Helmets

[BEAR]

I left Benning in Nov. 83 and they were just beginning to get the Kevlar since the 82nd already had them. I never saw a snap-in suspension system for a M1c liner In fact I never knew they existed until after I retired and started collecting helmets.
The cold weather hat you show was issued but never used for jumping. In the winter that hat replaced the ball cap and it was rolled with rank and insignia on the front and it got the inglorious name "Buffalo Chip". Most of us would go out and buy the 1950s pile caps, they looked sharper.

BEAR

Information

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[browningautorifle]

I never saw a snap-in suspension system for a M1c liner

No, just the M1s made late.

The cold weather hat you show was issued but never used for jumping.

Understood...I think it would be a problem for the JMPI checks (nose dock to us)...

[BEAR]

No, just the M1s made late.

Some years ago, in a now closed surplus store in Lacey, Washington, I found a cardboard shipping box, dated 1984, containing eight M1 helmets (only bought one). These were made by RJ Stampings, a Canadian Company, and are the last manufactured M1s. Next to the shipping crate was a stack of 1984 liners with snap in suspensions (only bought one of these too). They now sit as the last in line of my M1 collection.

BEAR
The Helmet

The Liner

[browningautorifle]

RJ Stampings, a Canadian Company, and are the last manufactured M1s.

Those are they...and that retarded chin strap. We'd replace those hand over fist, the stores NCOs had crates of them. Useless crap. The snap in head harness was a wonderful idea, except when you took your filthy head harness out to machine wash and dry like the troops will do, it shrunk and COULD NOT be reinstalled. There were no replacements issued.