BOL Protection

When we were in the sand box we had a neat system of  blast protection that might be useful to know about in case of future emergency's, they were called Hesco Barriers.
Hesco is a brand name, the pallets you see here contain 6 barriers. They are basically a welded wire mesh lined with a filter type fabric which when folded out can be filled with earth. The common size we used were about 3'X3' and 5' tall. we also saw 2'X2' X 4' tall (approx) Interesting note, each of these bundles you see here had a full size LeatherMan tool with pouch inside the bundle to assemble them with.
The Leatherman tools were highly sought after and were often removed before we got to assemble them. I did get one myself only after going through several newly arrived bundles. These Hesco barriers were made in Germany I think and I am sure the Government paid a premium for them. I used to think some times how neat they would be to build a wall around a BOL or any area you wanted to protect with these or homemade ones and plant vines and or shrubs on and around them to hide and beautify them. These you see here would stop any small arms fire you would encounter as well as blast protection and provide a good secure wall especially if thorny type shrubs were planted on them. In the third picture you see them around tents. We would put them around and between tents to minimize damage in mortar attacks, if a round landed in one tent while deadly to those inside the next tent would be protected. They have 4 sides and a bottom, the top is open. They could be made with 2"X4" welded wire mesh available at hardware stores and lined with a filter cloth also available at hardware stores. These we had were attached together with hog rings so you could do the same. These came in a larger size which was about 4'X4' X 6' tall (actually the ones around the tents are this size) as well so you see there is many options as to the size. The are very stable when filled and if they had vegetation planted on them the roots would hold them together indefinitely however after years in the desert sun and heat these seem to hold up very well.

 These last 3 pictures, taken off web.