Battleland

How Cool Are Marines? Not Cool Enough, Apparently

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The Marines like to joke that they break down doors, while the Army seeks to sign a lease with the property owner. Completely false, of course, but with enough scent of truth to it that it generates smiles among leathernecks and scowls from soldiers.

Well, the Army has shipped lots of air conditioners – and the generators to run them – to Afghanistan and Iraq over the past decade. So have the Marines, but they’re now looking for ways to keep their jarheads cool in a lighter-footprint, more expeditionary kind of way:

The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) seeks to obtain market research information from sources capable of fully satisfying the requirement for a commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) thermo-electric based technology configured to cool a Marine lying in a bed. The technology should fit squarely on top of the bed; “wearable” systems (i.e. vests, shirts) are not of interest. The localized cooling technology should require a minimal amount of power to maintain a surface temperature significantly lower than the ambient air temperature. The thermo-electric device should also offer a heating capability and should operate on 120VAC power.

Cool!