Why is this

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>>35041123
Im not entirely sure they are carrying more weight. I heard once that individually everything gets lighter so they carry more shit over all.

Im sure someone will know more.

>what are trucks and helicopters

>>35041123
we've been carrying the same amount of shit since Roman times

>>35041156
Yeah, all that happens is individual gear pieces get lighter and people just carry more gear.

Also these stupid comparisons are always pitting modern light infantry doing dismounted ruck patrols, or a modern infantryman with carrying a unique piece of gear against an old time soldier who is only carrying his gear for combat formations and not any of his camp gear.

Not to say that modern troops aren't overloaded IMO, but it's more that they should be lighter than past troops not carrying as much weight as them.

>>35041123
lmao no, gear has gotten smaller and more lightweight, so you can carry more. Carrying more takes up more space. This has the illusion of being heavy when it is actually not. Also, 100% of patrols are not ruck patrols. Plus humping a ruck sucks, most people who live in an area with 0 elevation aren't used to it and it shows, plus fucks who don't know how to properly wear a pack make it look like torture when they've got all the weight on their shoulders.

>>35041123
Compare the casualty rate of WW2, Vietnam, and Afghanistan and then you tell me why it is the way it is.

>>35041196
>>35041231
>>35041277
This is actually untrue. The pre modern (non mechanized) solider had walk everywhere with everything on his back. This means that, overall, your kit was actually far lighter than a full kit of the modern solider.

With the advent of total mechanized forces, this allows the modern solider to carry far heavier loads due to the exponentially shorter time they are actually carrying it. Thus, the modern solider is far more combat effective than the pre modern solider.

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>>35041123

>>35041349
You say "crow magnum man", don't you?

>>35041659
Unfortunately the autism of this site has turned me autistic. God forbid I don't make things clear to the nth degree.

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>>35041659

any excuse to post this picture

>>35041349
pre mechanized forces had donkey, mule, horse, ox, etc pulling carts with most of their stuff.

at most they carried their fighting load and a day or two of bivouac supply.

>>35041349
How have you not heard of a baggage train?

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>>35041324
Are you seriously comparing a conflict like WW2 with a conflict like Afghanistan?
Am I going to have to tell you how the weight our men carried wasn't the biggest difference between those two wars?
Am I going to have to say how quelling an insurrection is different between total war between equally powerful global powers?

>>35041123
Bullshit. Watch the video of the modern fireman, the infantryman in full kit, and the dude in medieval full plate running an obstacle course. The modern infantryman wins, followed by the fireman, but interestingly: when they weigh out each participant, and their gear, the percentage is roughly the same. Seems like a healthy adult male can reasonably carry about 35% of their body weight. Any army that didn't take full advantage of this fact - even if they didn't KNOW this fact as an equation - wasn't using their army's full potential.

>>35041156
>I heard once that individually everything gets lighter so they carry more shit over all.
This is it. I don't have hard numbers or sources but I've heard that the average combat loadout for a soldier has always been about 80kg.

It's just that when your weapon is a 30kg polearm and 40kgs of armor, you don't strap a lot of shit to yourself. Then in revolutionary war kinda times, you have a 10kg rifle, but every soldier was issued their own mess kit and rations that they carried, and the ammo was heavy.

Now that you have a 4kg rifle and use .223 in it, you can carry 50kg of batteries for your 5-10-ish kg of various electronics and have a 13g space age material sleeping gear set and meals that are self-heating.

>>35041349
even in medieval times, you had squires, which were basically just roadies. that, on top of your horse and probably a literal pack mule or two.

>>35043382
>>35043376
Also interestingly medieval plate armor isn't that heavy. At least, it's not much heavier than modern armor.

The main difference is that medieval armor won't stop a whole lot but modern armor does, but you're not some ponderous tank of a man in full plate, you have basically the same mobility a modern guy in modern mallninja junk.

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>>35043382
>30kg polearm
>10kg rifle
>50kg of batteries

>>35041123
>No Marine for the First World War

>>35041349
historians generally estimate Roman packs to be about 50 lbs. Vegetius said Romans marched with 43 lbs (60 Roman lbs).

They did march far as fuck with them though

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>>35041194
why does the weight carried by individuals increase then

>>35041629
Kek'd

>>35043396
A good, personally fitted suit of plate actually has a greater range of motion than the human body does. Armorers would test the fit by having people do handstands and somersaults while armored. The weight of the suit is rigid and distributed over the whole body, so it doesn't feel heavy at all until you're trying to break momentum.

>>35043169
Just want you to know that I got a huge kick out of this

It's like an Egyptian God but better

>>35044587
That's just the pack. A Roman legionnaire might be carrying a pick, shovel or other tool plus he's still carrying two pilum, a shield and his helmet. For 100 miles.

>>35041123
reduction in huge baggage trains following every army

>>35045193
25 kg pack 10 kg shield, 2kg helmet, and 10 kg of weapons and tools probably. 47 kg is a lot of weight to march with. anyone got numbers ob what marines carry?

overall infantry weight as a percentage of body weight has stayed relatively the same for the past 2500 years. What has changed is footwear. You wouldn't last ten feet in a legionnaire's sandals with a 100 pound ruck.

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>>35045193
This. The Marian Reforms calculated the maximum load an average legionnaire could carry without injuring him, then designed the gear to get as close to that figure as possible.

You can be sure that even if every single serviceman is issued an advanced robotic exoskeleton weight distribution system, they're still going to load it up enough that it's still the maximum safe weight.

>>35045260
>overall infantry weight as a percentage of body weight has stayed relatively the same for the past 2500 years.

This.

There's basically 3 kinds of loads a grunt is required to hump: 1. fighting load 2. marching load 3. Expedient load.

The fighting load is what he is expected to fight with, and that's the only thing that's changed over the years, as modern body armor with plates is new to the conventional force, and was only used by SOF during direction raids, and not patrolling.

Everything else is pretty much the same. The march load has hovered around 70 pounds, and the expedient load is what it is, like casualty evac, but for shorter periods of time.

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How much gear/weight would soldiers in the British Army carry on average during the Revolutionary War? Likewise for soldiers in the Continental Army?

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>>35043382
Do you know what a kilogram (kg) is?

>>35041123
I think the reason why Civil War-era soldiers carried less is that they were typically fighting closer to supply lines since they didn't have to account for the logistics of overseas operations. I'm sure the National Guard's loadout is way lighter at home than the equivalent grunt stuck in Afghanistan.

>>35041629
An accurate reaction from a marine.

>>35043382

You are fucking retarded.

>>35043382
>the average combat loadout for a soldier has always been about 80kg.
They carry over 175 pounds into combat? I never realized soldiers were a race of super humans separate from regular people.

>>35041123
Shittier wars, Shittier Logistics, Shittier Rucks.

Can't just put men through a meat grinder anymore, ya need PB's, COP's, FOB's, and not many Logi Runs going over IED's.

>>35045171
>It's like an Egyptian God but better
An angel of the Cube.

One of the main factors here is ammunition and the like. Soldiers near the first introduction of firearms could get past with a pouch, and the soldiers of the first self contained ammo could get past with just a bandoleer, but soldiers now have to carry pouches of ammo so they have enough in a fight.

>>35041123
standing up straight makes you a more inviting target

Ammo, armor, electronics and batteries. Stuff that infantry in past times carried in more limited quantities.

>>35045978
Civil war era soldiers were further from supply lines than grunts in Afghanistan is.

Remember, once supplies went off the train they moved by horse-drawn carts.

>>35041123

See >>35041194 also more equipment means more roles each individual solider can fulfill. A communications set allows him to relay critical battle information to his superiors, who will be able to immediately use it in real time while allowing the solider to request or give assistance to others as necessary. More food/water rations increase their ability to survive in the field, and more ammo means they can kill more enemies. Things like plantable explosives or rocket launchers increase their destructive capability, allowing them to deny strategic assets (bridges, buildings, etc) to the enemy or engage a wider variety of vehicles (tanks, helicopters, planes, etc).

Domestically, it applies to police officers too. Bodycams allow PD chiefs to monitor a situation in real time, improving their ability to stop criminals. Drones allow individual police officers to easily track fleeing suspects, which combined with a radio allows them to coordinate traps. Likewise shotguns allow for less-lethal ammo and carbines allow for long-range engagements.

It's a matter of utility.

>>35046801

Additionally, in the past things like radios or airborne reconnaissance vehicles had to be carried by a boot and operated by a specific technician. Now, thanks to miniaturization of many technologies, an individual solider can just take their own radio or rc plane with them. Tech got better so soldiers got to carry more things that aren't just guns, ammo, water and food.

What I can say for sure as a Marine is that being the RO or really the bearer if any specialist equipment (such as crew serveds, IED jammers) fucking sucks balls. Carry this 17 lbs radio, associated SL-3 and enough 3 lbs batteries to sustain us on this 3 day op (6-8 in total) oh by the way the Lt/XO/CO wants you to take this COM-201B too to support the COC ontop of all your regular bullshit, water chow warming layers. Last field op I went to, I was the RO for a FARP and while I didn't have to walk far I was so loaded down with Comm gear I didn't have any room for my own shit so I spent the whole night wrapped in my tarp shivering in what was effectively a fucking bog because I didn't have any warming layers or a sleeping system

>>35045938
its a unit of mass

what do you think it is you dumb fuck

>>35046498
i meant like "in theatre tromping around with the faint possibility of getting shot at/engaged by the vanguard loadout", not "let's arrest one guy in one house loadout"

>>35045242
Bout a hundred ilbs if your not a poor weapons guy

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>>35043499
>He never had to carry 5 car batteries for his COs personal AC unit

>>35047175
honest to god i did that the other day except it was only one car battery but literally four tanks of oxygen, several small bags of lead pellets and sand, a giant first aid kit in a pelican case, an ammo box full of underwater flares, a box of normal distress stuff, and a box of timbits

the CO was totally there though and two of the tanks and four of the bags of sand were his

>>35041123
>Big pharma gives kickbacks to USMC upper command to require grunts to carry more gear
>Grunts carry more gear, fuck up their joints
>Big pharma makes dem government bux from selling various medications to vets

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help a nigga out

You guys are forgetting to mention that the soldiers nowadays are a lot less expendable than those in previous wars. It was simply expected for casualty rates to be higher in the civil war than Vietnam, for example, the top brass planned around it, therefore the civil war soldier was issued with less stuff than the vietnam soldier. The modern combatant carries around a whole bunch of stuff like IFAKs and plate armor designed to keep them alive that commanders in the past didn't give a shit about.

>>35047183
>and a box of timbits
Whoa. We have a badass over here. Fuck off noguns eurofaggot

>>35047183
>>35047175
>complaining about being able to have car ac in relation to people who had to fucking walk because...whats a fucking car, let alone ac

every generation behind, if they could, would of had that shit because its amazing

>>35047218
>therefore the civil war soldier was issued with less stuff than the vietnam soldier.
but this is wrong, they were issued about the same amount of stuff as a modern person, except with the high tech shit cut out because it literally didnt exist yet

they even were all issued food rations and cooking equipment each instead of having cooks for platoons and the like, even though the structure of those armies was more in tune with having a base cook and then marching out rather than individual soldiers being responsible for their own meat and water

>The modern combatant carries around a whole bunch of stuff like IFAKs and plate armor designed to keep them alive that commanders in the past didn't give a shit about.
revolutionary war/pre-ww1 era soldiers carried around bandages and the like and only didnt wear armor because plate armor was obsolete and there wasnt an equivalent developed yet

they only didnt have advanced first aid kits because medicine was so primitive and still relied so much on immediate surgical intervention

>>35047239
not to mention early armies fueled and supplied themselves by...stealing, robbing and raiding. modern soldier could pack a lot less if they were just going to rob it all

>>35047252
Not exactly a reliable method as almost every army in the history of man has found. An army marches on it's stomach which is why Napoleon was paying top dollar for some one to invent a ration that would spoil. Hell, Napoleon himself almost got merc'd several times because his arm was out foraging for food when the enemy came knocking.

>>35047234
i was kidding in >>35047183 but my point was that i had to at some point carry that shit down the street by hand because i had to help the divers play around

>>35047252
> early armies fueled and supplied themselves by...stealing, robbing and raiding.
not really; a lot of premodern wars were won or lost based on supply chains and pillaging is demonstrably unsustainable (see: China, where China won, instead of the various bands of nomadic bandits)

>>35047252
t. underage mall ninja

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>>35047263
not saying it was a main stay, but some of a supply. of course, between two factions, if one has a supply line AND loots, and one just loots, ones got a real advantage

>>35047269

>>35047217
Correlation does not imply causation. Insurgency fighting is absolutely incomparable to a total war. I'll give you a hint, modern guerrilla warfare was invented during the Napoleonic Wars. Compare the fatality rate of the French army fighting the insurgencies in Spain to the fatality rate of the Grand Armé invading Russia, which happened at the very same time and using the exact same equipment.

For that matter, the fatality rate in WW2 was much higher than in the American Civil War.

>>35047278
>not saying it was a main stay, but some of a supply.
yeah but youre literally incorrect and theres in fact many accounts of the opposite; a hungry army trying to loot a village for food and materiel, and finding that its not nearly enough for them.

>>35047234
Anon, do you have brain problems?

>>35047293
>i DONT want ac or a car, which is also armor, a fast way out of a dangerous zone and full of medical supplies
>id rather eat hardtack and die of disease in some mud

yeah i guess

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>>35043169
check this

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>>35047315
oh holy fuck