Old Army Jungle hammocks

[larrybluhm]

I had one - WWII vintage - as a kid in the 50's. I recall that it was stinky, heavy. and not very comfortable like most camping gear of the era. It served as the bedroom annex to a tree fort about 20' up the backyard tree which was a little too small to sleep in. Therefore it was way cool. I also recall a quick release feature on the zipper. You could pull the slider off the end of the zipper and open the net in one quick pull. This might be a good feature for contemporary hammocks, particularly when its bear taco time...

[Hickery]

I bought some kind of OD green jungle hammock from Sportsman Guide over 15 yrs ago,it looked like a good idea but it was some kind of discomfortable.The last time I tried to use I had put a peice of 1/4 in. ply in it.Alas it lives in the camping archives.Still use the plywood.

[nailer]

I just got my Vietnam Era clon jungle hamock by FOX last week.
It is made of cotton canvas with a PU treated nylon top and walls of heavy mosquito netting with very small holes, almost like noseeum.

The only two problems I found about it was, first,that is quite slim, at only 28 inches wide, I barely fit in it, and trying to lay a little in the diagonal way could be dangerous. Because of this, the mosquitos could eat me thru the netting at my shoulders.

The other problem was the way the ropes are arranged to support the canvas at the five straps sewed to it. A lenght of rope is tied at one end strap with some kind of noose, I think it is a stevedore knot (sp?), and then passes thru a 2 inches steel ring and thru the other straps and back to the ring until it gets tied to the other end strap. This may give an equal lenght in all the rope parts, but was too unstable to my taste and needed some work to be deployed properly. At first the sides were hanging from the center, and once I managed to get into it, they kept giving away when I moved my feet to the sides. I started experimenting with 3 six foot pieces of 1/4 polyester rope I spared from my navy hammock, and tyed them to the ring with larkheads and to the straps with double half hitches, double rope in the center, so that the center rope is a little longer than the sides, but not too much, just like 1/2 inch, or the hammock becomes too squeeze at the shoulders, so that the canvas almost lies flat when stretched. So far this is the most comfortable way I have set up this hammock yet.

I will keep it in my collection, but I already know it won´t be my favorite hammock.

Anyone here has used the original Vietnam era hammocks, and were the ropes arranged like this?