15 Forgotten German Army Tools That Beat Modern Camping Gear

In the spring of 1940, British soldiers in Norway kept finding a steel fuel can the enemy had left behind. It held twenty liters, it had three handles, and it didn't leak. Within two years the British were building copies of it, and before the war ended the U.S. Army was using millions. An American engineer had brought the design home in 1939, and Washington turned it down. In this video we cover 15 forgotten German Army tools that still beat modern camping gear. You'll see the folding spoon and fork that never got separated, the felt-covered canteen that cooled water with wind, the 1867 pea sausage that became the first instant soup, the caffeine chocolate still sold in the same tin, the wool tube soldiers nicknamed "Grandma," the akja sled ski patrols still use, the triangle of canvas that was both a poncho and a tent, the Esbit pocket stove that's still in production, the folding shovel the U.S. Army reverse-engineered in 1943, and the jerry can. Much of this comes straight from TM-E 30-451, the U.S. War Department's 1945 Handbook on German Military Forces, written so American officers would know exactly what they were facing. Almost nobody remembers that two of the most useful things an American GI carried were copied from the other side. SOURCES TM-E 30-451, Handbook on German Military Forces (1945), Ch. IX, Sec. VII "Individual Equipment" Esbit patent, Erich Schumm, Hamburg 1936 Erbswurst: J. H. Grüneberg 1867; Knorr 1889 to 2018 Scho-Ka-Kola: Hildebrand, 1935 M1943 entrenching tool and the German Klappspaten Jerrycan: Müller of Schwelm, 1937; Paul Pleiss; British "flimsies" Charles Boner, Chamois-Hunting in the Mountains of Bavaria (1853) New episodes every day. Subscribe to Grandpa's Rucksack. #militaryhistory #ww2 #camping #bushcraft #survivalgear #edc #jerrycan #esbit #forgottenskills #grandpasrucksack