Miserable conditions are something that many British soldiers accept as an occupational hazard. Whether it is being cold and wet on exercise in Wales or hot to the point of collapse in the Middle East, troops have grown accustomed to operating in a variety of conditions for generations.

However, the work of one British Army Major could mean that soldiers deployed to hot climates in future have the burden that comes with long periods in high temperatures drastically lowered. Major Peter MacKenzie, 42, from Glasgow, was deployed to Iraq in 2018 on Operation SHADER, tasked with conducting a review of a US air bases perimeter when he became concerned at the blistering temperatures of guardtowers, known as sangars, in which soldiers were being forced to operate in. Maj MacKenzie told the Daily Express: “Soldiers spent the bulk of their tour operating in these sangars where the air temperature can get to about 48C outside and significantly hotter inside.

“You add in body armour, helmet, sleeves rolled down etc and this becomes unbearable.”

Despite decades of campaigns in hot climates, from North Africa in the Second World War to Iraq and Afghanistan, Maj MacKenzie was concerned that soldiers were still being forced to guard from underneath metal roofs.

He said: “The roof gets really hot, with a temperature of around 70C and you then have this 10m squared of hot metal just above your head when the air temperature is already 48C. You are literally sitting beneath a radiator.”

Temperatures at that level are not only uncomfortable but dangerous, with a higher risk of climatic injuries, reduced ability to scan for threats and commanders forced to draw on a larger pool of manpower to ensure continual rotations.

Throughout his deployment, Maj MacKenzie tested ways of improving conditions and lowering temperatures, resorting to wading through skips to find camouflage nets, pallets and tauropaulin to add shade, a measure which managed to reduce the surface temperature by half.

The experience ignited something within Maj MacKenzie, a Royal Engineers officer by trade, who on his return earned sponsorship through Defence Research Support and Experimentation to continue his research and study for a masters degree.

He added: “Sangars need to be open by design so air conditioning is not an option, which forced me to look at passive cooling which is essentially all the things we used to do before air conditioning.

“People have lived in hot climates since the dawn of time and we have been able to survive effectively through the incorporation of lots of design principles such as orientation of  buildings, shading, the use of high roofs, things painted white, there are thousands of things that people have used to keep themselves cool.

“Through that research we came up with a solution to the sangar problem and this reduced the radiation by 97% and increased the airflow by 40%.”

The solution saw panels added to catch and distribute wind and the development of a reflective heat shield, which is fitted beneath a roof with an air gap, a solution that is cheap to produce, deployable and able to be retrofitted.

The research saw Maj MacKenzie deploy back to Iraq for six months in a bid to further test and iterate his ideas to not only improve the experience of soldiers in sangars but make operational infrastructure more resilient in warm climates more generally. 

Maj MacKenzie explains how many buildings across the British Army’s global estate are designed in a way that prevents soldiers thriving. 

He estimates that the measures are able to reduce the radiation within buildings from the equivalent of 25 heat lamps similar to those used in outdoor seating areas within them to just one, making buildings and sangars cooler than the outside temperature without the need for air conditioning. 

The research could have life-saving consequences. Maj MacKenzie estimates that 70% of costs on operations come from fuel, some of which is used to cool buildings and operating bases. 

Reducing the amount of fuel required on operations in contested theatres reduces the number of force protection missions required to transport and thus reduces the risk soldiers are exposed to.

Maj MacKenzie continued: “If we can make conditions better for soldiers then we should. 

“It also makes us more resilient meaning we can work in hotter places for longer, we reduce the logistics required to keep our bases and equipment running and we also save money, fuel is expensive, as is transporting it.”