Equipment list

[Fuchs]

So now you know where the Germans got it wrong.

Patrol focus versus Stotrupp focus. Guess who won.
Answer.

[Distiller]

That's a topic with a strong cultural angle. Look at Soviet infantry during WW2, or the Viet Cong. Handful of semitchki or rice, kanteen-like thing, gun (or not) with a little bit of ammo. No way any Western troops would run around like that.


Let's try it, graded VITAL > USEFUL > NICE TO HAVE:

(1) -- Stay warm, stay dry, stay fed and watered, stay healthy, on a level that allows you to maintain operational effectiveness.

(2a) -- Basic Personal Field Tools (knife, spade, multitool, canteen - whatever needed to assists in achieving (1), can vary widely with ops environ)

(2b) -- Basic Personal Medkit (generally oriented towards covering small lesions as they happen every day to keep them from getting sore, but also a wound closure kit to stop a bleeding long enough till a medic arrives)

(2c) -- Smartphone. Not as absurd as it sounds. Even when not used as a com device it still is very useful.

(3) -- Optional special mobility equiment (e.g. skis, or snow shoes, or mountaineering equipment)

(4) -- Weapon. Can be all kind of things. Maybe better called "Offensive Mission Equipment". Can be a laser designator, can be a barrel and extra ammo for the machine gun. Can be a rugged notebook with some EW or cyber magic. Not limited to an assault carbine.

(5) -- Optional mission equipment: Navigation + Communication (as far as not provided by smartphone), Night Vision Equipment, NBC Equipment

(6) -- Optional special load carrying equipment (e.g. a hiking trailer)

(10) -- Optional armor

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Distiller

That's a topic with a strong cultural angle. Look at Soviet infantry during WW2, or the Viet Cong. Handful of semitchki or rice, kanteen-like thing, gun (or not) with a little bit of ammo. No way any Western troops would run around like that.

Of course we could and we have; just not in recent years. You have to put it in context, if we were fighting in the U.S. against an occupying power we would become the guerrilla army and be able to live off the land the goodwill (or coerced will) of the people to support us.

Don't confuse today's industrial Army with what we could be, Americans are as hard as any other nationality when they need to be.

We go heavy today due to risk adverse leaders and the mindset that if it is available we ought to carry it with us because you never know. In a different scenario the risk adverse leaders would be privates and we wouldn't have the kit to carry with us even we wanted to.