Soldier Hydration Cycle - Felix of Redbeard Tactical

Article from Felix of Redbeard Tactical. A German Army Veteran, the brain behind ICEFLASK™ and a frequent Qore Performance collaborator. Check out his full bio at the end of the article.

You can thrive for a long time without food, but your performance drops almost immediately when you are out of water. The fact that dehydration can result in casualties really fast elevates it to almost the same level as ammunition. Still, a lot of professional users neglect the importance of hydration, often prioritizing flashy gear over biological sustainment.

This article aims to explain what a soldier hydration cycle looks like, how much water to pack, and the role of water purification. It is essential to understand that hydration is not just about drinking when thirsty; it is about maintaining a fuel system for the human weapon platform.

How much water should you carry on your person? The rule of thumb here is six liters a day for optimal performance. You can go down to five, or even three liters, but especially during hot temperate days, you will see a significant performance drop.

Your water needs to be stored smartly because maneuvering during combat with 6L, 12L, or even 18L of water is not something you want to do. In order to stay agile, we need to disperse water towards your ruck while making sure that all our water sources carried on your person are filled. Smart utilization of your assets and knowing their strengths and weaknesses is of utter importance here.

The canteen is a timeless classic, even if it is an often frowned-upon piece of kit because its bulk may result in a combat load that does not look like the "slick" and "low-profile" loadouts popular on social media. Still, if you are out in the field for a longer time, a canteen is almost mandatory. It is not a “Direct Action” item, but it is a “patrol item” for sure because canteens cannot fail, are easily swapped, and are effortless to refill.

Whenever you can, you drink from the canteen that is mounted to your rack, belt, or plate carrier. For the sake of mobility, we highly recommend carrying 1L at max per container. Using 500ml bottles or a Qore Performance ICEFLASK™ results in a lower profile and usually does away with all the concerns people have about canteens.

As said, this is your first line of hydration. When you can access your canteen, drink from it. Clever canteen placement happens in a way that allows you to easily access it while it is not in the way. You are primarily a shooter and not a “hydrator,” so the real challenge is to place the canteen in an unobtrusive way that encourages drinking.

Originally coming from the world of action sports, hands-free hydration solutions are here to stay in the military world. They can be mounted out of the way, and clever hydration routing allows you to either quickly grab your hose or move your head towards the hydration valve. The advantage here is that you are encouraged and enabled to drink, no matter if you fight, run, drive, or focus on other activities.

The downside of hands-free hydration systems is that they are more prone to failure. We are not talking about a removed-from-reality contingency here; bladders pop on a regular basis. Even more rugged products like ICEPLATES® or CBRN bladders can have issues with their valves, and furthermore, they are harder to swap or refill in the field than canteens are.

This results in a two-part protocol: You always want at least one more reliable option like a canteen within hand's reach. You don’t want to immediately find your most convenient hydration option empty in an urgent situation because you drank out of it too early. Therefore, you always prioritize your canteen and use your hands-free system when no other option is valid or your canteen is empty.

Once you do a longer stop, the first thing you do is swap your canteen for a fresh one out of your ruck or vehicle. After that, you make sure that your hands-free hydration system is filled and working. If you carry other water storage methods like water bags or PET bottles, make sure to refill all empty canteens and bladders from them first.

Water contingencies are usually a planning issue. Water purification and searching for water sources should never be a part of your mission statement unless the patrol is so prolonged and away from your supply lines that you cannot carry your water anymore. The best way to solve water contingencies is to not have them; make sure you have supply link-up points (SPs, CRPs) planned and strict Limits of Advance (LOAs) set.

If all of that fails, you actually have to source water. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need super complex filtration systems; those are only to be considered on a larger scale (platoon or above). If you carry water purification tabs and a small straw filter, like a LifeStraw, you can drink from any source not contaminated by radiation or hard chemicals.

When you purify water, you first establish a Patrol Base (PB), seek a water source, and then use a waterproof stuff sack to collect enough water for the patrol. Start purification when back in the PB and disperse your water among the squad. Your last line of defense is emergency water packed in small 100ml bags, used only to keep you alive during evasion.

Hydration requires you to plan! The best hardware is useless if you lack the software. Software in the context of hydration can be described as training, procedures, planning, and routines. If you notice that you ran out of water during training, something went wrong here. As always, thanks for your attention.

About the author: Felix is a German Army Veteran with extensive knowledge on tactics, crisis analysis, kit considerations and overall preparedness. He is the mind behind ICEFLASK™, a frequent Qore Performance collaborator, the creator behind the popular Redbeard Tactical Blog on Instagram, Patreon, and YouTube, and the author of 'Infantry in Combat' and the 'Redbeard Tactical - Fieldcraft Book'.

You can check out more from Redbeard Tactical via their Patreon, here.