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This thread is more about how to set up gear. The concepts behind what sort of items are carried, where they are placed, and how they are organized. It is less about the brand or the camo pattern, or other little details. Those kinds of distinctions are more suited to /GQ/. For the purposes of this thread, a mag pouch is a mag pouch, the details of it don't matter so much.
Before starting, it has to be clarified what the perspective of this thread is and the goal of the gear setup. Being that the perspective and goal of gear can massively change what is being attempted, it must be stated first off in order to prevent confusion. This thread is written as a basic kind of guideline for a primarily dismounted soldier. That means the goal is to equip for combat and battlefield conditions, and to do so openly (as opposed to civilian clothing/Greymanbuzzword for example). The thread is more oriented towards dismounted. Military personnel may immediately recognize a lack of certain equipment they often carry (such as night vision and full sized radios) in the example photos I'm posting. I will post some ideas of how to organize this equipment, but of course feel free to experiment and find the right equipment balance.
There are many schools of thought and concepts behind organizing equipment. It should already be implied that the following thread is simply my opinion and not objective fact. But I'll state it just to head off the 'tards.
Anons who are not military but interested are of course encouraged to read ahead.
(back to my computer and sweet, sweet /k/ earlier than I expected. Yay.)
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>>31623891
I am a big believer in modular and scalable loadouts. This is to say gear that can be worn a little bit at a time compared to something like a large, full size harness like a SMERSH or ALICE where you are either wearing everything or nothing. I find those kits to be too binary and inflexible. Sometimes you want/need some gear, but don't want to carry all your sustainment supplies as well- and that is the problem posed when all your gear is in a single piece of connected kit.
I like what is often refereed to as a firstline or subload. I don't like buzzwords and just call it a belt. Your belt is what is worn pretty much all the time. That means just walking around base or interacting with locals or whatever it is you may be up to. War isn't constantly being geared up and under fire and you won't be wearing full kit 24/7. Your belt is essentially your warzone Every-Day-Carry. What you want on a belt is basic defense, basic medical, and basic tools- all while keeping it light. The weight and bulk issue is important, since it is very tempting to continually load the belt up, but you should resist that urge in order to make it easier to wear around everywhere.
If you have a handgun, that should go on the belt. This is your first line (hey!) of self defense. Along with this handgun, you should put any mags you have on the belt as well. I am a big believer in putting handgun ammunition with whatever is carrying the holster. It just makes sense. If you have the holster, you have the ammo. Again though 1-2 mags in pouches is plenty, loading up on the arfcom standard of 36 mags is just overkill.
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>>31623895
A medical kit is another good choice to put on the belt. First, it ensures that you are able to provide self or first responder aid no matter what, 24/7. Secondly, first aid kits tend to be very bulky, yet relatively light which makes moving them to a belt sensible. Moving them off of a vest or chest rig frees up that space for other items. A medical kit on the 4-5 o'clock of the belt is an ok position, so long as the medical kit is tear away or has a insert which can be pulled out. Some people will argue to put a medical kit "where both hands can reach", but I've found that the left hand can easily twist the belt and bring the medical kit to accessibility. Also, tourniquets are about the most time sensitive piece of battlefield medical kit, and it will be discussed later that those should be placed in multiple places, not just the kit. As a side note, while tourniquets have gotten all the attention, occlusive dressings should be as common and accessible in a kit.
For hand tools, a decent multitool is a given. Possibly adding a flashlight, depending on how often it is used may be a good idea.
Add on to the belt a dump pouch and possibly a rifle mag to ensure that a rifle is usable no matter what, should you pick up an unloaded one in an emergency. I wouldn't carry a lot of rifle mags though, as those will quickly weigh down the belt, and rifle mag combat loads should be extensively covered by chest rigs or chest pouches.
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>>31623904
Beyond the belt, you are looking at preparing a full combat kit. This kit will be chest mounted.
Now, there are valid arguments either way to have the chest mounted equipment on a chest rig, chest panel, or directly attached to body armor. I prefer a separate chest rig for the sake of modularity. About the only downside is that donning armor and a full combat load takes a bit longer, but that is not a downside that tends to come up in practical situations. In any case, the exact attachment method is not terribly important, as the layout can be quite similar for each method.
The chest mounted kit is the primary combat/rifle kit. This should be a space reserved for combat items. Definitely make an effort to reduce clutter. The primary piece of equipment for chest gear is rifle magazines. Placing them across the chest makes them accessible. If rifle mags are single stacked, then going prone and performing various crawls is still quite doable even in a plate carrier. Rifle mags should ideally not be double stacked on the front, but this concession must sometimes be made to accommodate certain extra equipment, or in order to carry extra ammo when expecting to expend large amounts. For this reason you may want to experiment with using double mag pouches on the front, even if you normally only put a single mag in each.
I would not stack anything beyond double rifle mags, and make the effort to avoid that when possible.
Beyond rifle mags, I would carry basic navigation equipment. This can take the form of a mini GPS, compass, or both. Navigation is important, and even knowing basic directions is good for call outs. If you have money, you may additionally want to invest in a durable watch which also includes a compass as another means of navigation.
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>>31623915
A flashlight is a good idea to have, if it is not already included in the belt. Having a light is important, even in the age of NODs. Preferably, it should filter between red and white light, but even a pure white light is useful in certain situations.
While some may consider it a non-essential, I carry a small weapons cleaning kit in a chestrig gear. This ensures that my rifle is able to be maintained out of my field combat gear. Anything that can be done within reason to extend how long my equipment is usable without external resupply or maintenance is a positive.
A TQ and/or a secondary, smaller medical kit on the chest with quick access is not a bad idea if it doesn't interfere with rifle mag pulls.
A medium sized knife used for utility and digging may be of use in a vest, so long as it does not interfere with any other items.
Beyond this, a radio or NOD may be attached to the vest, though I have come to prefer putting NODs in a hardpouch in a small daypack rather than mounting them on the vest.
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>>31623922
The daypack provides hydration. In addition it also serves as a place to store small, wanted but not immediate use items. Some prefer hydration daypacks built into chestrigs or armor, but I do not because those are more difficult to wear when having to carry a ruck. Instead a separately strapped hydration daypack serves it's use and can be piggybakced onto a ruck quickly and easily.
In addition to hydration, a daypack can carry a small amount of mission essential personal equipment. Generally for a "one day mission, oh it might go overnight" this should include a small stripped ration, a change of socks in a ziplock, stuffsack, or similar waterproofing, a change of batteries for any electronics (wrapped in electrical tape to protect them), electrical tape, 550 cord, and a signal or strobe. In addition cold or wet weather clothing may be packed or rolled and externally strapped to the daypack if conditions call for it. There are other minor items which you may find yourself wanting, but can not justify putting into a belt or chest rig.
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>>31623927
Headgear. If wearing a helmet it should have good suspension to make sure it is a solid night vision mounting platform. Additionally, the mounting base should not wobble. If not using a triangular mount, make sure to use a strap or improvise with 550 cord or bungies to prevent any wobble in the mount.
I am not a fan of hanging lights off the sides of helmets, as those have a tendency to get caught up in straps or slings at the worst times. Instead I prefer mounting a lowly, non-tactical headlamp to a helmet to provide red/white light for situations where light is wanted.
If not wearing a helmet, wear whatever headgerar is suitable for local conditions. Make your own choice, I'm not your supervisor.
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Lastly, equipment carried in clothing should not be forgotten. Primarily this should be a water proof notebook, water proof mini-maps, and pens/pencils. Admin planning and information gathering is important.
Aside from that, putting ready to use tourniquets in quick access in shoulder pockets or ankle pockets is a good idea. More tourniquets is always better. In an emergency you never want to be too far from help.
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This has been an autistic thread/writeup thi
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>>31623895
Holy fuck let me stop you right there, you fucking autist. Nobody walks around with a battle belt with all of that shit on all day. I'm fucking embedded with SF and ALL of their shit sits in their racks until it's time to do work.
Interacting with the locals? If you're outside the wire you are in full fucking kit the whole time unless in a mission supply position.
Nobody carries mags on their belts, they carry a holster with their Glock or Beretta in it and that's fucking it.
I haven't even seen a single CAG person do the shit you're describing
tl;dr these are alluded autistic opinions and this thread is already fucked.
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>>31623943
Training local nationals, working with and around them.
Keeping the belt light is a primary concern, which is why a mag or two max was in the writeup. A belt with what is listed can be so light weight as to barely be noticeable.
In any case, this is an opinion thread based on preferences and experiences. If you would like to share about how CAG does things, that's what this is for.
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The thread by the child with his parents credit card.
you nvr cervix
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lol holyshit so much wrong here.
>buy a portable gps. no mention of local maps that have roads.
You know what roads are right? LDA's you know what that means?
pss pssssss pssssssssssss Scroll the road.
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>>31624043
There was both a mention of GPS as well as paper maps.
I'm not sure what scrolling the road has to do with reading a map, since scrolling isn't much about navigation, but physically crossing it.
If there is so much wrong, this thread is here for you to post a better way.
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>>31624063
I can't type out fifteen years of combat MOS experience for you lil guy.
Water proof mini-maps... dot dot.
How small is this water proof mini-map? Is it a single grid square? Is it to scale? Should you just have your town mini-map? How about county and outlying counties?
Do you see where i am going with this?
You don't seem to know what you are talking about to begin with... Just saying, just saying....
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This is my setup for work. In the admin pouch is normal admin stuff and a Garmin foretrex 401.
Provisions for 8 mags.
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>>31624238
Are you Op?
MOS?
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>>31624393
11b
But:
>National guard.
So judge for yourself I guess. Not claiming to be particularly operator
We're deploying soon though, to a combat area
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>>31624418
Former 11b. You mind if I make some critiques to your set up? Unit TTP's I understand if it is per your setup.
Also rank?
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>>31624593
Go ahead dude. I'm an E4 AG on weapons squad. I've been in for 4 years now
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>>31624593 me
As all ways "opinions are like..".
Give a shot of running your mag pouches on non-dominant firing side, easier to reload in the prone. Place canteen pouches as close to hips for weight distribution. Looks as if your running your belt through the front, set up like a rack so canteen placement would be on your sides. Fuck it camelbak ftw. Place your admin pouch lower and to the left, grenade pouches where it is or on the left side, side by side one another.
AG in WPN SQD, thinking 240 here. If your carrying your gunners rounds in a assault pack you can place 100 rnd belt rolled in the canteen pouch and keep it on your rack to hand off to him quicker than dropping your pack and unloading them. Can also place one or two on the outside of pack for the same reason.
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>>31624781
Most of this shit is common sense, but it's all figured out with training. I use a single mag pouch on the left side of my kit, double stack mag pouches on the front. Canteen pouch on the right side with my PVS14's or PSQ20's. Far left is my IFAK with a TQ webbed onto it, TQ on the right side next to my canteen pouch. Tempted to get a battle belt so I can drop the IFAK from my kit and put a drop pouch on it. But really that's for ease of training, I have no issue indexing mags but I hate laying on the fucking double stacked mags.
Not sure why he's rocking a FLC, tho he is nasty girl and that shit's tarded. Especially as an 11B. Deploying to a "combat zone" Let me be the first tell you that there will not be any fucking combat, lol. The best opportunity at that is the infantry dudes gearing up for Mosul in Iraq right now.
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>>31624848
Fair enough man. It is the 5th patrol principle, as you pointed out he is NG.
Just get a dump pouch that attaches to your belt and thigh man. Some have molle on the sides.
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>>31624882
I don't put anything on my thigh. You should see how pissed I get at NTC when we carry a fucking retarded pro mask on us. I meant to clarify that I want to put the dump pouch on the belt.
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>>31624109
>I can't type out fifteen years of combat MOS experience for you lil guy.
I'm somewhat disappointed at the unfettered anger in a thread designed to talk about typing out lessons learned from experience.
>Water proof mini-maps... dot dot.
>How small is this water proof mini-map? Is it a single grid square? Is it to scale? Should you just have your town mini-map? How about county and outlying counties?
This is more detail oriented than I wanted to get into, but a standard 1:50000 map which has been cut down the nearest relevant area for operation, which may be 20x20 or 50x50, or whichsize you prefer of squares. In addition an enlarged map of the most relevant local areas on something as simple as an 8.5x11 paper in a waterproof sheet is valuable when looking at local landmarks or attempting to coordinate in the immediate area.
>Do you see where i am going with this?
I wanted to start vague in terms of details of the gear in order to have the small nuances filled out by the end user and prevent getting bogged down in low level rather than overview.
>You don't seem to know what you are talking about to begin with... Just saying, just saying....
Your many ellipsis make that opinion clear. If you would like to provide positive corrections, that is what this thread is here for.
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>>31624238
Horrible.
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>>31624781
1/502? First Fucking Strike. What company? You actively with the 101?
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>>31624109
Not OP, but I'm having a really hard time telling if you're attempting to make a ruise or if the phrase "METTC dependent" or "shooter's choice" never met your ears in "15 years of combat MOS experience"
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>>31624238
Nasty girls...kek.
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keep this thread alive for me, anons, I have to do real life bullshit for a bit but look forward to putting in some solid posts if this can avoid 404ing for a few hours.
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>>31625656
You don't know shit, fagit.
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>>31625561
A co son. Out since 13' miss it everyday.
Ban me now mods.
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>>31625608
Kys
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>>31625520
You could all ways use a gallon zip lock bag wrapped in 100mph tape instead of laminating everything.
I'm done here. 5 O deuce bro your cool.
And it is spelled "ruse" faggot .
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Me personally when I was a joe Rifleman I had a simple Chest rig that sat high on my chest as most people did in my unit. When I moved up to the 249 I went back to the FLC to better disperse the weight of my UBL. After that I became the PLT RTO and we deployed and I stayed in that position until we redeployed. This is when I really started to take my lines of gear into consideration and my style of set up became a bit different. I used a Mystery Ranch 3 day Assault pack to carry my radio and batteries, SKL, Spare antenna, Hand set, PLT camera and what ever food and water I could fit maybe. For the longer trips out I would find room for a poncho liner and a few pairs of socks. On one air assault I emptied my assault pack to stuff it in my ruck so that way I could just have one pack for the flight and then drop the ruck at the Patrol base and use my assault pack from then on. Big fucking mistake, our plan was like always to discharge what ever batteries we had left over from resupply then demo them with all the other supplies we had piled up we couldn't take out. the CO decided we were walking every thing out. 21 5590 batteries, 2 ASIPS a change of clothes, SKL and 200rds of 7.62 most painful ruck of my life. Never again did I bring a pack with more room for anything.
1/???
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>>31626032
Jesus fuck, man. That picture is why we need MULE.
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For the person who said sub belt for around the fob, I'm gonna hit the pause button and say fuck that. When I'm going to the chow hall or the porta shitter to beat my dick I'm not putting on a sub belt.
Once I got back I got a team and my focus became leading so my kit became more focused on stupid shit that the TACSOP said TL's had to carry, my sub belt was replaced with a 40MM belt. Me personally this is when I got fed the fuck up with chest rigs and went to an Eagle H Harness and haven't turned back. I have plenty of room for all the stupid shit I have to have as a leader and can disperse my load evenly.
>>31626051
Yeah I fucked up bringing a ruck, If I had just brought that ruck I'm sure the "lets just exploded all the discharged batteries, because we have no room for them" bit would have flown over better.
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>>31623891
sounds a lot like something hossUSMC did a video on a while about.
I personally like the idea.
Tier 1 is always on, even inside the wire, tier 2 is for short stuff or if you need to move so quickly you drop your ruck, tier 3 is what keeps you alive and comfy in the field
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVNyJ7ntbfk
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>>31625854
Fuck yes. Hardrock. You deploy to Astan?
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>>31627229
The idea of having a belt and scaled system for gear is not something I can claim to have invented. Not surprised similar is youtubed.
The goal of making a thread where and what and how gear is attached is to get people thinking about gear as a whole. Making choices based on a kind of logic rather than piling gear on. One of the problems new soldiers and GQs have is to often pile gear hapzardly without thinking about why they put it a certain place.
To respond to the earlier poster using a name who talked about a belt with some gear on it being "too much" consider that many soldiers already carry flashlights and multitools on themselves, and already must carry a weapon. By placing that on a belt it becomes easy to have available. The only extras atop that are really a medical kit, which is something I consider as important as a self defense weapon. It should always be on-hand, especially in the kinds of places where there is no counter-IDF system or where pop fire into the base is a real possibility. Even on larger bases, a suicide vehicle or suicide kamikazi attack is not entirely fanciful.
Beyond the medical kit, a dump pouch really isn't much of an issue since it weighs almost nothing and rolls up to almost nothing.
All of this also feeds into making kit more streamlined when the full combat kit is worn. By taking pistol mags and large medical off the chest, more space is freed up to allow less piled clutter.
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>>31627968
The idea of having an organized system of pulling rifle magazines starting from the weak side and moving across the strong side is something I do agree with, and think most people agree with.
If using a full size radio, I think that placing it on the chestrig on the strong side, off the very fron't of the chest makes the most sense, so long as the antenna connection doesn't hit the arm. Having a remote antenna, or flexible antenna routed through the chest rig or armor prevents the antenna from too unwieldy.
These are I remind again, merely personal opinions and having more thoughtful posts on gear layout and organization are welcome and encouraged.
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Neat.
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