
How are these "bathing opportunities" allocated and supervised? I presume the command would want to supervise their men, so they all bathe properly at regular intervals, out of hygine concerns of course. But I presume that wouldn't be a problem with a culture like Japan's.
Assuming the same system is implimented in another country, is there any way to convince someone else to trade his shower time with you, say, for rations/ food/ cigs/ whatever, so you could take a bath every other day at least?

And most importantly, how practical would it be to set something like this up in somewhere like Iraq where water resources are scarce? Not to mention you're combating in a hostile foreign country.

I should like to apologise for the sheer amount of autism in this post.

Chemical weapons are prohibited

I think the most grievous error I have encountered in field exercises has virtually always been sleep or rest related. It doesn't matter if you get 4 or 12 hours of rest per day if it's not a solid, undisturbed period. At some point it becomes less painful and bothersome not to sleep at all than to sleep in 2 x 2h or 3 x 2h periods with one or two hours of watch/patrol/guard-duty in between of those sleep periods. If your sleep gets disturbed all the time and you're not getting proper sleep cycles going in your brain, you're not resting at all and you somehow end up more tired than before you went to sleep.

Certainly it's easier to organize duty rosters so that everyone's sleep gets ruined, but I do believe that it is more beneficial in terms of overall unit effectiveness and morale that a few guys get less or no sleep than the whole squad not getting enough sleep at all. Ofcourse, it's just common sense that those tired guys are given easier tasks following day, and they absolutely get proper night rest following night.

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Wow you are either insane, or the biggest prissy bitch I've ever seen on Zig Forums. Are you some kind of hipster faggot? You'd be absolutely worthless in any scenario.

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Shooting someone is also illegal. Why have a military then?


An intereting concept. This would probably be very popular in places such as Afganistan or Mali, simply because it provides a bath-tub like option to get fully submerged.
Western armies only use showers for their troops, simply because it is easier to set up and maintain (but uses more water).
This brings up another topic though: cultural differences in hygiene and the military.
What kind of trouble British and French commanders had to go through with colonial troops in WWI? Does anyone have any resources on that?

Doing your laundry in the field is pretty well recorded in both world wars, since all it requires is a tub of relatively clean water and a brush, and maybe some detergent.
A washingboard should be carried on the platoon level in my opinion.
A cleaned uniform also maintains it's camouflage effectiveness (dried mud can be nearly white, which makes it stand out a lot), and simply feels much better to wear. Not to mention that a thick layer of dried mud on the legs of your pants will add up to half a kilo of weight, which you don't want to lug around.

It's a problem of unity 1), training effect 2), and weather 3).
1)Any unit is only as fit as it's weakest link, which means that an entire unit is only as awake as the two guys who had to be on patrol all night, or that's what some detached officers think.
2)Since most soldiers are rear echelon, and thus only go bivouacking during basic, most soldiers experience only basic-training-bivouacking.
Training bivuacking is always cut way shorter than would otherwise be necessary, because it costs more to maintain a soldier in the field than in a camp (food supply etc.). This means that, if only a hand full of soldiers would have to stand watch or patrol or whatever, the other's would have never done anything, and thus never learned how to stand guard at night. Again, this is rather retarded
3) If it is -10°C you don't want two guys to lay in a hole far away from any source of warmth all nigh long. So you rotate them out regularly.
Of course this could be mitigated by giving them their fucking sleeping bags, and have they lay in position in their bags instead of without.
Again, it's just retarded superiors.

You sure can't convince me when I had to spend three months of my life during my conscription when I could get at best 3 hours of sleep per 24hour because the officers were too anal with letting us rest when it wasn't appropriate (any other time than 22:00-07:00 which coincidentally was guard duty time for most of the conscripts).

I've some women can pee standing with more force than men by putting their fingers into their vagina a certain way, periods would still be a problem for them though even if that were true.

Source?
All I know is that some of them carry a small catheter tube with them, which they insert and then use as a pseudo penis to pee standing.

This is where you are wrong, buddy. For state police and military it is perfectly legal to shoot people. Shooting back is illegal.

And yet we see military forces shooting each other in wars all over the world.
Your bait is stale, mate.

How does the chain of command manage to keep up the charade of nukes?

If you're talking about taking segregating ALL female combatants therefore getting rid of mixed sex units, then an immediate benefit would be the troops would be less likely to fuck each other and spread disease, or get a female knocked up.
No, not when there is a mission that needs to be done, then everyone should have prepared in advance by taking relieving their waste before getting on board, or being willing to hold it for hours. The former is more logical.
I'm never short on baby wipes. I'm almost insured a clean bottom after the third swipe.
You'll need to brief everyone on proper hygiene and nail that shit into troops heads throughout the day. There isn't really any wonder equipment that I can think of that would be less cheap than just LPSA every fucking moment, but integrating some kind of parasite resistant uniform top and bottoms into the standard issue ACU could help in the long run to help NCOs focus on other duties.
Shaving foam, or gel? One can of cream. One razor only if there isn't a good method of sharpening your bayonet to shave with.

Figure out a way to stop your enemy soldiers military rations.
1.destroying the rations themselves
2.destroying the source of the ingredients
3. destroying where they are manufactured.

That has been achieved by attacking supply lines since time immemorial. Nothing new.

I need to clarify that these Bath Kits are deployed sporadically, and some kits are issued on a regimental level (approx. 1000+ men), while others get it on a divisional level (6~9000 men as you stated). Perhaps it is better to have it on a regimental level (though it could be shared by two regiments, if only to reduce the strain on logistics and funding).

Racially segregated baths :^) or crating a timetable for bathing on a platoon level. By having the baths occupied by one platoon a time, you already have a close knit group that already self-polices, and it also will let each CO and NCO effectively grasp how clean their platoon is. The goal is to create the style of discipline that you expect to see out of students at military school.

I suppose you could, though whatever the rule, it should be enforced to some degree to maintain discipline and cohesion.

This is a tough one, and I don't know the exact solution; perhaps utilizing baths at main operating bases is the solution, but in the desert, it's probably better to give soldiers either a) a camping shower and a logistics chain that can transport a lot of water, or b) issuing barrels with water, wood, and a filtration kit and heating the fucker, while using a wooden duck board to prevent yourself from burning. Option A makes the water unusable after the shower (can't collect it), but with option B, you could potentially wash and rinse yourself off in the bath, and you could clean the water with a filtration kit afterwards, thus wasting little water.

Of course, a shower is installed, but having the option to quickly wash off grime and other dirt with a shower, and then taking a bath with a relatively clean bodt for however many minutes could do wonders for hygiene and morale. Also, it should be noted that by having baths, especially in colder environments, it saves water because soldiers would (probably) rather be in a bath than under a shower, thus reducing the amount of water wasted on a shower. The baths are a closed system; hot water in bath gets pumped in and out, with the gunk and dirt being taken out with water through one tube and cleaned to be reheated and put back into the bath.

Not quite sure, but I'd expect there to be some inspection of groomin' standards and cleanliness by a White/European officer during parades, as any unhygienic unit, regardless of race, is liable to spread disease.

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