MVT SHIELD: Availability Imminent
The MVT Shield project, has in all honesty, taken far too long to come to fruition. R&D was completed a long time ago. Availability is, however, now imminent.
I have just gone out today and taken some photos of a pre-production prototype. I will put them up here, and over the next few days the MVT Shield page will be under construction, as I ready it for the launch of the product.
A couple of things:
1) The MVT Shield will, at least initially, be made in coyote brown. This provides an excellent base color that can be adapted to your environment and/or season. More on that in the photos, below. The size is 68 x 88 inches, which is 5.6′ x 7.3′.
2) The MVT Shield, both this specific design as well as the general concept using less effective methods, has been tested and will block viewing of your thermal image, including all thermal bloom through the material. The outer sandwich layers are constructed of 70 denier rip-stop coated nylon with an inner double layer of thermal blocking material. The inner layers of thermal blocking material are not Mylar type ’emergency blankets,’ but a better, softer, more foldable/durable (‘non-crinkling”) alternative material.
3) The MVT Shield is designed to be optimally used in conjunction with good fieldcraft, i.e. terrain and vegetation masking, as well as with an air gap between the user and the material. It is designed to provide you with a usable and serviceable tactical shelter tarp, as well as an emergency thermal blanket. It is therefore multi-use, being a weather and thermal shield as well as a casualty blanket. If you put this up as part of your standard shelter SOP, you have also masked your thermal signature.
4) The MVT Shield is made in the USA, literally by a cottage industry. They are made by the fair hand the wife of a student who attended an MVT class. There will no doubt be a waiting list, first come first served, once I put up the payment options.
5) Payment options will be either PayPal, or check/money order through the mail. You will go on the waiting list in the order that your payment was received. The price will most likely by $185 at this time, plus shipping.
Above: we are providing a stuff sack with draw-cord with the MVT Shield. Above is a test design.
Above/Below: standard coyote color set up as a shelter tent. There are many ways to deploy this shelter.
Above: a view showing the multiple tie-outs designed to allow you options to deploy the MVT Shield.
Above: a closer view of the design
Above: literally 10 MINUTES with 3 colors of krylon camouflage paint will allow you to customize the shield to your location and/or the season.
Above; The coyote color is blank canvas.
There are basically 3 ways you can customize the MVT Shield. Tips:
1) Keep it the basic coyote color, which will make it fairly nondescript and usable for any kind of backwoods activity.
2) Use camouflage paint such as krylon to adapt the camouflage pattern to your environment, as shown above. You can even do a better job than I did in 10 minutes!
3) Add a ‘ghillie-lite’ effect to the top of the shield. Use a spattering of materiel glued to the surface, such as cut up burlap and pieces of camouflage netting across the top of the shield, and also hanging over the edges. Keep it reasonable to cut down on bulk and weight. With or without this addition you can garnish the top of the deployed shield with local vegetation and/or leaf/tree litter to create an additional camouflage effect.
Why do # 3?
Because the potential weakness of deploying a shield in areas where you don’t have much terrain or vegetation masking is that it will be seen due to its shape. Good fieldcraft, siting and camouflage will help with this. If you deploy a shield, or any kind of tarp, in a relative open area there is danger that it will be seen due to SHAPE.
SHAPE is visible in both the visual and thermal spectrum, which means to the naked eye and also viewing through a FLIR. What you do to break up SHAPE in the visual spectrum will also break it up in the thermal. Two for one. To explain: when looking through a thermal device, the heat that the device picks up makes a picture, a camera image, that you can understand. You see trees and objects. Everything has a different signature, which is why you see a picture due to the thermal differentials. a living object will really stand out, unless blended into an object that is heated by a hot sun, such as a tin roof, or the ground. So if your Shield blocks the thermal image, but you have poorly sited it so it stands out as a clearly rectangular object, then it may be seen. Just like in the visual field.
So it is a case of camouflaging yourself even though your thermal signature is now not visible. You can use terrain and vegetation masking, natural camouflage, and also a ‘ghillie-lite’ effect on the shield itself. I will produce an example of this and take photos for the blog at some point.
Live Hard.
Die Free.
Max