question Side drapes for modern vehicles, what material?

[robin craig]

In the pictures attached there are two different materials tied onto the sides of these vehicles.

 

The sand coloured vehicle has what appears to be a fairly fomal affair with straps and covered with cam netting.

 

The other has what appears to be plain. Maybe the cam net has been rolled up inside?

 

Can anyone tell me what the material is made of? I am getting ready for show season and would like to replicate the anti shadow material, because that is what it is really. Once drawn down and away from the vehicle it eliminates the shadow of the vehicle and turns it more into a blob.

 

Any idea how wide it extends from the vehicle?

 

R

[ferretfixer]

They are BOTH Hessian. It is in those particular positions on the vehicle.

To hide the perfectly round shape of the wheels (Camoflauge) it can have either: Cammo net sections cut to size & applied on top.

Or, Cam patterns painted upon the hessian.

Also used to roll down over glass windscreens to hide any reflection.

[ChasSomT.]

Robin, when I 'played' with green vehicles (75 - 87) we were issued rolls of plain 'sand bag' coloured hessian, which we painted with blobs of black and green. (We later had black hessian I think) They were rolled up just like in your pictures. Made quite a difference to wheeled AFVs appearance when unrolled and staked to the ground, varying 6 - 12 inches away from the vehicle.

Hope this helps.

 

'Chas.'

[AlienFTM]

Robin, when I 'played' with green vehicles (75 - 87) we were issued rolls of plain 'sand bag' coloured hessian, which we painted with blobs of black and green. (We later had black hessian I think) They were rolled up just like in your pictures. Made quite a difference to wheeled AFVs appearance when unrolled and staked to the ground, varying 6 - 12 inches away from the vehicle.

Hope this helps.

 

'Chas.'

 

What Chas says. But we didn't bother staking ours to the ground: it was more effort to bug out if 3 Shock Army came over the hill. Besides, the cam net was draped well clear of the vehicle, so staking the hessian didn't gain you much. Unlike in the picture, our Scorpions had the hessian and the cam net separate. On our Sultans the whole lot got rolled into one gihumungous lump (about 4 cam nets stitched together and a similar amount of hessian). A bitch to cam / decam but at least we might expect to remain in one location for a while (on exercise: during the big one we were told we could expect to move every half hour or so before we were direction-found and stonked.)

 

We also had hessian attached front and rear to cover all the lights (and Land Rovers etc had them to cover the shape and shine of the windscreen).

 

To this day, if I get my Tesco bags for life wet, a quick sniff of wet hessian transports me back some 35 years.

[Tony B]

My old Artic 109 FFR had rolls of canvas permenatly fixed over each wheel, the windscreen and the rear door. That was a hardtop version.

[ferrettkitt]

Is it hessian or is it the same stuff as used in mail bags (grey nylon type material). Hessian mail bags pen and ink Royal Mail replaced most of them with the grey nylon type

[recymech66]

The bottom pic is the older hession version, and the top pic is the newer nylon version (strangely enough still refered to as hession) with a cam net simply attached to it.

 

The most effective way of camming your vehicle is to drape the hession over the vehicle then drape the cam net over that before pegging it out and then lifting the cam net off the vehicle using cam poles and mushrooms, leaving the hession draped over the vehicle.

 

For AFVs you get thermal sheets which cover the tracks and engine compartment to reduce the heat signature (under your cam net).

[robin craig]

Gents,

 

Rhank you for the replies.

 

So, it seems modern materials have now come into play and hessian is being changed for nylon.

 

Any idea when that started happening?

 

I think I am going to buy a roll of hessian at 72" wide and start cutting lengths for a vehicle.

 

I was thinking of how to "tone" it down and put some dark splodges into it. . . .

 

Thanks again

 

R