Berget Forum

Was the Ravens Camp the only base that had a drying tent?

I am not sure if I would have wanted a stove in the tent I slept in. Nights were quite warm so heated tents would have been saunas. As long as tents do not leak or collapse (our team-provided ones did not) I can live with pulling on wet BDUs in the morning as long as I can sleep in relative dryness. Rain was warm, anyway.

That said, due to experiences from previous years and preparations we made, our tents would have withstood a lot more rain so despite being a bit wet and miserable on out on the field on Wed night, this year's weather was no biggie.

About making a fire of "wet" wood:
1. Find a relatively big and young(diameter circa 15 cm) piece of wood.
2. Split it in half so many times that you have the dry inside on your hands.
3. Make loads of dry chips of the dry wood.
4. Put them on fire and as much dry wood as you have, as the flame gets bigger you can add wet wood also.

We brought our own drying tent this year (Norwegian squad tent and a wood burning stove), but ended up not needing to set it up. Had we know the GCT lacked one the first days, we'd gladly have lent it to you

M.Koho wrote:About making a fire of "wet" wood:
1. Find a relatively big and young(diameter circa 15 cm) piece of wood.
2. Split it in half so many times that you have the dry inside on your hands.
3. Make loads of dry chips of the dry wood.
4. Put them on fire and as much dry wood as you have, as the flame gets bigger you can add wet wood also.

Thank you but this is something I already know. Those firewood that we were able to recover from the woods were rotten inside or at least from the center. We tried to avoid of cutting alive trees down and used the dead ones instead. By splitting wood a few times and drying those "logs" in the edge of the firepit to dry we were able to burn them and produce a lot of smoke.

JKangas wrote:I am not sure if I would have wanted a stove in the tent I slept in. Nights were quite warm so heated tents would have been saunas. As long as tents do not leak or collapse (our team-provided ones did not) I can live with pulling on wet BDUs in the morning as long as I can sleep in relative dryness. Rain was warm, anyway.

Well, the tent that we were provided was leaking a bit from the seams. That would have been nice if we would had a stove to heat the tent a bit so that at least our gear would have been stayed dry. And hey - that way we would also have had a drying tent! And you don't have to heat the stove too hot.

But you are right - nights were warm so even if we would had a stove we would propably slept outside (or at least most of us). And I too enjoyed the warm rain but I got the flu at the first day so a bit warmer and dryer tent would have been nice. Flu got so bad that I had to stay offgame half of the Friday and the whole Saturday.

My recon team and myself camped out in the woods for the first two nights (so we'd have to walk less, joke's on us...) and the second night we got rained out. This was a combination of lack of dry clothes (they all got wet on the first night), the mosquitoes that chipped away at your morale every passing second, and ofcourse the rain that got everything soaked.

Of course this is all our fault by sleeping our dumb arses outside of camp, but still; that wasn't some light drizzle either

This time I was membrane-clad from head to heels, including gloves, and you know what? it helped! The rain was no problem (though I guess that my rifle has a different opinion and my watch definitely didn't like it). I had lots of wet clothes eventually, especially on Friday morning: it was hot and humid, and we had to walk far over rough terrain and sweated a lot. But even then, I had enough clothes to change into, and there was enough sun and wind to dry the wet stuff.

My respect to you, Vinni, and your team for doing our last year's common job out in the rain! I would have joined you gladly. Next time, perhaps!

I just stood there and took it, worst rain i have played in but it was fun, as a medic was running about anyway so gun wasn't too much of an issue. Was able to get a fire going in the morning to dry out the clothes for the team

I shall be investing in a decent poncho though, i bought a cheap one and it failed as put it on :p oh well, live and learn

Wentex wrote:I shall be investing in a decent poncho though

Consider buying a waterproof parka and pants - they are a lot more convenient than a poncho. The problems are: 1) they may be not so easy to find in the right camo pattern; 2) they are more expensive (but still affordable - I bought my set in OD for approx. EUR 150); 3) they do not cover your vest and other gear.
But whenever you have to sit or lie down in the wet grass, you will see how good it is to have waterproof pants. Waterproof boots add much to morale during long games in the rain or snow, and I recently started using waterproof gloves, too - they are awesome when it is both wet and cold. I do not put on my poncho now, except when I need to keep some specific gear dry.

Personally my softshell kept me nice and dry though the rain. We dug a pretty big trench around our tent and put tarps down on the floors, sealed the side and anywhere we though rain could get in.

After last years washout at my tent i was making sure no water got in and we stayed nice and dry. We set up a clothes line around our fire so clothes got dried out quite fast.

I had to laugh when team members passed buy asking if we though we where in ww1 our trench was that deep

We all brought our own tents and in our little tent city we covered it with tarps for the most part so we could get to it tents and our own communal area without getting wet. (Only downside is of course as we used a massive tarp across it all it would be hard to have a fire under it). That helped at least when we were in base. I personally sweat so much I only use gortex to stay warm but I get wet from sweat but without gortex I would have been cold too! The warning from Berget about the rain definitely help me get ready for it in the way of the amount of tarps I bought with me.

I did go out on Wednesday night with the wrong cammo gortex trousers (gortex AOR2 top and DPM bottoms) but at a distance it's hard to tell what anyone is wearing so I didn't think much of it and my armband is much more prominent.

Apart from that it was fine and just a matter of keeping rifles pointed down especially with the BAV's as I didn't want to get it messed up with moisture.

Regards

ArmaLite5.56

Mr Black wrote:I didn´t find the rain to be a problem. But it messed up the road to the village. It´s har to pedal a bicycle in all that mud.

That damn bike xD hope to see you next year!

Some of my squadmates bought ponchoes for 70 KR (about 1.5 USD).
Don't do that if you want to stay dry. Just don't.