Original Item: Only One Available. The fundamental unit of shelter for the U.S. Army/Marine Corps in the field -- since the Civil War -- is the two-man pup tent. Each pup tent is made up of two shelter half pieces that fasten together with a row of buttons (up to late World War II) or snaps along the ridge line and, with poles, ropes and stakes, make up one pup tent. The buttons are matched to a row of button holes. The snaps are two sided. With either system, any pair of shelter half pieces can be fastened together with a watertight closure along the top line. The shelter half is approximately 7' long by 5' wide, double sided, rectangular panel with a pointed end on each side. Two Marines could button the sections together in order to make a tent. The colors are vibrant with minor staining to the fabric. There are a few scattered repaired holes and typical pulls but overall condition is very good with almost all the grommets and buttons intact. Original label still attached and reads:

SHELTER HALF
Contract NOM - 46469
POWERS & CO. 1944

Forming a roll around the field pack this shelter half was an essential part of a Marine's field equipment!

A shelter-half is a simple kind of partial tent designed to provide temporary shelter and concealment when combined with one or more sections. Two sheets of canvas or a similar material (the halves) are fastened together with snaps, straps or buttons to form a larger surface. The shelter-half is then erected using poles, ropes, pegs, and whatever tools are on hand, forming an inverted V structure. Small tents like these are often called pup tents in American English.

Shelter halves are a mainstay of most armies, and are known from the mid 19th century. Often, each soldier carries one shelter-half and half the poles, etc., and they pair off to erect a two-man tent. The size and shape of each half shelter piece may vary from army to army, but are typically rectangular, triangular or lozenge shaped. When time and space allow, some forms of half-shelters can be combined into a larger, more complex tent.

Shelter-halves are usually designed to serve double duty as ponchos against the rain, or for the concealment of snipers. While the fabric is often simple olive drab, several nations use camouflage fabric. The first printed camouflage for soldiers was the Italian Telo mimetico introduced in 1929 for their half-shelters. The first camouflage uniforms were the Second World War German paratrooper smock, based on their M1931 Splittermuster shelter-halves. Russian Army has used Plasch-palatkas (literally "cape-tents", designed to be used as both a part of a larger tent cover, or an individual weatherproof cape) since 1894, and the modern version, virtually unchanged since, was introduced in 1936, with the camo version being available since 1942. To add some confusion, the ordinary waterproofed cape with a similar name (plasch-nakidka, "cape-overcoat") was issued at the same time, but these weren't intended to combine with each other.