11 minute read
TOD: BASHA BUILDING
BASHA UP!
WE THOUGHT IT WAS TIME TO START PUTTING SOME OF THOSE TACTICAL OUTDOOR SKILLS INTO PRACTICE AFTER TALKING ABOUT THEM FOR SO LONG, SO BILL AND JIMMY HAVE BEEN OUT IN THE WOODS BUILDING FAST-SET SHELTERS THAT CAN SEE EVEN THE MOST EFFICIENT AND “LIGHT IS RIGHT” PLAYERS AMONGST YOU COMFORTABLE FOR A NIGHT OR TWO!
Back when I was a teenager I was really into my cadet-force life, and lived for “parade days” on a Friday! Back in the 8o’s it was perfectly acceptable to wear our DPM to school and then head straight out to “army training sir”! Due to being in a garrison town we had a regular turnover of units in residence and it was my great honour (although not always pleasure!) to receive training from the likes of our parent Regiment The Royal Engineers, but also the likes of the Parachute Regiment, Royal Marines, the Gurkhas, Royal Irish Rangers, and the Queens Infantry Regiment!
Weekend and summer camps were the undoubted highlights of my year, but especially those summer two-or-three-weekers where my friends and I lived and breathed all things “army”! Proper days on the range shooting everything that UKLF had to offer, section and platoon skills, all kinds of field training, but most importantly for me a good 48 or 72 hour exercise to round things off.
The final exercise was where we put ALL the training we’d been given into practice, and after a full day of patrols, ambushes and section attacks our platoon laager at the end of the day was where “field admin” really came into play, and I have to admit that this experience went about shaping the future person (and indeed airsoft player!) that I would one day become.
Personal admin (ie keeping yourself clean and your sh1t squared!) came to the fore, along with cooking expediently over a hexi-burner with mess tins; water was largely what you carried in a couple of ’58 waterbottles so you had to be efficient! Although we “stood to” at dusk and dawn, and undoubtedly pulled “stag” during the night, I remember that on those short summer nights under a “basha” I slept like a log!
Our old “bashas” were put together using two ’58 pattern ponchos, bungees, paracord, and a couple of tent pegs, but essentially a basha can be easily made using any waterproof canvas or plastic sheet which you can always find in camping, outdoor, or military surplus stores. This can happily act as a “fastset” shelter, in the form of an impromptu “tent” supported with cord and bungees attached to trees.
The origin of the word “basha” I’ve discovered from further research online (we didn’t have “online” back when I first started building bashas!) comes from Assamese, meaning a “hut that takes the form of naturally fabricated shelters made of bamboo and palm materials”. That research also tells me that it probably first entered British Army “slang” to describe a temporary jungle shelter by Chindits operating behind enemy lines in Burma! A more accepted adoption of the word then came during the Malayan Campaign (1950–1959) where many ex-Chindits were recruited to fight the communist insurgents in the jungles.
Bashas are used primarily by the military, particularly the British Army, the Australian Army (where they are colloquially known as a “hooch”, “hoochie” or “hutchie”), the New Zealand Army and other commonwealth forces and the term describes a fast-set shelter on operations, usually constructed out of the equipment carried between two soldiers, or a “buddy pair”, they are basic, super-lightweight and can put up swiftly, and camouflaged simply with foliage specific to the AO. Their low profile provides a minimal silhouette, and as many military tarps are infra-red reflective, this makes them even better! Normally bashas are erected in woods, as the trees support the basha using bungees and paracord. Whilst they are by no means “sniper hides” they can also provide cover for longer term recce missions due to their ultra-low-profile.
HOME FOR THE NIGHT
If you decide that your airsoft adventures will lead you into the MilSim world, then the ability to set up a suitable overnight shelter quickly is a crucial skill. Yes, you can carry a tent or a hooped bivvy, but this all adds to weight and bulk of load, making you ultimately less effective during “ops”. Although not as comfortable overall, a fast-set shelter will still provide protection from wind and rain and help to keep in some warmth, allowing for an adequate night’s rest; there’s nothing worse than having a crap night’s sleep, and you want to be fully switched on for the next day, don’t you?
A “military” basha is as simple as it gets; by using very little equipment that you carry as a part of your “line gear”, you can create a tactical shelter within minutes, and one with a very small footprint and silhouette! With a basha you have a multitude of configurations to choose from depending on the ground, to make an effective shelter and a solid, weather-protective “home for the night”.
These days in my Patrol Pack I always have a couple of super-light “Stashas” (stasha = stashable basha, clever!) from Snugpak with which to create my basha. In addition I carry a selection of green, hook-ended bungee cords, two small rolls of different thickness paracord, six tent pegs, and a small roll of sniper tape; my advice would be to NOT use standard metal tent pegs, they are cheap sure enough, but weak, and as they may need to be driven into the ground between the rocks and roots, it’s worth investing in some really good pegs! Bungees can also be found very cheaply online these days, and although just carrying paracord will do the job, you really don’t want to be messing about with knots in the cold and rain if you can avoid it!
So, in terms of a “basha kit” I would personally recommend that you have in your pack the following items: • Snugpak Stasha, Military Poncho or Tarp with Corner Eyelets • 4 x Green, Hook-End Bungees (two different lengths) • 6 x Tent Pegs • 5-10m of Paracord • 1 x Small Roll of Duck or Sniper Tape (the answer to all problems!)
Some people use tent-style guylines (the Stasha comes with a set) but paracord can simply wrap around a tree to provide stability and lift the shelter
centre to let rain and dew run off. The tent pegs are to peg in the sides or corners, and it may be useful to also carry a couple of karabiners which can be used in conjunction with the paracord to give more flexibility when attaching corners of the tarp to securing points.
CORD AND TAPE
Interestingly when I was in the midst of writing this article I got into a back and forth with our resident historian Will F, and he gave me some information which I’ll share with you as I found it fascinating!
The Brits call it “Sniper Tape”, the Americans “100 mile an hour tape” and civilians commonly call it duck, duct or gaffer tape. The actual US Army designation for it is “Olive Drab Green Reinforcement Tape”!
During World War II the US Army asked Johnson & Johnson to develop a seal that would keep moisture out of ammunition boxes. J&J came up with OD green reinforcement tape. It is said that the tape was so effective that rain beaded off it like “water off a duck’s back” earning it the name “duck tape”. Duck tape would end up having multiple uses when GI’s didn’t have the proper tools to fix something they would use duck tape. The popular myth was that it would hold a Jeep together travelling at 100 mph, hence the nickname “100 mile an hour tape.” Another version of the name that dates from the Vietnam War where it was in such demand that if a user did not keep a firm hold on a roll it would disappear at “100 miles an hour”!
For many years the British Army used a heavy duty black fabric tape for the functions covered by 100 Mile and Hour tape. It was formally known as black masking tape but better known as ‘black nasty’ or ‘bodge tape’ while the Royal Marines called it “Pussers Tape”. The British Army sniper tape that entered service during the war in Afghanistan is manufactured by Scapa and follows the lead given by 100 Mile an Hour. It is available in olive green and desert sand, and the matt fabric is non-reflective, and can be painted over or written on. Sniper Tape has been used to reinforce the camouflage around the brims of helmets, secure loose equipment straps and make expedient repairs to clothing in the field.
Tape can fix a lot of problems but sometimes you need a different sort of back up, and here “Paracord” is the answer. It was originally the rigging lines of discarded or damaged military parachutes (hence the name) but is now produced for military and civilian use. Perhaps the highest accolade that can be given to Paracord is that it was used by space walking astronauts in 1997 in the 82nd Space Shuttle mission to repair the Hubble Space telescope!
The best Paracord to go for is MIL-C-5040 550 which is the same size and breaking strain (550 lbs)
as the Type III Commercial Paracord but is made to a very specific set of guidelines dictated by the US Military. It can be identified by one of the inner seven strands which is multi-coloured, allowing it be traced back to source. This is useful because some stuff that is passed off as Paracord is just green nylon cord and sometimes polyester.
You don’t need to be in the Services, or a dedicated airsofter to discover that 100 Mile an Hour Tape and Paracord are incredibly useful friends to have in your EDC Kit, and especially so when building bashas!”
SETTING IT UP
If you look online you’ll no doubt find countless ways to set up a basha, but there are two configurations that have always been my default! The “A-Shelter” is probably the simplest (and quickest to set up!) and dates way back to when man first started to make an improvised shelter in which to rest overnight! All you need to do for an “A-Shelter” is find two trees a little wider apart than the LONGEST length of your “stasha” and run a tight length of paracord between
them.
Once you have your paracord in place you simply toss your “stasha” over this line and then secure the ground-edges with your tent pegs. What you end up with is a low shelter that when looked at from the front makes an “A” shape, hence the name!
For an even lower silhouette you can set up a really classic British Army-style “basha” with a pair of stashas, one for a groundsheet and one for the “roof”. For this you’ll need to locate two trees or saplings a little wider apart than the SHORTEST length of your stasha and run a bungee to each from the corner eyelets. Once you’ve done this pull the stasha back to form a sloping over-cover and stake this out using two tent pegs for the rear eyelets.
This is your basic “roof”, and if your tarp has a central point it’s worth running a length of paracord from above to lift it and create a low, conical structure as this will let rain or dew roll off more easily; if you’re using a military poncho simply tie off the hood to do this. Now you can slide in your “groundsheet” under the “roof” (having first cleared your sleeping area of obvious rocks and groundlitter!) and peg this out using the remaining four tent pegs in your kit (total, six pegs!).
And that, as they say, is “all she wrote”!
With your shelter created it’s then as simple as throwing in your sleeping bag on top of your kipmat; I use either a Snugpak full-length TRAVELITE mat or a Snugpak MIDI MAT depending on the duration that I’ll be spending in the basha; both are self-inflating and are low-volume, low-weight which keeps my physical pack size down.
Both Jimmy and I had a lot of fun out in the woods rekindling our love for the simple basha, and it’s definitely something that you can do with your own “battle buddy” to keep the skill honed. I would confess though that we did take the MSR and my coffee pot to have a decent brew while we worked… as I always say, “any fool can be uncomfortable”!
Next month we’ll take things up a notch and look practically at lightweight hooped bivvys and tents that are ideal for an “overnighter”.
As always my sincere thanks go to our old mates at Snugpak for working with us on this article. Be sure to check out all they offer by visiting www. snugpak.com/sleeping/military-tactical AA
