Theater Logistician Maj. Gen. Kenneth S. Dowd - KMI Media Group

that it is going into. The case
is there to make up the difference
between essentially
an office environment and
the field conditions of the
real world this equipment
winds up in.”
That means cases such
as the ones supplied by companies
such as Zarges need
to be able to protect nonruggedized
gear from environmental
factors such as
rain, dust shock and vibration.
According to Britton,
“[The case] allows this stuff
to be manhandled, and survive
being tossed off the back
of a Humvee, that sort of
thing.” The HMMWV became
the military’s prime mover in
conflicts since Desert Storm
because of its ability to traverse on- and off-road at considerable
speeds over great distances. Cases needed to be developed that
could “keep up” with the vehicle. “In the old days,” reiterates
Britton, “a lot of this equipment was permanently mounted into
trucks and trailers, and that provided the protection for it. After
Desert Storm, we found that those large truck- and trailer-sized
pieces of equipment couldn’t keep up with our forces; things
had to be smaller, faster and more mobile.”
Kevin Murphy, director of marketing communications
with Pelican, agrees: “In Iraq and Afghanistan the equipment’s
enemy is sand and dust. Once it gets into bearings, sleeves or
hinges, it starts tearing gear up. You’ll find Pelican cases all
over the theater of operations being used as storage containers,
not just transport. That’s because the gear still needs to be protected
from sand and dust, even while in storage.” He continued,
“We’ve learned how to control the environment inside the
case regardless of the conditions outside. For example, a government
in Southeast Asia needed to protect parachutes from
mold between operations, so our desiccant gel cartridge is used
to absorb humidity in the case. And beyond the rubber o-ring
seal, there is a pressure equalization valve. Every Pelican case
allows air to breathe in and out of the case (to prevent vacuum
lock), but the valve uses a Gore-Tex membrane to block water
molecules from entering the case.”
Ruggedized containers such as those described by Britton
and Murphy are not usually purchased directly by the military
as an empty case, but rather are purchased by the primary
contractors, the Boeings, the General Dynamics, etc., and integrated
into a system. Hardigg Industries has been working with
the U.S. military for decades, designing and providing rugged
protective cases to protect anything from weapons to medical
gear. In January of this year Pelican purchased its longtime
competitor Hardigg. The transaction, valued at approximately
$200 million, is said to be the largest acquisition in the history
of the protective case industry. The Hardigg brand name
has been retained by Pelican, and Hardigg’s line of high-end
roto-molded shipping cases will continue to be sold by Pelican.
28 | MLF 3.7
U.S. Army Sgt. Daniel Ponce of the 204th Brigade Support Battalion, guides the final storage container into place on the truck for the closure of Umm
Qasr North, in Umm Qasr, Iraq. [Photo courtesy of U.S. Army]
Hardigg’s cases have proved themselves over and over again in
the unrelenting wind, heat, sand and dust storms of Iraq. All
of Pelican’s case solutions, the original, virtually indestructible
injection molded cases, and the newly acquired Hardigg
roto-molded properties are airtight, watertight, sandproof
and dustproof—a must in the Middle East. Speaking about
the acquisition, Murphy said, “Here are two great companies,
building their products in the USA, serving two ends of the
same market. Pelican brings about 50 injection molded cases
for personal use and weapons transport, Hardigg with over
500 roto-mold sizes and an emphasis on custom solutions and
heavy transport programs. Now we can connect the full scope of
the military’s requirements, and make a difference that today’s
warfighter will see.”
As case manufacturers put it, when developing and deploying
a military system, more often than not, the case is the last
thing engineers and contractors think about. But the demand
is always the same: Make it strong, but make it light. According
to Britton, “We constantly are getting pushed for lighter and
smaller. Obviously weight and volume drive shipping costs, drive
manpower and personal requirements, so on and so forth.”
Zarges sees aluminum as the answer to “tough but strong.”
Other manufacturers such as Pelican and Hardigg rely on composites
and plastics. “We concentrate on aluminum because it
has the strength and the temperature resistance. The plastics
are lower cost and some are just as strong [as aluminum],
but they don’t have the range of temperature resistance,” said
Britton.
Someone who might disagree with Zarges’ approach is Jason
Fletcher, marketing director of Oregon-based ECS Composites.
“The military operates in the most extreme environments in the
world. As such we need to design cases to meet those conditions
and standards. That is why we use the reinforced composites
to manufacture our cases. They perform well in those extreme
temperatures, both hot and cold.
Sterling Becklin, vice president of ECS, added, “We have
three product lines today—two fiberglass lines and one
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