I was just watching a rerun of Band of Brothers, and I started thinking once again about something that’s been bothering me for a while:
Whenever I see films or TV shows that take place in the Tin Pot era of American military helmetship (WWII - Vietnam), the soldiers never seem to have their helmets laced at their chins. They always seem to have the straps either carefully tightened on top, or just have them flop around willy-nilly at the sides. Now, if it was just non-combat troops like drivers, cooks or the cast of MASH* who’d be displaying such poor combat discipline that’d be understandable, but everyone seemed to do it, including guys like Marines and Airbourn who really should know better - especially since the damn things keep on falling off.
Now, I can think of three possible reasons for this:
Not a vet here, but I’ve been told that many soldiers intentionally left the chin straps unhooked because they’d heard stories of guys having their heads or faces ripped off when an explosion blew the helmet off, along with their heads or faces.
That explanation could be a) entirely accurate, b) accurate in that the soldiers heard those rumors and avoided the chin straps but the stories weren’t true, or c) total crap.
Until an honest to goodness vet ambles by with a better answer, you can take your pick.
IMHO, any explosion powerful enough to rip your head off when your helmet is strapped on is also powerful enough to rip your head off when your helmet strap is off.
well, as a former Reservist we pretty much kept them fastened when we were doing things like building bridges, minefields, etc… . We wore steel pots, and they did move around a bit if you didn’t have the chinstrap fastened. Now on the other hand, wearing those all day would make the top of your head hurt. And wearing a chinstrap all day did chafe sometimes. For personal comfort reasons you’d unsnap that sucker for relief from time to time, but never when you were in “business” mode. At least that’s how it was in my unit.
My flak jacket and helmet were buttoned up whenever the threat was there for booms, on the advice of my three-Vietnam-tour-Marine father, who survived because of his.
I’m sure that some soldiers had rationalizations for leaving their chinstraps off. The films, on the other hand, probably leave them off for a more practical reason: they obscure the face and interfere with facial expressions and speech.
My dad served in the US Army during the Korean war. One time I asked him why guys in WWII/Korea/Vietnam movies never had their helmets buckled, and he said the same thing as GregAtlanta- they’d been told there were situations where the chinstrap would pull the wearer’s chin/face off if there was a concussion from an explosion nearby.
He didn’t know if this was actually true, or where the idea came from, but the way he explained it, it seemed like a lot of them believed it. If I remember, next time I talk to him I’ll ask him for more details.
In my case, a combat photographer in Viet Nam, I found that I could wear the stupid thing strapped to my head or I could move it back and take pics, but I could not do both at the same time.
And yes, the thing was constantly falling off. It was a standing bet with the outfits I went out with as to how many helmets I would lose during my tour.
Some of the COs of the outfits I was assigned to insisted on the strap being fastened, and I tried to keep it that way until my shooting started. It was then I unstrapped the strap and moved the thing back on my head so I could fit the camera to my face. It was a terrible example for an officer to set, but I had no choice and for the most part not many men saw me as much of an example.
One of the complaints I seem to remember about the tin pots was that when chinched under the chin it would slip forward over your eyes whenever you hit the ground hard. Which in my mind was always a plus (I like to see my eyes protected) but many of the soldiers I was with liked to see what was happening. I remember some people complaining that the strap chafed and others that the strap tended to rot and metal on the things would rust and then not cinch correctly.
I probably should point out that at the time of the explosion that knocked me out of the ball game, my helmet was unstrapped and slipped back on my head and because it was there, it might have helped because the explosion was behind me. But there were also some people there that took the brunt of it.
As a Marine in Vietnam I don’t think I buckled mine. Sort of hard to remember though, been a while you kow.
As previously mentioned they tend to fall forward over your eyes. They were very uncomfortable (though if you wore it at night and laid on your back and didn’t thrash about they acted as a half ass pillow). Also heat was an issue. You needed to be able to take it off pretty often to get some cooler air on your head and to wipe the sweat off.
I also vote for comfort. After a while both the steel pots and kevlars get heavy. To be effective the chin strap needs to be tight which binds the skin on your chin and cheeks and the crown of your head where the helmet liner meets your head. Unstrapped, the helmet feels lighter and you can move it around to a different place on your head for a while for relief.
Although some soldiers do think that it is cool to walk around with the strap hanging down like they see in the movies. And it is hard to see “up” with the helmet fastened properly. There will always be plenty of excuses for not fastening the strap.
During WWII there was a big flap over chin straps that spilled over into letters to the Army newspaper Stars and Stripes. The front line GI’s who wrote in insisted that, “out of uniform” or not, they were going to leave the straps unbuckled. Their argument was that leaving it buckled resulted in neck injuries and they claimed to have witnessed such incidents.
One of my minor aggravations with war movies is people riding around in Jeeps with the windshield folded down. In my outfit you got disciplined for it. Too many bugs and pebbles and other debris flying around hitting the driver in the face and causing accidents.
The Jeep windshield folded for stowage during transportation and not so you could look “cool” while driving.
One more vote for comfort. When you let the strap go lose so it hung under your jaw all it did was help you keep track of the helmet. If you rigged the strap tight across your chin, even with the double strap job that made a pocket for your chin, it kept the helmet nice and tight but it rubbed your chin raw. It was even worse in the heat and moisture. Also some short necked guys could not effectively aim their rifle if their helmet was strapped down tight. The old steel pot did have a weak point on the buckle that would give way before the chin strap would tear your head off or, more likely, fracture your adam’s apple.
It looks as if the current helmet might have a more comfortable chin strap.
I had actually forgotten the most probable reason, which you reminded me of - the fact that U.S. doctrine requires that helmets be worn at all times (in the IDF, we would only wear them in vehicles and when combat was imminent; basically, if the weapon is chambered, the helmet goes on, and even then not during marches). I can imagine how uncomfortable it could be to wear one all day long, especially when the chin strap is even less uncomfortable than the ones I’m used to.
I’ve never heard the “face-blown-off” rumor. Must be American-specific.