Very interesting. Not sure about those specs, Is the 15 minute boil for the trangia or the crux? and with or without a windscreen? It looks like without. I agree with you that it seems like a weak offering to me. I'm actually surprised that this sort of system might be a viable product in this day and age. One thing militaries hate is multiple and diverse types of fuel. It's hazardous, and difficult logistically to keep track of. It's one of the reasons trioxane is out. IAside from the general lack of canteen cups...Trioxane is not food, nor is it 'fuel' in the logistical sense. For general use, (not ECW OPS) the US trend has been toward MRE heaters, which are considered part of the food (since they're in the same package) Since most military vehicles eat jp-8, which is basically high grade kerosene, it makes sense that for ECW OPS, A stove with the ability to burn the same fuel as is already available in bulk would be a clear advantage. The Optimus nova has a nsn as well as the coleman 550b, both burn kerosene well. Also primus multifuel, omnifuel, msr-xgk, dragonfly and the optimus hiker+ burn kerosene well.Sealegs wrote: I am all sorts of dissapointed with this and primarily with the choice of gas burner (Optimus Crux). The fact that it's rated at about 15minutes for boiling 1l of water comes in as a close second.![]()
Anyhoo, I'm currently in the process of negotiating a liberation of one of these kits for "study", purely scientific..Still, someone at purchasing and testing had a little too much of the ranger cool-aid to drink IMHO.
A couple of years ago there was a buzz around the interwebs about a joint project between msr and the us military called the Modular Individual Water Heater (MIWH)
which was supposed to be a dead simple jp-8 burning stove without a pump and very few moving parts. The technology was based on a tablet sized ceramic wick that pressurized the fuel using capillary action. I recall seeing a prototype on ebay and i heard that the 10th Mt. division was testing it... but nothing further. If you ask me, it probably turned out to be cheaper to purchase and issue off the shelf backpacking stoves, rather than re-invent the wheel. The premise seemed to be that trioxane needed to be replaced across the entire military, but it seems to me that, with mre heaters, the stove is a more specialized bit of gear.
Oh by the way, a consumer version of the MIWH was supposed to revolutionize the backpacking stove industry with an easy to use maintenance free liquid fuel stove. I suspect a call came down from the marketing department saying "look here R&D Department! Do you have any idea what the profit margin is on 8 oz of butane?! Why would we ever want to market something that lets the end user buy cheap kerosene from the gas station instead of premium fuel from us?! Why don't we all just forget the whole thing?!"
The katadyn offering does not have the jp-8 fuel advantage, rather it forces the supply chain to feed it specialty fuels and not only that... it seems that they expect different fuels to be supplied depending on the mission(!) It seems more convenient for Katadyn than anyone else.
Essentially it's a bunch of off the shelf stuff just looking for a new market. Katadyn has been some zany stuff... anybody see that canned cheesburger a while back?!
Anyway, thanks for posting this!!! If you manage to get your hands on one, I for one would be very interested in your opinion on it!