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Posted

Long ago I was told about the uses of condoms by soldiers to protect the muzzle of M16 rifles.

 

I have recently seen on the history channel that destroyer sailors during World War II would use them to protect a few valuables - pictures of wives or girlfriends, a piece of jewelry, or a bit of cash - by tying up the condom and sticking it in their dungaree pocket.

 

Are there any others which are known (Other than sex)?

Posted

Not milit'ry use, but down in the laboratories of our department there's kinda experimental cryogenic-vacuum gadget that requires a flexible membrane of cylindrical shape in its vacuum part and it was found that condoms are the best available material.

Must have been funny when the dept. staff had to explain to the university accountants what the heck does mean order of 3,000 condoms :D

Posted

I believe that they were used to cover the muzzles of Hispano aircraft cannon in WW2, to stop freezing air from getting down the barrel and freezing the mechanism (the Hisso was prone to that).

Posted

I believe that the frogmen crews of the RN 'chariots' used them for waterproofing small objects. IIRC flashlights were mentioned in the account, but it has been many years since I read it so I might be wrong.

 

Hojutsuka

Posted

ISTR GIs cut off the tips while still rolled up and used the pairs supplied with K-rations to hold pantlegs at the correct height over the boots in lieu of more conventional rubber bands in or post WW II (that's an anecdote I read in some novel, so might be wrong).

Posted

The USAF still packs them in the miniature survival kit that goes in parachutes along with some small items that I can't remember (but I think a folding pocket knife is one of them) and the kit is attached to one of the parachute risers. The condom is for carrying water like another poster mentioned.

 

PBAR

bonewso.net

Posted

SEALS and UDS use the to waterproof fuzes for demo charges. The fuzes are supposed to come waterproof, but you know how that goes.... They might be waterproof against rain, they aren't against water under pressure.

Posted
Along the same lines Tampons are said to be good for bullet wounds. They were designed to hygenic and be put into small holes to stop bleeding.

 

Maxipads work as a pressure bandage, Pantyhose aids in preventing hotspots and blisters, Midol is good fore relieving back & leg cramps during long marches, Coldcream helps remove camo-makeup, etc, etc.

Posted
Maxipads work as a pressure bandage, Pantyhose aids in preventing hotspots and blisters, Midol is good fore relieving back & leg cramps during long marches, Coldcream helps remove camo-makeup, etc, etc.

Pantyhose also makes a good underlayer in cold weather. You can also make handcuffs, fan belts, and tow ropes out of them.

Posted
The USAF still packs them in the miniature survival kit that goes in parachutes along with some small items that I can't remember (but I think a folding pocket knife is one of them) and the kit is attached to one of the parachute risers. The condom is for carrying water like another poster mentioned.

 

PBAR

bonewso.net

I have just done some quick and improvised testing. Filling a condom from a tap, that is water under pressure, shows that a condom can hold around 750ml, in a fairly fragile state, and once filled, it isn't easy to carry in a secure way. They aren't really something that you can hang off your belt.

 

But the really telling thing is trying to fill one from a still pool, ie try filling in a backet or basin, without a source of pressure. You may be able to get 150ml into one, so unless you can find either a tap out in the bush, or perhaps an idyllic little waterfall where water comes down in a thin stream, don't count on filling a condom up with more than 200ml in the wild.

 

A zip lock bag of around 500ml or so would be much more useful, and more sturdy.

 

Not to mention not having to taste the lubricant (no, I don't have a clue what it tastes like :huh: ) but I would imagine that USAF condoms probably don't have lube.

Posted
I have just done some quick and improvised testing. Filling a condom from a tap, that is water under pressure, shows that a condom can hold around 750ml, in a fairly fragile state, and once filled, it isn't easy to carry in a secure way. They aren't really something that you can hang off your belt.

 

But the really telling thing is trying to fill one from a still pool, ie try filling in a backet or basin, without a source of pressure. You may be able to get 150ml into one, so unless you can find either a tap out in the bush, or perhaps an idyllic little waterfall where water comes down in a thin stream, don't count on filling a condom up with more than 200ml in the wild.

 

A zip lock bag of around 500ml or so would be much more useful, and more sturdy.

 

Not to mention not having to taste the lubricant (no, I don't have a clue what it tastes like :huh: ) but I would imagine that USAF condoms probably don't have lube.

 

Yea, they seem far too fragile for that to me as well but I remember quite distinctly hearing it briefed several times over the course of several annual life support/survival refresher classes.

Posted
I have just done some quick and improvised testing. Filling a condom from a tap, that is water under pressure, shows that a condom can hold around 750ml, in a fairly fragile state, and once filled, it isn't easy to carry in a secure way. They aren't really something that you can hang off your belt.

 

But the really telling thing is trying to fill one from a still pool, ie try filling in a backet or basin, without a source of pressure. You may be able to get 150ml into one, so unless you can find either a tap out in the bush, or perhaps an idyllic little waterfall where water comes down in a thin stream, don't count on filling a condom up with more than 200ml in the wild.

 

A zip lock bag of around 500ml or so would be much more useful, and more sturdy.

 

Not to mention not having to taste the lubricant (no, I don't have a clue what it tastes like :huh: ) but I would imagine that USAF condoms probably don't have lube.

The idea is that you put the condom inside a pack to act as a waterproof liner. You could also use any kind of rubber balloon, it's just that the condom has a wider neck than most toy balloons, so easier to fill using a funnel or tube.

 

David

Posted
Maxipads work as a pressure bandage, Pantyhose aids in preventing hotspots and blisters, Midol is good fore relieving back & leg cramps during long marches, Coldcream helps remove camo-makeup, etc, etc.

 

 

There's a PMS medication, Pre-comp, that was stocked in a first aid kit at an old job of mine. We found out that it worked a trick on hangovers. Chock-full of aspirin, caffeine, and a whole bunch of other pain-killing goodness.

Posted

They were also used as a propaganda device. In one of the last contracts let under Lend-Lease, the Soviets were aware of the coming Cold War. Ilya Ehrenburg saw to it that an order was placed with the Goodyear Rubber Company for 2.5 million condoms with the minimum length of fourteen inches. The order was filled and shipped in containers marked "medium."

Posted

To fill with water place unrolled item in a sock and then dip into water. Tie off the sock and this acts as both an absorbent for cooling and then protects the fragile latex from violent shocks.

Posted
The idea is that you put the condom inside a pack to act as a waterproof liner. You could also use any kind of rubber balloon, it's just that the condom has a wider neck than most toy balloons, so easier to fill using a funnel or tube.

 

David

 

During the Vietnam war were these the 'American sized ones' with the wide mouth?

 

:lol:

Posted
Pantyhose also makes a good underlayer in cold weather. You can also make handcuffs, fan belts, and tow ropes out of them.

 

Also, they keep leeches from attaching.

Posted
Not to mention not having to taste the lubricant (no, I don't have a clue what it tastes like :huh: ) but I would imagine that USAF condoms probably don't have lube.

 

The USAF probably issues anal condoms - they're alot heavier duty (allegedly!) - and no, I have no idea what anal condom lubricant tastes like!

Posted
During the Vietnam war were these the 'American sized ones' with the wide mouth?

 

:lol:

Obviously these were British surplus ones sent to the Russians marked "small". (For another variant on that theme)

 

David

Posted

Twenty-mumble years ago I took a single quarter of German at Berkeley. Our professor, Herr Doktor Wulf Albrecht, was a nuclear physicist from Austria who also chose to teach introductory German. He liked to start each day's lesson by talking to us in German about whatever subject was on his mind for five or ten minutes.

 

I still remember one particular day in his class. It was February 14 ... most of the US refers to that day as St. Valentine's Day, but at Berkeley it was (is?) known as National Condom Day. The Student Health Service would set up a booth on Sproul Plaza. They handed out free condoms and literature on birth control and STDs. They also set up a helium tank, inflated condoms, and handed them out on strings like balloons at a fair.

 

This particular National Condom Day also happened to be the first day that the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade had been banned from campus. The RCYB (Maoists) had had a run-in with the Spartican's Youth League (Leninists), and it had gotten kind of ugly, and the RCYB had taken to walking around campus carrying baseball bats, and the UC PD had revoked their student group charter and banned them from campus, effective Feb 14 (the date was purely coincidental).

 

So of course the RCYB showed up in major force on the first day of their banning. And the campus police showed up to keep an eye on them. And the students gathered round to see why all the cops were out, and the Hare Krishnas brought out their God-Head float to hand out free veggie meals to all the students, and folks in orange robes were dancing in circles and waving their arms around in the air, and there were little inflated condoms bouncing around in the air above the whole gang, and it was much like I imagine Carnivale in Rio.

 

That day I came in to my German class a bit early, tied my condom-on-a-string up to the teacher's chair (as a friendly gesture), and sat down at my desk. Herr Doktor Albrecht came in wearing his typical tweed jacket, looked down through his wire-rimmed pince-nez glasses, saw it floating there in the air on a string, and proceeded to tell us a story about how when he was growing up in Austria right after the war, this would have been seen as a rare treasure in his neighborhood, and all of the boys would have envied him, and everyone on the block would have been his friend, but after a day or two his parents would have made him share it around from family to family, each kid cherishing it and protecting it in turn over a period of a week or more. :huh: And whoever had it would have been the most popular kid on the block for a day.

 

And no one had the heart, nor the German language skills, to tell the kindly old professorial gentleman that he might be mistaken in his first impression of what said object actually was. :rolleyes:

 

:lol:

 

-Mark 1

Posted
This particular National Condom Day also happened to be the first day that the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade had been banned from campus. The RCYB (Maoists) had had a run-in with the Spartican's Youth League (Leninists), and it had gotten kind of ugly, and the RCYB had taken to walking around campus carrying baseball bats, and the UC PD had revoked their student group charter and banned them from campus, effective Feb 14 (the date was purely coincidental).

 

So of course the RCYB showed up in major force on the first day of their banning. And the campus police showed up to keep an eye on them. And the students gathered round to see why all the cops were out, and the Hare Krishnas brought out their God-Head float to hand out free veggie meals to all the students, and folks in orange robes were dancing in circles and waving their arms around in the air, and there were little inflated condoms bouncing around in the air above the whole gang, and it was much like I imagine Carnivale in Rio.

 

 

Is this satire, or is this just Berkeley? :blink:

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