The Ranger Roll Sleep System & A Winter Modification

[Music] [Music] [Music] all right guys welcome back to grunt proof this is the german headquarters today we are talking about something that you've seen on my back a few times some of you guys have already guessed what it is and that is the ranger roll this is a legendary sleep system that you see all over the internet i've seen a few videos about it but i've seen it all over the comments on army sleep system videos this is the most basic version a poncho and a poncho liner put together for your basic sleep system there are a lot of myths and confusions about this system that's what we're going to talk about today because we're going to get in depth on this thing and i'm going to show you the best way to actually use this especially in the winter for those of you who don't know this system i'm going to show it off real quick this is basically your army issue pancho and your poncho liner they go together to form a light sleep system in the field this is how you can expect to sleep but not in the winter throw it over yourself that's how a lot of guys sleep you can snap the poncho together down here to get a little bit of a better seal yes you're sleeping in your boots and all your clothes this is just a system to not die for a couple hours so you can get a little bit of rest now essentially you would tie all the corners together so that it somewhat stays together as one piece so when you roll it out you got it to throw over you and when you got to pack up just fold it in on itself so the liner doesn't get wet roll it up and you're good to go now i want to dispel one myth up front despite what a lot of tough guys will tell you or people who haven't truly slept with this in the field this is not a winter sleeping system this will keep you warm on cool summer nights when it drops down to maybe below 60 degrees depending on what your tolerance is but for me as a mississippi boy from the gulf coast this would be my cool summer night sleep system it's light it's easy to pack up it's got many purposes because you do have a poncho with you but if i tried to take this in the winter anything below maybe 55 degrees i would freeze my butt off so don't let anybody tell you otherwise this is not a winter sleep system anybody who tells you this is a winter sleep system you will also notice that they will comment that they froze their butts off in the winter using this system either that or they're lying how can you make this a winter sleep system well the first thing you can do is you take the old us army casualty blanket that's your mylar coated survival blanket everybody sells one these days that will be your next layer under your poncho and then your poncho liner goes over that because you want your casualty blanket as close to your skin as possible but not touching it because then you'll sweat and then you'll freeze so once you do that you can then tie the corners together again your casualty blanket will be mostly secure in that one system and you have a decent bed roll that's going to reflect some heat once again that kind of system is not a deep winter sleep system the only guys i've seen be able to do that and not even freezing temperatures just winter conditions those were guys from like minnesota and stuff but anybody else could not survive that way especially a full night on the cold ground and everything but what if i told you i had the perfect method to make this system a truly winter sleep system and it's not even going to weigh as much as the modular sleep system and everything else there is a winter bedroll out there or what i'm going to call the epic ranger roll and as long as you have other cold weather gear with you it will get you down to freezing temperatures shout out to really big monkey because his youtube channel is one of the best outdoor channel i've seen on the freaking internet he covers the ranger role by itself and with the casualty blanket and i think he has the most in-depth video on that for this system we are going to use the same basic elements but we're going to add one so we're going to have the poncho poncho liner casualty blanket or any kind of reflective blanket you want to get and guess what our warming layer that's going to be the us army wool blanket typically you wouldn't pack the system out like this in the field you would have it pre-packaged out but i'm just going to show you what it looks like we'll roll it up you can see what it looks like there this is your standard wool blanket it comes in many colors puke green baby green army field green and some of them even come in that nice gray color that a lot of us use in the barracks so the wool blanket is heavy but if you consider how much the rest of this weighs and consider how much the modular sleep system weighs oh and by the way this was in the days before we were carrying the modular sleep system out in field and tactical environments when i showed up to germany in 2003 even though we had the mss we didn't bring it to the field why it wasn't practical for the field you heard me right there were some army units that were issued the mss an excellent sleep system and wouldn't allow their guys to bring it to the field because it wasn't practical go army now the wool blanket is not the same dimensions as the rest of the gear but that's okay it doesn't have to be and you don't even have to worry about the side sticking out a little bit because it's wool if it gets a little damp it's going to be fine so next we're gonna do our reflective layer well this is not the official us army casualty blanket rothko makes a version that's about as close as you're gonna get to the original issue one i have not been able to find the original issue one this is a cheaper one i got from amazon sort of like the arcturus that i destroyed in my last grunt proof video and guess what this one is already destroyed one camp out with this thing either way lay your casualty blanket out bear hard i'd seriously doubt that i already got a hole in it now we're going to lay out the poncho liner here's a tip on the pancho liner we would use the tag on our poncho liner to help us tell which direction to lay ours down for me the tag meant down at my feet and tagged down so then no matter what conditions i was in even at night i could feel for the tag okay that goes down there my feet boom i know exactly where it goes poncho liner goes over the reflective blanket now what i would do is use this string to go into the survival blanket and then the poncho and that'll keep all of this from moving around and going crazy for time's sake i'm not going to do that but you should definitely do that and you've got holes all the way down this even if your reflective blanket and your wool blanket don't all match up at least your inner and outer layers match up and it'll keep most of this together get my pillow set up and yes as i covered in my house soldier sleep video in the field or a tactical environment we sleep with all our clothes on there's no time to strip down to your underwear and thermals and put your bunny slippers on and get comfortable you're getting sleep because it's a necessity not because it's a comfort you're going to get your bedding down as quickly as possible you're going to get set up and you're zonking out yes sleeping like this you're going to get everything muddy it's going to get wet but as long as you have these layers just like the mss you're going to be warm and cozy so that's why you tie it all together the last thing i would do in the field reach out find two buttons around the center and snap those two together so at least if you move around at night the whole system is not going to come off of you one thing about your ruck is a pillow if you're worried about rain coming in you need to put the whole system up on top of the pad we always sleep with our feet downhill so if water starts running next to me it's going to run under me because my poncho and the rest of the sleep system are up on the ruck hopefully that's the plan this is actually a lot more comfortable than it probably looks get some nostalgia feel good again okay so i'm feeling the heat reflect onto myself now and uh it's only going to get warmer what i like about the wool blankets is that they're heavy so if you like a heavier blanket and that feeling of the weight on you you're gonna love this system nice and toasty now as long as you tie the system together and try to button up even if you're moving around you're not going to lose these layers and get these gaps where air is going to come off well randall that looks cool in theory and all but have you actually slept in that in freezing conditions yes i have in holmen fells in graph eastern germany where we do a lot of our field training and gunneries i've slept with this in freezing conditions yeah i was still cold but i was a lot better off than i would have been with just the two layers of the typical ranger roll and even with the three layer ranger roll you're still going to be cold in freezing conditions because every tiny little gap is going to let so much cold air in there and this wool blanket makes all the difference guys one thing to consider i know a lot of you guys are crafty and you like to sew things together if you own all these components and you want to sew a system like this together then by all means that's going to make it even better and it's going to make it seal better you could do kind of like the really big monkey guy and sew it all the way around to where you just climb in feet first and then it's like an awesome sleeping bag you roll it up like a bed roll i'm showing you guys this basic army method because we were given this stuff by the army and we had to turn it back in so most of us didn't want to do all kinds of crazy sewing and add all kinds of extra buttons and stuff when we would just have to rip it all out to turn it in to go to our next duty station anyway for me the simple method of tying everything together once you pull it over maybe snap a few buttons that worked out pretty well once again this system would not replace the mss and it shouldn't the modular sleep system is one of the best sleep systems you're gonna find out there it is heavy but it's tough it's warm as hell and you can sleep in any environment you can plop down right on the ground with your sleeping pad in there and freezing conditions and you'll be fine even with snow and rain hitting you all night long in lieu of that sleep system before we were allowed to use it i would bring this and sometimes i will go camping just with this for fun it is kind of like cowboy camping army style now we're gonna roll it up like it's time to go so to keep it waterproof you're going to have to fold it in on itself twice that's going to keep the rain off of it even if you line it all up perfectly and tie it together you're still going to have some parts sticking out so what i would do is make sure i had some extra poncho on one end and then on the end with all the extra stuff sticking out i would roll that up first and then you're left with just the poncho on the outside i folded it in by thirds and then this one overlaps a little bit there we go we have a waterproof bed roll if you're going to use this i would recommend getting some heavy-duty straps and buckles to hold this but i was just doing this for today so the rubber bands worked fine for me now the good thing about ol alice is you could throw this on top of your ruck and you had a complete winter sleep system that didn't even interfere with your ruck you just throw it on top alice has those super long straps you throw it over there cinch it down you're good to go so compare that roll-up time to packing in a mss possibly a wet one that's going to be a pain so there are some benefits to rolls like this unfortunately the media molly rock won't fit this on top another army field tip for you when you have a roll system like this even if it's just a sleeping pad that roll goes toward the back and down and so if you do have heavy rains coming in it's not going to go up into that flap the medium ruck is basically made just to put a sleeping mat up here or the simple ranger roll there are plenty of extra ways to make this even more comfortable you could roll up your sleep mat inside it it's just going to make it a little bit thicker but you're going to sleep more comfortably you could use heavy duty clips on the ends to keep everything together you can actually use the mylar blankets and you could sew that within there so you have panels and then you fold it over and it's sticking there you could use sticky velcro on each end so whenever you actually pull it over those velcros stick together and then you have a better seal really the possibilities are endless so if you own this stuff i suggest you go play with it don't just go out in freezing weather and try to sleep overnight with it make sure you set it up in your living room or whatever lay under it for a while see what it feels like well that's it guys thank you for joining me i hope you enjoyed this one let me know what you thought about it down below be sure to like subscribe and share my stuff click that bell so you get notified when i put up a new video and until that next video i will see you guys in the outdoors take care of yourselves you

Channel: Grunt Proof

Views: 716,977

Keywords: military surplus, survival gear, outdoor gear testing, survival, winter survival, ranger roll, ranger roll sleep system, ranger roller winter setup, ranger roll for the winter, winter sleep system, us army sleep system, mss, modular sleep system, reallybigmonkey, fun outdoors, really big monkey ranger roll, cowboy camping, camping bedroll, cowboy bedroll, winter ranger roll, woobie, poncho liner, bed roll, cowboy bedroll camping, Recce, recon, prepared

Id: SvinrG8mnWc

Length: 14min 54sec (894 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 04 2021