Within STRILAB, the 1st Infantry Brigade, IB 1,war incubator, Julius Lind has built RES (Rapid Evacuation Sling), a lightweight harness built into body armour designed to make it faster and less strenuous to drag a wounded comrade to safety. In tests, the time for two soldiers to pull someone to cover was nearly halved.
RES, or "the sling", is one of the projects at STRILAB, which NDS visited during a field exercise this spring. Behind it is Julius Lind, who studies mechanical engineering at Lund University (southern Sweden) and is a part-time soldier at IB 1. He did his military service at the Göta Engineer Regiment (Ing 2) and subsequently served at the Älvsborg Amphibious Regiment (Amf 4) in Gothenburg (western Sweden).
In Lund, he ended up in the same class as Fabian Duke, one of the founders of STRILAB, and applied for the summer's five-week programme. His group focused on physical products and was given two tracks to choose between: a countermeasure against drones, or something to boost the soldier's combat effectiveness. Julius wanted to work on something close to the individual soldier. The idea for the sling emerged during a conversation with Duke about dragging casualties, in which they agreed there ought to be some kind of harness, something you could simply clip onto someone.
"It planted a seed, and I couldn't stop thinking about it," says Julius Lind.
He began interviewing combat medics and asking around at various medical training schools.
"That's when I realised this could actually be a real problem that needs solving, rather than just us soldiers thinking dragging casualties is a hassle."
The starting point is weight. A soldier can carry up to 120 kilograms of equipment, and dragging someone across terrain is extremely demanding, especially with branches and other obstacles increasing friction.
"You either can't manage to pull on your own, or you're completely exhausted once you have, and it takes too long," says Julius Lind.
Today, the casualty is dragged by the shoulder straps of the body armour, or by the uniform, which is both strenuous and slow.
The sling consists of two straps attached to the shoulder straps of the body armour, concealed at the back of the neck. The idea is that it is fitted once and then forgotten about, ready to be used when needed. When pulled, it deploys into a loop that can be used to drag the casualty, worn like a backpack, or threaded through the arms or legs. If threaded through the legs, two soldiers can lift the entire body, for example into a vehicle. The goal, says Julius Lind, is to shorten the time to reach cover and preserve the soldiers' combat effectiveness.
"So that they are still combat capable after dragging their wounded comrade back."
For one week, the project had access to a test platoon, where soldiers dragged each other over short distances with and without the sling. The results were clear, says Julius Lind: the time to get someone to cover decreased markedly, and for two people it was nearly halved. The soldiers also rated their own combat effectiveness as clearly higher with the sling. The longer the distance, the greater the benefit: the time saved increases with distance, while the stamina of the person doing the dragging otherwise declines quickly.
Thanks to access to the test platoon, iterations moved quickly. They tested prototypes on Monday, sewed new ones on Tuesday and tested again the following day. The feedback was often that the soldiers wanted the sling longer, and that there should be several loops so users could choose their own length.
Julius Lind had no prior experience working with textiles, aside from "sewing duty during national service". The programme's first week was a course in product development and entrepreneurship, and the main lesson he takes from it is to be his own harshest critic.
"It's very easy to fall in love with what you've created, it becomes like your own baby," he says. "But if someone says they won't use it, then they won't use it, and they're the ones who are supposed to have the product."
One idea he had to abandon was a modular stretcher that could be assembled in the field.
"After some criticism I realised it wouldn't be feasible to implement, and that the answer to whether it would work better than what we already have was probably no."
The group continues working on its products part-time. For the sling, manufacturing has been decided: it will be outsourced to an external manufacturer rather than sewn in-house. The next step is to produce prototypes to be tested this autumn with a platoon and at the Guards Regiment's medical training school, and by spring the aim is for an entire company to carry and test it.
"And somewhere along the way create a demand from within, where people see it and think: this is something my platoon needs," says Julius Lind.
What takes the most time now is not the product itself, but the path into the organisation, he says.
"The hard part isn't building something that works, it's the step after that. We can show that the sling shortens the time to reach cover, but there's no obvious path from a working prototype to something a unit can actually order. Who the buyer is, and who owns the budget line, is still an open question. That's the question we're spending most of our time on right now."
He estimates the price per unit at between 300 and 500 Swedish kronor, including materials, production and labour. Keeping it low is a priority in itself.
"Medical care isn't very glamorous, at least not in a training environment. My ambition is more medical capability at as little burden to the soldier as possible," he says.
Julius and the group have already collaborated with Snigel and received donated fabrics. The group has discussed but not yet formed a company, and the intention is to run it themselves as far as possible. Lind has not applied for a patent, since the design may look different in six months' time, but he considers it a possibility going forward.
One goal is to get the sling out where it can be genuinely tested.
"We were asked about that a few times. Someone even came up and asked how many he could get right away, but at that point we only had one prototype," says Julius Lind. "Once we have prototypes ready, we're discussing how many we can afford to donate to Ukraine in order to get real feedback from there."