Mal Drop, I would have been interested to have read your report on attrition and recovery (or lack of)
GA - Yes JATE did some trials with a copter box - Tri wall box long and thin with flaps folded out and held at a angle with bodge tape.
For Kosovo a qty of 26ft ring slots were bought from the US (Irvin Company) for use above 18K ft to get high away from ground fire and not be so affected by the winds teh rate of descent was 65 ft/sec c/w 19 ft/sec for a standard stores chute. Unfortunatly most of these were disposed of unused under RAB to a barn Nr Cirencester. We tried to buy them back when we were short of stuff in the sand pit
VX275 is correct - dropping water has always proved troublesome with an estimated 10% recovery rate. most of the PET bottles burst.
For MREs we used triwall boxes opened by Static line on exit to scatter the contents. (see the thread AA62 mentions about the roller conveyors) for HUMAId in this situation it was felt to be better than keeping the stores in 1 ton lumps and hurting the recipients - foil pouches fell like rain rather than 2000 lb bombs.
The US appear to be using a low cost 1 ton parachute - these cost less than $800 packed. produced in southern California and AZ using shipped in Mexican labour to get around US laws. The ones I saw in the UK videos are designed to be reused and as a result cost a lot more. Do the maths. UK bean counters can't add up! so much for the teachings on whole life costs!
Pleased to hear the girl on the BBC news (the one who often appears on QT) making a commitment to continue dropping.
Keep safe guys.