to kind of counter what has been said previously, I am a firm believer in shaping my body around my gear, not my gear around my body. If 8 mags is too heavy for me to carry, then that is the weak point I need to work on, aka I need to hit the gym. Never compromise on your gear because “its too heavy”… There person that is going to win the gun fight is the person with the will and ammo to do so… plain and simple. I use a MARCIRAS with full level 4 SAPI plates front rear and sides. I have a hot mag pouch on the front that holds 4 M4 mags and 4 Beretta mags in a ready position, I then have a triple mag pouch on the strong side that holds 6 mags, and 1 double mag pouch on the weak side with other misc pouches for med kits, HEED bottle, gps, and various survival equip. I keep it in my trunk with my weapon, ready to go. It’s heavy as 2 tons of pig shit… and when I train, I train with it… and that gives me the confidence to know that at the end of the day, that sweat and grief will pay off.
Carrying 8 mags is too much? How about carrying an m249 + a-barrel, SAPI plates and 4-5 drums with 800-1000 rounds of ammo. Like others have said, suck it up and hit the gym. I wonder how many people saying 8 mags is too much or is too heavy are already carrying too much weight on their ankles.
If person cant handle all the weight of carrying 8 mags, with 240 rounds on a chest rig then stick to airsoft or something. Thats where mags/drums go, on the front, unless you think someones going to take them out from a pouch thats on your back (so the weight can be distributed evenly if you dont have a flak with SAPIs :rolleyes:). Whether or not you have a flak jacket with SAPIs, or a drop leg magazine pouch, or stuff 8 magazines in your damn pockets…ISHTF then a person better be able to carry at least 8 mags on them and perform. But a chest rig for classes or anything else is a different story.
I try to stay on topic in this forum as much as humanly possible. Mainly because I hate it when people go way off on tangents and are talking about crazy stuff. I think that this is off topic but is still applicable.
Why is it that everyone is so FU@#ing concerned about weight? All I see is people talking about their gear, their rifles weigh this and I just cut 6 ounces from my rifle. Really? If most people were that concerned with their own weight rather than the weight of their gear they would be better off. (No, I am not calling everyone fat. So don’t get all but-hurt. If it is true then yes I am.)
Is this the new fad of the day or is there a legitimate tactical reason for this? I have always been more concerned about function and comfort then weight of my gear and rifle. I will add a few pounds on my gear if it works better for me. If it is well organized and laid out in an efficient manner then it is easier to carry heavy loads then a light load in a jacked up manner. If you use the US Palm AK mags you can cut a lot of weight and they do not have all of the crazy edges that the metal AK mags have.
If someone can answer the question about this new fad on weight I would really like to know.
It is a new fad, and dudes who gauge performance via shot-timers run around with a massive chubby over every fucking ounce. Doc, it makes “target-to-target transitions” .000002 seconds faster. :rolleyes:
I carry approximately 35-40 pounds daily, on-foot, through rough terrain. The day I bitch over a rifle’s barrel weight, or carrying extra mags, is the day I need to pack it up.
True but the guy carrying that load has the rest of his platoon to back him up too, kinda funny how people tendto forget about that important peice of info. I keep 8 mags in my truck bag plus one in the riffle cuz I have no idea what kind of situation I could get into…course the objective is to avoid it.
Weight is certainly not a “new” fad. Soldiers have been bitching about and coping with weight for millenia. Weight is a tradeoff, one pound more of this is one pound less of that you can carry. Ever hear about LRRPs in Vietnam cutting the handles off of their toothbrushes? They didn’t do it because it was a trend in dental hygiene.
By all means, carry the max of useful stuff that you can. But determining WHAT mix of useful stuff is an ongoing and personal process.
That is not what I meant. I have spent plenty of time in Light/ABN INF. I know about “cutting the Fat”. I have left my “fart sack” at home and just took the Woobie so that I could carry enough food and water even though I knew it was going to be very cold. I get that. I was not cutting weight; I was keeping the SAME weight. I have even taken out MREs so that I could take extra stuff in my Aid Bag. I was taking the stuff I needed more to do the mission. It is not like I was leaving half of my mags back so I did not have to carry them. That is what this discussion is about. Cutting stuff out just to cut weight.
No doubt, I may end up with a deputy who isnt prepared for what hes rolling up on, or I could be waiting a very long time for that assistance.
As far as small unit operations obviously loadouts differ. A forward recon teams load is going to be way heavier than a snatch or da team. The guys doing the later know exactly what they are getting into, the previous not so much.
I say prepare for the worse hope for the best and pack a lunch cuzyou never know how long it will last.
This is my post in the other thread. If you are .mil and going out on a mission then you can obv decide what you want or need to carry outside of the minimum. I will keep loaded mags in my MRAP and assault pack but on my person I will try not carry more than 7 M4 plus 3 M9. If the situation on the ground come next year dictates more then so be it.
I guess this is a breakoff from the chest rig thread?
Lots of things are “fads”. Not ten years ago SUVs were a “fad” with every dumbshit suburbanite buying one to tote around… groceries I guess? Soccer moms with Expeditions, and the like. But that doesn’t mean that some folks didn’t have a legitimate need, or use, for the extra load-carrying capability of a larger vehicle.
The weight issue is an old one. Is it betting more press lately? Sure. This is due largely, I think, to more people getting training and realizing that the 1987 LBV they have that holds 8 rifle mags, a pair of canteens, and 6 pistol mags is not only ridiculously heavy, but that they never get more than 2-3 mags deep in the rig anyway.
If we’re talking “combat loads” and whatnot then that’s something else. I’ve never done it, and if someone or their chain of command thinks they need 8 mags then that’s their business. But on the civilian side of things I’ve watched way too many people show up to an event thinking their EOTWAWKI rig is the way to go only to find that it sucks, weight typically being only one way in which it sucks.
Regardless of application (and I think my needle is stuck here) a person can carry X amount of weight for Y amount of time. Increase X, decrease Y. Decrease X, increase Y. Everyone is going to have a different X and Y, but you’re not going to escape that formula. Using Product A when product B that weighs half as much performs equally in every way is just stupid, or some jocko-homo testosterone-deficiency problem.
All that said, if a person, regardless of lane, has determined their required load, determined that they can operate with said load for the necessary amount of time without issue, or has increased their strength and/or stamina to deal with the required load, then motor on. But, and again I’m talking about the civilian side here, that is usually not the case. Instead what you typically have is a person with zero experience asking about 6-8 mag chest rigs because that’s what they saw on the internut and because “that’s what the Soldiers use” without any inkling of how much weight that is or whether or not that even fits in their situation.
Coming from the .mil side of the house, I can say that my gear load-out has changed over the years not only with improvements in the gear itself but also with me changing jobs, I had one setup for when I was a light infantry scout, another as a combat MP, and I’m currently working out the bugs for my set up as an FO.
The way I look at it, I figure out what gear I actually need, ammo, electronics, optics, so on and so forth, then figure out the layout of where everything will be on my person, and how much it weighs. If that weight is more than what I can comfortably carry over the course of a mission then I’ll exercise more and make it so I am physically capable of dealing with the weight. Being vehicle bound or on foot matters a lot as well and is something to take into consideration.
In doing some mental masturbation, as I don’t particularly care for the majority of the gear issued to me, I don’t mind purchasing stuff that does the job better when I have the funds available, I started figuring out what gear I want to help do my job as an FO learning from my past experiences.
I like Tactical Tailor gear a lot, however I don’t like how the MAV moves around so this time I’ll be going with the MAP, a little less real estate, but more secure yet able to remove it from the plate carrier fast. Shingle mag pouches over the traditional 3 mag pouches as they are faster to remove the mags and less likely to lose other mags in the process. Pistol holster on the side instead of the chest as it is a more natural draw and keeps the pistol out of the dirt when going to the prone.
Additionally, as luck would have it, I had been trying to figure out a solid way of having water, comms, and ancillary equipment and came across the post about the ARES pack, I’m thinking that should be a great solution for what I need, beats directly mounting everything to the back of the PC or having a big bulky backpack.
Weight vs Mobility/Utility is more or less a constant battle. You’ll always being working the pros and cons. Could I run around with a super light chest rig, 3 mags, and a camelbak? Sure, I’d just have to deal with not having any armor, IFAK, and basically be in danger of running dry after the first reload. On the flip side you can’t really operate effectively with every inch armored, 30 40mm grenades, and 12mags across your chest.
My philosophy is cut weight in food and sometimes water, never in ammo. If kit X weighs 3lbs more than kit Y but is absolutely bombproof well, tough I’m going to be carrying X because its great to be light until it tears apart.
My thoughts are pretty much in line with Rob’s. In my opinion the gear/loadout chosen will differ greatly between mil/leo and civilian…as it should since the circumstances are different.
From a civilian side, obviously the mission does drive the gear, but I don’t see the need to have 8+ loaded mags on your person.
Consider these hypothetical situations: The shtf, and I am flying solo, and I have to get home from work (city to suburbs), or “rescue” a family member on the other side of town, or do a short patrol in my neighborhood, ect. (I’m not talking about “bugging out” here btw…just short “missions”)
In either of these types of situations, my loadout will be lighter for the benefit of being faster. Not because “I am not man enough to deal with the weight”, but because I don’t have the luxury of a fireteam laying down suppressive/cover fire and watching my back. When flying solo, or heck even in a two man team, it is best to E&E and only fight if necessary…sorry Rambo is only for the movies…
The loadout that I am talking about here (for me) is about 35 lbs:
Plate carrier with plates (obviously…still deciding on side plates tho…) with 3 M4 mags on front
Belt system with 2 M4 mags and 2 handgun mags, med pouch, and holster with sidearm
Small pack with food, water, basic survival supplies, poncho, few extra med supplies, and (maybe) a couple extra mags for primary and secondary
Can I carry more? Sure…but the tradeoff is less speed.
Can I carry less? Of course…but then I’d be sacrificing another part of the system…
Its all about tradeoff, balance, and choosing the right gear for the mission.
I haven’t officially setup my plate carrier because I don’t have one yet. I need to get on the ball and get it done. But whatever I have on me now in addition to the future APC is what I’ll have regardless of the situation.
I’m in LE like many others and we don’t have the option of spec’ing our gear to whatever call or “mission”. There’s really no time. It’s grab and go. Our call gets sent to our mobile PC and 99% of the time it’s limited information. The most we can do is pull over, don the gear and get rolling.
While I’m no pussy I don’t want to have to lug around more than I have to to get the job done or hold the bad guys off until reinforcements arrive (ie SWAT or other officers). I already have 25+ pounds worth of crap on. Add a metric shit ton more to that with the APC and mags. I’m not MIL so I don’t need everything on me. I need to be able to move, run, jump… Heaven forbid I realistically need more than a mag or two. Hell if I finish off a mag the shit really hit the fan.
I can understand that a LEO you will more than likely never need more than 3-4 mags (unless you were in North Hollywood, we know how well that worked out). The thing that gets me is that people set their “kit” up for classes. What are these classes for? The ones that I have gone to are to teach you how to shoot in a gun fight. The more I read the more I see people set up their kits for class instead of for what the class is teaching. It is flawed logic. The M4 is for war; be it Afghanistan, Iraq, or home town USA that is it. If you are going to “train” with it than you might think about training like you fight. “I don’t need any more than 3 mags for the class”, if that is what you are thinking then you do not need the class and do not need to have an M4. Go play Airsoft, the mags are much lighter.
I am a firm believer that a weapon is useless unless you have extra ammo. That being said I have kits for every weapon I own. When you start to get rid of stuff because you want to “lighten up” or think” I will never need that”, you are setting yourself up for Failure. Everyone who posts after this answer these questions:
[b]Do you carry an IFAK of any type and a TQ on your kit that you train with?
Have you ever used it on yourself? If not ditch it, save the weight……….it is the same thing.[/b]
The reason that most want a CIV M4, of some type is so they are prepared. That is also why many go to classes; to become better prepared. So what are you preparing for? The correct answer is anything. So pack you kit up so that you are REALLY PREPAIRED. Most of this mind set is coming from all of these shooting course instructors. I understand why they do it. They get a bunch of people in there and they can’t carry more than 3 mags. This takes away from the instruction. I understand that. They then put out not to carry so much so they do not have to waste valuable training time (again what are you training for) on people that need to move or remove gear so that they don’t fall out. So when big named people say stuff like this the masses thing that this is the newest TTP (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures) and blindly follow it to the letter. The next time someone quotes one of these instructors and yourself this; how much did I pay for that class and why did I pay that guy and not any of the other ones? They have to come up with new stuff because it is a business and they need to stand out to stay in business. Now don’t get me wrong, some of these guys are teaching some great skills, yes I said some. Keep that in mind when you hear this stuff.
Remember that if you are trying to be prepared, then be prepared.
In addition to more and more on the civilian end actually getting out and training and realizing that their tactical coffee mug attachment up front may not be the most practical addition; on the military end we’ve always been saddled with 100lb of feathers type bullcrap where needless stuff is often carried with little justification of why.
I go out airsofting deliberately with way too much crap to get used to excess weight and limited mobility, and go out of my way to use heavy stuff there, and then also use that as testing for my lighter stuff I use with firearms.
My justification for wanting to use lighter stuff isn’t just to reduce overall load, but more so understanding that there is a finite limit of crap I can efficiently carry and be able to travel with on foot, and I want to have the most capability with me without detracting from my ability to operate the two or three things I really need to when I’m out (run a rifle, run a pistol, operate a radio). It’s not really a fad, and while I know I can hump 120lb a few miles and still be reasonably effective, or run 60lb for a week and keep up, if I can use half that and not lose any real capability, I’m absolutely going to do that as long as the mission permits.