What exactly is that smell?

Got your attention I see.

What is it about military stuff that simply stinks? It seems to be unique to military stuff also. With canvas, it's that slightly off mold smell and with metal it's.......well.....hard to describe but you recognize it immediately even after not smelling it for years, decades even and it doesn't come off your hands. I'm speculating either the paint or lubricants even though the item I was messing with was dry as a bone. I've washed my hands three times now and can still smell it after only messing with a training mine for about 20 minutes.

A lot of it is mold and corrosion or oxidation. You get the same oxidation smell on your fingers when you play old guitar strings.



Bob

The canvas has a waterproofing/mold resistant treatment that will impart itself to anything in contact...

yep, kind of like the smell you get when you open an old ammo can.... :move eek:

In memoirs you will sometimes see references to certain nationalities having certain odours, just as you will to their bones being slightly different shades. Much remarked on in WWI for example

Well, this just turned macabre.

War is macabre, on the good days.

I quite like "the smell" of military kit. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a "closet military equipment sniffer", I just don't find "the smell" too objectionable but then again I haven't got a very strong sense of smell.

I grew up around milsurp "stuff," so I love it too. I also love the smell of military kites - aircraft. I spent several years in and out of them and know that particular scent. And for that matter, I grew up in my late father's laboratory, which was entered through a heavy machine shop. These days son works around extremely large-scale military machine shops. I visited his workplace a while back and discovered that the smell of a machine shop is a very comforting thing to me.


Bob

"I love the smell of militaria in the morning ..."

i have to be honest here, I could do without the smell. I don't have bad memories of being in the field, we just didn't do it that much and the smell bothered me back then also. My tour in Saudi Arabia was spent in prebuilt condos that the beduans refused to live in. Actually like staying in an apartment so I have no complaints. Everything there just smelled like sand.

The smell of Hoppes No 9 bore solvent reminds me of my father, the instant i smell it i think of him.

lets just say its a smell that is good to remember. I have dealt with some that you wish you could for get. There are a few guys out there that know what I mean. :eek:

Icarus' last words?

And quite a few other "high-flyers" of more recent times who got too close to the flames.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - That Smell - YouTube

"I love the smell of militaria in the morning ..."

Ditto, it takes me back to being a kid, when I started collecting back in the late 1970's.

When I open my gun safe, the smell of gun oil and canvas still activates old memories and drops my blood pressure......

Covid19 distancing has meant my local range has one hour slots, a real pain as it's a 40 mile drive, but, last Wednesday, I managed to book in to my other range, timing it right, I managed four hours shooting at two locations, not easy in the UK today...!

Just the tonic needed....