Weight of Combat Gear Is Taking Toll

[sapperfitz82]

I haven't the time to look/link it.

As for those who feel 85 lbs is an acceptable combat load, I applaud you and say your nuts.

Been both places, can attest that the MOLLE I absolutely will not carry 150 lbs, the frame will break about 30% of the time with just 80 lbs in it.

Old women can't climb the Hindu Kush, I know, I watch the young women fail to do with just an IBA, forget the ruck.

We are over what every study has shown to be the ideal fighting load (about 35-45 lbs) by exactly the weight of the IBA. My last fighting load was 73 lbs. Don't tell me to leave the snivel at home, I have evaced soldiers for hypothermia and burned my C4 to keep others alive. We had no snivel, unless one bivy sack per two men counts, and my emergency approach march load was weighed at 143 when I came back! Extra? Water, batteries, 1 UBL, C4. I drank a quart a day for 11 days and ate a 2 power bars and an MRE every day. I lost over 25 lbs (from 143 lb).

How do I know these weights? Because they had a study group weighing us and all our gear at departure and return. Because the study (in 2003) said we were carrying too much. Because they have only added more to our mandatory kit, and I take a deep and abiding interest in its weight.

10 lbs for every size larger in the IBA. I now wear a small, not a medium. Those of you with a large IBA are carrying 20 lbs more armor than I do. Weight has changed our tactics. We used to walk those mountains, now we drive the valleys.

Those of you who are commanders and have decided that an 80 lbs fighting load is acceptable are part of the problem, plain and simple. It is not. Try some simple tests. Conduct a combat assault course or any O course in full kit (with ammo). Your unit will not meet your expectations. My platoon had a PT average in the 280s and were studs, plain and simple. We did the A course regularly. Full kit broke it off. After we had done 6 months walking in Astan. The loads are simply too much. Since the Hoplites, we have found that the army standard 35-45 lbs is the most weight one can carry and still fight effectively for a long period.

[Schmedlap]

If combat were long periods of intense physical activity such as that engaged in on an obstacle/assault course, punctuated by brief periods of inactivity, then I think that performance on such a course would be a useful metric. But combat is the opposite - long periods of inactivity, punctuated by intensity.

Like most others on the board, I've spent a fair amount of time patrolling, fighting, and doing other random tasks in Iraq, for long periods of time, in ridiculously hot temperatures, in around 85 pounds of gear. It's not ideal, but it's acceptable. There were days where we were involved in some sphincter-puckering situations and we, too, felt like someone had broken it off in us - probably very similar to how folks felt after the assault course. I don't think the determination of the ideal weight has anything to do with whether you feel refreshed immediately following a firefight. I think it has more to do with whether you had the gear you needed and whether you're the guy consolidating and reorganizing on the objective, rather than the guy who's lying motionless on it. Unfortunately, "need" is determined by more than tactical considerations. Dead American Soldiers undermine public support. So long as the load does not get so heavy as to prevent us from prevailing in a firefight, I don't see the weak political will of the American people allowing us to go sans SAPI.

I suspect that my views on the weight of our gear would differ if I were in Afghanistan's steep terrain - perhaps that's a relevant variable - though the reality of public opinion wouldn't change.

Loads of 140 pounds or more - yeah, I'd say that would suck just about anywhere.

One other thought - perhaps it's not the number of pounds, but the percentage of one's body weight that matters. All of our machine gunners were tall guys. Long legs seem to make carrying the gun easier. Taller guys were generally heavier folks. I recall one guy in the unit who weighed about 120 or 130, soaking wet, and there was no talk of making him a machine gunner.

[reed11b]

One other thought - perhaps it's not the number of pounds, but the percentage of one's body weight that matters. All of our machine gunners were tall guys. Long legs seem to make carrying the gun easier. Taller guys were generally heavier folks. I recall one guy in the unit who weighed about 120 or 130, soaking wet, and there was no talk of making him a machine gunner.

What unit was that!! I weighed between 120 and 145 while in service and I was a mortarman or RTO on active and both a 240B and and SAW gunner in the guard. I remember one night patrol when I had both the SAW and the singars and my SL saw an Iraqi out past curfew and yelled for me to chase him. I was like "yeah right" but I did anyway.
Reed

[ODB]

Training!

[Ken White]

Great choice of words...

[ODB]

Do most of these threads keep coming back to that word? How many times will I have to shout it from the top of my lungs until they get it?

Maybe can work with you on the age thing, but rich is non-wavierable

[Ken White]

tends to benefit only a few congressional districts while hardware with multiple sub contractors benefit many. Good trainers are hard to find. Hard to do it well. Too much early attrition to invest too much in it. High 'no-Go' rates don't make the School / TC look good. Lot of reasons -- none good in my opinion but there sure are a bunch of excuses....

Be careful with those lungs; 'bout ruined mine screaming it.

Hang tight, I'm buying Lottery tickets.

[RTK]

Training!

So I see after a week and a half off the net that I haven't missed much.

[RJ]

"What unit was that!! I weighed between 120 and 145 while in service and I was a mortarman or RTO on active and both a 240B and and SAW gunner in the guard. I remember one night patrol when I had both the SAW and the singars and my SL saw an Iraqi out past curfew and yelled for me to chase him. I was like "yeah right" but I did anyway."
Reed 11B

My Marine Battalion (3/5) seemed to lean towards Machine gunners who were short and wiry and strong or short and built like fire plugs. Stocky and strong! i commented on the height issue to a Gunnery Sgt. and he said that the shorter the gunner, the less there is for the enemy to hit.
As good a theory as any, I guess.

I saw a gunner running across a rice paddy dike slip and fall into a freshly manured paddy. As his body arched out, off the dike, he pushed the gun off his shoulders and rotate his body to hit the water on his back. The picture of his wrists and forearms holding the gun out of the water was the most impressive thing I ever saw. We applauded him when his A/Gunner pulled him above the funky water.

Guns Up!

The "MG" in those days was the LMG 30.

[Ken White]

So I see after a week and a half off the net that I haven't missed much.

Hey -- we're consistent.

Hard not to be when confronted with such a massive long standing error.

[ODB]

So I see after a week and a half off the net that I haven't missed much.

But it does cover a lot (might be an understatement) of the issues discussed. I will have to go back an consult my post where I used the thesaurus so I can use different words to say the same thing.

[Schmedlap]

Are we saying that more/proper training...
a) will reduce the need for so much gear because we won't need it to be effective
b) better physically condition Soldiers so that the weight is not an issue
c) both
d) neither

This is one of those occasions where the connection between the problem identified and the solution suggested isn't completely obvious to me.