PSP Stress Tests
Posted: Mon May 09, 2005 7:06 am
Sorry for a little bit of fun spam in the middle of such a wonderful series of accomplishments, but here it is:
I just spent about 7 days in the field (I'm an infantryman in the US Army) at Ft Riley, KS, doing the things that infantrymen do. I (of course) took my PSP with me, wearing it like my favorite piece of equipment (which of course, it was). We did battle drills, field problems, crew drills, etc. I'm a Bradley gunner, but we also train with the dismounts. My PSP has thus far survived the following:
3 Indirect Fire drills;
~20 Direct Fire drills;
2 separate, accidental falls, one from about 4 feet, another about 11 feet (I was up in the turret playing and it slipped, hit the armored hull, then fell another 7 or so feet to gravel);
2 "Day Fire" gunnery ranges;
2 "Night Fire" gunnery ranges;
~5 solid days of high winds containing MASSIVE amounts of dust (you really have no idea how bad it gets at Ft Riley until you've been there), followed almost immediately by;
~48 hours of solid rain in a protective case (the nylon type that carries accessories and about 8 UMDs) -- HIGH humidity;
1 MILES-enabled (i.e. laser-tag) battle that lasted approximately 4 or so hours.
1 Low Crawl through grass, dirt, dust and bugs (for those of you with military backgrounds, no, I won't go into how I was made to low crawl);
--
Result: No noticeable damage whatsoever. My hands took far, far more damage than my trusty PSP. Then again, hands eventually quit bleeding and heal themselves. Apparently the little bastard can withstand quite a bit more than most reviewers have claimed simply by looking at it (didn't we all think it was quite fragile at first, though?).
I follow this with an open call to those of you who might have conducted a few unofficial stress-tests to post the conditions, standards and results.
I just spent about 7 days in the field (I'm an infantryman in the US Army) at Ft Riley, KS, doing the things that infantrymen do. I (of course) took my PSP with me, wearing it like my favorite piece of equipment (which of course, it was). We did battle drills, field problems, crew drills, etc. I'm a Bradley gunner, but we also train with the dismounts. My PSP has thus far survived the following:
3 Indirect Fire drills;
~20 Direct Fire drills;
2 separate, accidental falls, one from about 4 feet, another about 11 feet (I was up in the turret playing and it slipped, hit the armored hull, then fell another 7 or so feet to gravel);
2 "Day Fire" gunnery ranges;
2 "Night Fire" gunnery ranges;
~5 solid days of high winds containing MASSIVE amounts of dust (you really have no idea how bad it gets at Ft Riley until you've been there), followed almost immediately by;
~48 hours of solid rain in a protective case (the nylon type that carries accessories and about 8 UMDs) -- HIGH humidity;
1 MILES-enabled (i.e. laser-tag) battle that lasted approximately 4 or so hours.
1 Low Crawl through grass, dirt, dust and bugs (for those of you with military backgrounds, no, I won't go into how I was made to low crawl);
--
Result: No noticeable damage whatsoever. My hands took far, far more damage than my trusty PSP. Then again, hands eventually quit bleeding and heal themselves. Apparently the little bastard can withstand quite a bit more than most reviewers have claimed simply by looking at it (didn't we all think it was quite fragile at first, though?).
I follow this with an open call to those of you who might have conducted a few unofficial stress-tests to post the conditions, standards and results.