I don't really know much about history of this design, except that it is
a French Army 1952 model, probably inspired by a British Pattern 37 mess kit instead of classical pot-and-pan design. French mess tin consists of three rectangular, thick aluminum pans with rounded corners, stowed into each other.
Downside of this solution is lack of the large main pot to be hanged over the campfire.In return you get a handy, compact design, better suited to fit into a rucksack, side pocket of a backpack, belt pouch or even cargo pocked on your fatigues than it's kidney-shaped counterpart.
I've seen some people storing survival kit in this mess tin and I have to admit this solution has some benefits. The mess tin provides both heavy-duty protection of your goods and a handy container to heat your food or boil water.
Handle snaps in place when closed and holds everything nicely together (well, as long as you use all parts, as I will explain later). You can then carry the whole kit attached by the loop on it's side or just put it into a US Molle II Canteen Pouch, which makes it easy to attach to pretty much anything you carry around.
Handle snaps in place when closed and holds everything nicely together (well, as long as you use all parts, as I will explain later). You can then carry the whole kit attached by the loop on it's side or just put it into a US Molle II Canteen Pouch, which makes it easy to attach to pretty much anything you carry around.
So yeah, you can definitely use this mess tin as a survival box, but it also has several limitations you should be aware of:
- due to the rounded corners and a loose fit of it's components it's not optimal to play the usual survival gear Tetris,
- it is not watertight by any means (though you can put your kit into a ziplock bag first),
- it cannot be used as a container to store and carry water - at least not a very practical one,
- it's pretty damn heavy despite of being made of aluminum (it's actually heavier than even Bundeswehr or Swedish mess tin w/o accessories).
Middle "plate" section is shorter and it's held tight in place by the smallest inner section - if you try to remove inner section to reduce weight, the whole package it becomes loose and clutters.You can always prevent that by stuffing enough goods inside to fill it up, but still it's a drawback.
Side-by-side comparison with German Bundeswehr mess tin:
SPECIFICATIONS:
Weight: 550g total (incl. 220g main pan, 157g middle plate and 173g small pan with handle).
Capacity: apporx. 0.6l main pan, 0.5l each of two smaller
Weight to capacity ratio: 916.6 (low is better)
MORE PHOTOS:
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