escape and evade

Krupto Strategic SERE ankle band: A Crate Club exclusive product

One of the Crate Club exclusives comes from Krupto Strategic. This SERE ankle band is designed to be wrapped around your ankle and to carry the small tools you need to make it home. The SERE ankle band is a simple, but effective idea. It sports three pockets, one large and two small, and is designed to be super low profile. Each pocket sports a simple cover that’s a lot like an AR mag pouch. A little bit of velcro holds the whole closed and secures your goods.

What’s the Point?

It’s a little pouch, and the designer himself has said, “It’s not for your fucking revolver!” The SERE ankle band is designed to hold very small, but important goods. As a SERE kit it’s designed for escape and evasion, so you aren’t packing a fighting load. This Mini SERE kit is perfect for backing some basic essentials for escape in an urban environment. This includes a small knife, a small light, handcuff keys, cash, tools, and anything else you feel you need to escape, evade, and survive with.

Personally, I carry the following in my SERE ankle band:

Crate Club Mini Flashlight
Phillips/Flathead driver
Handcuff Key
Readyman Mini Saws (From ReadyMan card)
P-38 Can Opener
6 Feet or Paracord
1 Small Role Medical Tape
3 Derby Razors

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This isn’t a long-term survival plan, this is you just escaped and need to distance from any potential bad guys. This kit will help you get that distance and allow you to gain that ground. This kits small size makes it easy to hide and allows it to remain virtually undetected.

The small pouches are quite tight but malleable enough to squeeze in your gear. That tight design ensures everything is kept in place and where it should be. The band is semi-elastic and quite comfortable. It’s wide and secured with a healthy dose of hook and loop. The band stretches quite a bit and allows it to fit around my tree trunk of an ankle.

When it comes to all-day wear its surprisingly comfortable and doesn’t sag, drag, or rub your ankle painfully. Alternatively, it can be tossed into your cargo or even back pocket, but if searched it’s much more likely to be found.

The Krupto Strategic SERE ankle band is small, effective and you can store a surprising amount of goods in it. I’m curious to see what our Crate Clubbers store in theirs? Let us know below in the comments what goes in your Mini SERE kit.

To get your own SERE ankle band, visit the Crate Club store

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Combat Survival and RECCE Chest Rig Setup

I’m not a fan of having equipment on my belt line. It impedes movement, gets in the way during awkward shooting positions or when getting into observation spots. As a SERE instructor for the military I have quite a bit of minimal gear that I need to carry in order to fulfill my job effectively. Over the past couple years I’ve modified the way that I carry this gear through trial and error. Most of my time in the field is spent doing either hard work (felling trees, chopping wood) or doing some type of squad level movements in simulated non-permissive environments. What I’ve found that works best for me is wearing a light well-constructed chest rig to carry most of my essential need-to-get-to equipment and the rest goes in my field ruck.

What I like most about using a chest rig is that I can easily drop my ruck at a cache point and move to an objective and be confident that I have the necessary gear on me to survive or be able to complete an objective. My chest rig loadout is centered almost entirely around a combat evasion and survival model and in a modified loadout for light recce activities.

There are many wonderful chest rigs out on the market today and I’ve tried most of them and or I’ve seen fellow instructors use them. For the past 6 months I’ve been using the mayflower gen IV chest rig. I’ve tried split front chest rigs but I’ve found that much of the valuable real estate up front is taken up and I have to shift my equipment to the side where it will interfere with my ruck straps. I’ve always been a fan of mayflower rigs but that isn’t to say that there aren’t other chest rigs out there what will suit you just fine. In general I’d advise to stay with a non-front-split chest rig, which is just my humble opinion based on my experiences.

In my chest rig I have it set up as follows for survival. Left most pouch is typically a small Individual First-Aid kit put together by the Counter-terrorism Institute of America (any small IFAK will do well). Moving across the front row moving left to right I have one yellow and one IR chemstick, military issued lensatic compass lanyarded off to me, US pocket knife, Leatherman wave (same one issued to me when I started training, great little tool), Princeton LED headlamp, 5 lines of 10ft 550 cord, firesteel, and a PRC-152 radio on the furthermost right hand side (Sometimes on the left swapped with the IFAK when necessity rears its ugly head). On the innermost pouches designed for magazines things change up depending on what I’m doing. For survival, left to right is surefire g2 light and benchmade folding knife, Garmin eTrex 30 (has topo maps of the entire world, if I don’t have a map of the area I’m good to go.), MS2000 IR strobe, and finally my trusty ESEE 4 knife (Same one issued at the beginning of training, hell of a knife). And on the strap of my chest rig or on my wrist I also have my Garmin Foretrex 401 for most of my navigation needs.

In a light Recce role I swap out the left 3 back magazines pouches for STANAG magazines. The Garmin eTrex 30 and other items get moved to the pack as they are typically not mission essential. In use the lensatic compass is my main navigation tool along with a map. If no map is available I use the Garmin eTrex 30’s topographic maps and plot my destinations. The Garmin Foretrex 401 is used to navigate and check headings as necessary. This setup will not work for everyone and is very specific to my job but I hope it at least serves as a primer for those of you looking to set up a light survival / recce rig. A chest rig keeps you light on your feet and your hips free to use those kidney belts on your ruck. As always the man is what matters and not the gear. Never the less – great gear never hurts.

Rogue Dynamics: Rogue Stash Tag

Awhile back I was flipping through Facebook like a zombie when I came across a post for an interesting looking product. It was the Rogue Stash Tag from Rogue Dynamics. Rogue Dynamics is a Veteran owned company that sells everything from T-shirts and patches to tactical and urban escape and evasion gear.

Always interested in unique gear, I purchased a couple of the Stash Tags for use in my travels. The Stash Tags are made out of Velcro material sewn together with a grommet at one end. The purpose of these are for stashing small emergency items. This is facilitated by one side opening up via a Velcro seal exposing a hidden pocket. This pocket is perfect for hiding small escape and evasion tools, cash, or packets of OTC meds.

The tag has the Rogue Dynamics logo on one side and can accept any Velcro backed patches or name tape. I recently used one of the tags on a trip going through airport security without it attracting any attention. I attached it to my carry on via a small carabiner. I like this product it’s well made and low profile. If you’re looking for a way to carry some small items or cash I highly recommend the Rogue Stash Tag.

Author – Art Dorst served in the U.S. Navy and Navy Reserves and eventually retired as an NCO from The Army National Guard. He is also a retired municipal Police Officer, a Certified EMT, NRA Instructor, and is currently a security provider/trainer.

215 Gear Bolt Bag: A means to carry essentials needed to live

About a year or so ago I was checking out the 215 Gear website when I came across their Bolt Bag. I liked the concept so I order one in coyote brown. The idea behind this bag is that you can use it as a stand-alone bag or attach it to any molle platform with the two included molly sticks. The idea is that you can attach it to a pack and if need be dump the pack and grab the Bolt Bag with basics in it and move out. Upon receiving the bag I was very satisfied with the overall feel and obvious quality construction. The bag adds 450 cubic inches of storage capacity to your loadout with the dimensions being 10″ high x 12″ wide x 3.75″ deep with a weight of 1 lbs 14 oz. The bag comes in coyote brown and Multicam at this time and it is made in the USA, Berry Compliant and comes with a lifetime warranty. The bag has one flat mesh zippered pocket along with two billowing mesh pockets and a detachable shoulder strap.

I like this bag as a stand-alone for use as a range bag and/or car bag keeping a rain jacket, first aid kit, snacks, extra pistol mags, water bottle, etc. The interior mesh pockets allow for organizing your gear without having to dump it all on the ground. I also like it for traveling attached to my GORUCK GR1 I can detach it when I get seated on a plane put my pack in the overhead and put the Bolt Bag under the seat in front of me with my iPod, headset, drink, snacks, Ipad, and other items I want to have quick access to during the flight. All in all, I’m very happy with this product, especially with a price tag of $64.99. If there was anything I’d like to see changed about this product is the color the available colors are great if you’re heading out into the field or down range but I’d like to see a grey or black version available for more everyday use.

Guest Writer – Art Dorst served in the U.S. Navy and Navy Reserves and eventually retired as an NCO from The Army National Guard. He is also a retired municipal Police Officer, a Certified EMT, and is currently a professional security provider and trainer.