The jerrycan design goes back over 80 years (2020)(hagerty.com) |
The jerrycan design goes back over 80 years (2020)(hagerty.com) |
Wow, seems like a lot of little design choices went into this can.
I love how good UX crops up everywhere.
From my perspective there's three options:
a) get an old, plastic can with a vent from the before times
b) buy an expensive NATO metal can, and the flexible spout 'for amusement purposes only'
c) lobby your government to allow gas cans that don't cause actual spills everytime in the pursuit of avoiding fume leakage or whatever.
Just pour from the opposite side, e.g. https://youtu.be/LA7IbFzCNC4?t=51
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Scepter-USA-5-Gallon-Plastic-Gasoli...
This works great for filling my tractor, though I have the diesel variant
It is very sturdy feeling. Literally got last week so tbd on long term use I'm optimistic.
Though I had a problem trying to fill the two up at gas station. I'm going to try again I think it was just the pump or card was acting up since it also wouldn't flow into my car.
wavianusa.com
Me too. Empathetically. These deep dives feed my soul.
The Donald Norman books, obviously. I've read similar accounts about forks (the utensil), pencils, shipping containers, etc.
One organizational detail that pops out is the German government sponsored a design competition and then seriously reviewed everything.
Another data point in favor of broadly applying X-Prize like strategy to encourage innovation.
DARPA and a few others are (sometimes) smart this way. The book Design Rules: The Power of Modularity uses economic logic (based on net present value, aka NPV) to also make the argument in favor.
My takeaway here is that they should have iterated until they had a "great, but not perfect" design. That way, when the design inevitably gets aped... there's still room for the opposing side to introduce their own improvements which you can steal right back.
* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29787251
If you want old-school design "jerry cans", checkout Wavian for metal options:
* https://wavianusa.com/collections/nato-fuel-cans
For plastic (HDPE) options in the same design language see Scepter:
* https://www.scepter.com/products/consumer-products/
Comparison discussion between the two:
* https://expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/scepter-mfc-vs-wa...
A lot of folks don't like contemporary nozzles, in which case perhaps see:
* https://armysurpluswarehouse.com/wavian-jerry-can-nozzle/
Also do a search for "shaker siphon" and "pump siphon".
I've also seen multiple reports of the Wavians developing some surface rust inside which makes me question how good the interior lining is, not sure how prevalent that is though.
* https://www.scepter.com/products/consumer-products/
Non-US folks (EU, UK, CA) have access to the "military" products as well AFAICT:
I'd never given a moment's thought to the name, but as soon as I started reading the article, I realised where it came from... It's funny how we don't always think of the origins of words until prompted by something like this.
And yes, those things are handy!
Edit: it was this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwUkbGHFAhs&list=TLPQMTkwMzI...
You CAN find the water cans in the US - there's a place in Lexington, KY that sells them.
The vent it near the spout (impossible to tilt and not spill), and the flexible spout (sold separately) is slow and becomes stiff and unworkable in the cold.
My 20 year old, cheapo can with flexible accordion spout is vastly superior. Live and learn I guess.
Einheit means standard here
World War II is about the last point where "clever" codenames are allowed before the burgeoning use of signals intelligence means everybody realises that you should pick codenames randomly so that the codename doesn't reveal anything and so you will get shouted out at if anybody can guess what your thing does from the name. It's also the last point where people who have three military units number them one, two and three, because it sure makes life harder for intelligence if your third tank group is named group twenty-six...
Manhattan was a pretty good codename by modern standards, but Sea Lion is not very subtle at all, and Ultra is hardly subtle either (it is referring to being even more secret than Most Secret, even if you can't guess why the Ultra secret is so secret it's pretty obvious this is important)
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:D38zJ4x...
it certainly solves some problems -- ones I didnt have before
it adds several new ones -- ones I didnt have before
reminder to self: TODO buy an 80s style the moment I can find one. I've had it with this little red 2022 abomination
I have 4 original NATO cans and have thrown them around, dropped them, had them slide around in the back of a truck and bang into things. They have never once leaked a single drop or stopped working.
> Kennedy recounts the inside stories of the invention of the cavity magnetron, a miniature radar “as small as a soup plate,” and the Hedgehog, a multi-headed grenade launcher that allowed the Allies to overcome the threat to their convoys crossing the Atlantic; the critical decision by engineers to install a super-charged Rolls-Royce engine in the P-51 Mustang, creating a fighter plane more powerful than the Luftwaffe’s; and the innovative use of pontoon bridges (made from rafts strung together) to help Russian troops cross rivers and elude the Nazi blitzkrieg. He takes readers behind the scenes, unveiling exactly how thousands of individual Allied planes and fighting ships were choreographed to collectively pull off the invasion of Normandy, and illuminating how crew chiefs perfected the high-flying and inaccessible B-29 Superfortress that would drop the atomic bombs on Japan.
> The story of World War II is often told as a grand narrative, as if it were fought by supermen or decided by fate. Here Kennedy uncovers the real heroes of the war, highlighting for the first time the creative strategies, tactics, and organizational decisions that made the lofty Allied objectives into a successful reality. In an even more significant way, The Turn of the Tide has another claim to our attention, for it restores “the middle level of war” to its rightful place in history.
* https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/91616/engineers-of-...
* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13132847-engineers-of-vi...
Lots of references in case you want to dig into more detail on the particular inventions he goes over.
I was a bit surprised to learn that the Americans were quite reluctant to build Merlin-powered P-51s: they were originally designed with Allison engines, but after a test flight the British decide to shoehorn a Rolls Royce engine into one and the performance went from pretty good to astounding.
This is the first time I have read that Hitler himself was concerned with such a detail. Does anyone have a source for this claim?
But it means, he and nobody else made ... a priority.
It might not be a claim, just simple metonymy.
I guess in the military
What does Google show from Ukraine -
https://www.alamy.com/bugas-village-ukraine-03rd-mar-2022-se...
Looking pretty different here with the USA military too - https://mwi.usma.edu/army-physical-fitness-problem-part-2-to...
I guess HN doesn't have eyes? Does anyone live in the real world?
Even if you have a recent metal jerrycan kinda like those from 80 years ago, cause they are cool, it will be very different if you actually look closely.
No design goes back 80 years. We are not some backwards society that can't move forward.
The first photo I'm not sure exactly what they are - but I'm guessing they're 'norgies' - food containers.
The second photo shows water containers, not fuel cans. They literally say 'water' on the side.
But no one has a photo? How mysterious, I'm still running with Dead Internet Theory.
Jerrycans used to hold water, they had it stamped on the side.
This is a bad idea. Color coding or a more explicit design is much safer.
Here's another photo from 2020 for fuel - https://twitter.com/sceptercan/status/1275507062898860033
Ukraine, well, for sure they use different stuff. The western allies used jerry cans after North Africa, which continued with NATO. Ukraine is, for rather obvious reasons, using Warsaw pact spec gear.
There's a NATO standard for jerry cans and they remain ubiquitous. https://quicksearch.dla.mil/qsDocDetails.aspx?ident_number=2...
VERY much worth it if you use fuel cans often.
This is what I was asking for: whether there is evidence that he himself made a deliberate decision or at least consciously acknowledged it.
Such details can be of importance. When Ernst von Weizsäcker was tried in the last Nuremberg trial, one of the most important pieces of evidence was a document countersigned by him on the deportation of French jews to Auschwitz. Without this evidence it would not have been possible to proof his knowledge. And even in the light of this evidence it was still debatable to what extent personal responsibility arose from this. The presiding judge wanted to acquit v. Weizsäcker, but was overruled by the other two judges.
However the cancellation notice for the military standard that was posted above mandated that all military procurement after June 1994 must be done only with plastic cans.
I have been using a couple of traditional jerry cans for several decades, but I have seen the new military plastic cans only in photos. They must be obviously much lighter, but I have no idea if besides this advantage they have disadvantages when compared with the metal cans that they have replaced.
https://hunsakerusa.com/collections/5-gallon-quikfill-jugs
now, if you illegally modify one by adding a legit breather tube... you can dump 5g in ~10 sec or less. :)
In any case... I do think that, ultimately, the Jerrycan was more useful to the allied forces. The copycat designs were instrumental in the invasion of Europe, which pushed supply logistics far harder than the blitz ever did.
So, the Blitz didn't rely on Jerrycans at all, planes leave from and, if they aren't destroyed, return to your airbases, which have plenty of fuel and refuelling apparatus in place.