Posted on 06/18/2010 11:13:50 PM PDT by ErnstStavroBlofeld
Is this the end of the line for Velcro? According to USA Today, the US army has decided to ditch that once most fashionable and space-age of fasteners from the pockets of trousers issued to soldiers in Afghanistan, and replace it with the humble button. The Velcro fasteners have, apparently, been failing to cope with bulging pockets – as well as collecting dirt and sand and even, with that unmistakable, fingers-on-blackboard ripping sound, betraying soldiers' positions to the enemy. US sergeant Kenny Hatten wrote on an army website, "Buttons are silent, work just fine in the mud, do not clog up with dirt and do not fray and disintegrate with repeated laundering."
Let us pause for a moment to mourn Velcro's fall from grace. A Swiss engineer, George de Mestral, came up with its ingenious hook-and-pile design in 1948, after returning from an Alpine hunting trip to find his dog's fur covered with tenaciously sticky burdock burrs. Its heyday came with the Apollo missions, when astronauts used it to help them get in and out of spacesuits, and to keep their pens and foodtrays handy.
Velcro soon became the fashionable fastener of choice: in 1967, this newspaper fawned over a collection of Sioux Indian-style "ankle-to-calf gaiters", featuring some distinctly natty Velcro fastenings. It was even, apparently, used to hold together a human heart during the first artificial-heart surgery.
Now, of course, Velcro is confined mainly to ski-suits, aeroplane antimacassars, trainers and the art of Velcro-jumping, in which fun-seekers launch themselves against a Velcro-covered inflatable wall – which sounds a lot less dangerous than realising that the enemy can hear you opening your pockets in the desert.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Fitting since America’s space program is being phased out too...
Took ‘em long enough to figure out that velcro sucks. A whole new generation of milspec gear will have to be produced. In addition to buttons, they may go back to snaps and - gasp! - zippers!
Note to self. - First thing Monday morning sale my Velcro stock, and buy humble button.
Good! Velcro was a PITA. Buttons, zippers, and sew on patches work fine.
Velcro has its applications, and the uniform of a soldier shouldn’t be one of them...
time to identify a good quality sewing kit that can be sent to our troops en masse
and now can the Navy get rid of the Village people cracker jack outfit...i hated wearing the dress blue in the winter...miserable wool thing that never fits right.
Ping
Velcro gets dirt/dust/mud/etc in it and then no longer “sticks” well. So velcro pockets don’t stay shut.
Obviously no one asked an actual soldier first.
The “burr” side of Velcro inexorably collects lint, rendering it eventually worthless.
another case of over-engineering crap. If the tried and true works reliably under all conditions - go with it. The wizz-bang factor too often disappoints.
Yeah but nobody ever had to go to the hospital after they got their testicles stuck in velcro. At least I don’t think they have. We had a nasty incident with a kid in my gym class in junior high and a zipper. I recall the coaches with pliers, but forget the rest, except for the scream.
yeah, but you’d have to have a pecker the size of a cigarette butt to get it caught in a button hole.
Now that’s funny.
I can remember when the old head troops bitched abut the ‘new’ nylon button replacing the ‘tried and true’ metal buttons.
BTW - it ain't a Zipper son - it is a fastener, interlocking slide, metal. Zipper is a Brand Name you know, like Trojans or Marlboro.
As a hairy person, I can attest that the worst thing for velcro performance is to have hair stuck to it.
Zippers? The point is truly that velcro makes too much noise. Buttons are truly tactical in that regard.. and one gets quicker with the unbuttoning.
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